And those people forget how quickly NuBSG fell apart.
Why do Star Trek fans hate Voyager? - Link
- Thread starter Praxius
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And those people forget how quickly NuBSG fell apart.
I agree with most of your sentiment but this one stood out. VOY aspired for more, and then ended up doing less.
I can honestly say, having been on 5 or 6 Star Trek forums, or subforums on science fiction boards, that this board was the first place I have run in to regarding Janeway's gender as an issue for why the show failed in fans eyes.
Same here.
I disagree with the concept of there being 'franchise fans' who get to represent fans in general. I actually think Voyager lived up to great Star Trek. That's all one can ask. I'm also entirely relieved that the non-fans didn't get the show they wanted because to be honest it would've ruined it for those who appreciated what it was. There's a kind of depressing 'feel' some of the criticisms aims for that would've changed the whole tone.
As for Janeway being female, it does impact reaction. Least some I've encountered. Didn't for everyone but most of it reduces to comments equating Janeway as not being 'stable' or being 'Insaneway' etc.
I genuinely didn't follow the first part of this. What are "franchise fans" and why do I think they represent fans in general? I'll never presume to speak for "the audience" of any kind. Also, "non fans?" I consider myself a Trek fan as long as I can remember and can appreciate some elements regarding VOY but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been more
I think VOY is OK as a follow up to TNG. However, my struggle has always been (and I'm now working on a rewatch) that VOY started out as one thing, and basically shifted to another. That's my frustration. Again, no nuBSG crap. Just a little more serialized storytelling, more of stuff like Paris becoming more a family man, the EMH becoming more aware, etc. Things that matter. That's all.
It can't be that hard!
Oh it was another poster you responded to in agreement that used the term 'franchise fans in general' sorry, I thought you comments were from awareness of thatI genuinely didn't follow the first part of this. What are "franchise fans" and why do I think they represent fans in general? I'll never presume to speak for "the audience" of any kind. Also, "non fans?" I consider myself a Trek fan as long as I can remember and can appreciate some elements regarding VOY but that doesn't mean it couldn't have been more
I think VOY is OK as a follow up to TNG. However, my struggle has always been (and I'm now working on a rewatch) that VOY started out as one thing, and basically shifted to another. That's my frustration. Again, no nuBSG crap. Just a little more serialized storytelling, more of stuff like Paris becoming more a family man, the EMH becoming more aware, etc. Things that matter. That's all.
It can't be that hard!
I love Voyager but nothing is perfect and a few tweaks here and there don't mean it was bad, just that it could maybe be a little better.
Having said that I would not change the premise. Exploring space was what TOS was all about and only Voyager truly encapsulated that idea. Enterprise tinkered with it in the Xindi wars but only for a brief time.
Sure maybe some episodes could be expanded upon, (Year of Hell, The Void) and cover more episodes, maybe it could have included more of the cast, particularly at the end. But there are a lot of shows out there that don't make it past their first season, let alone seven. In the.Star Trek universe alone, TOS and Entetprise did not. To me that speaks volumns about the show and the fans who love it from the day Caretaker aired to the last episode.
I also think that any show 17 years after it went off the air, that still generates this much interest (both on the internet, in repeats shown on Netfix, merchandise and conventions,) did something very right. Hopefully it will still be a topic of discussion many years from now.
Having said that I would not change the premise. Exploring space was what TOS was all about and only Voyager truly encapsulated that idea. Enterprise tinkered with it in the Xindi wars but only for a brief time.
Sure maybe some episodes could be expanded upon, (Year of Hell, The Void) and cover more episodes, maybe it could have included more of the cast, particularly at the end. But there are a lot of shows out there that don't make it past their first season, let alone seven. In the.Star Trek universe alone, TOS and Entetprise did not. To me that speaks volumns about the show and the fans who love it from the day Caretaker aired to the last episode.
I also think that any show 17 years after it went off the air, that still generates this much interest (both on the internet, in repeats shown on Netfix, merchandise and conventions,) did something very right. Hopefully it will still be a topic of discussion many years from now.
I missed the comment, so still don't know what that means.Oh it was another poster you responded to in agreement that used the term 'franchise fans in general' sorry, I thought you comments were from awareness of that
And, since I've never tailored my interests towards audiences or fans, I generally don't care. I like Abrams Trek, find Burnham interesting, can't stand Han Solo, prefer R5 over R2, find Attack of the Clones to be a decent film, can't stand Game of Thrones.
In general, I go my own way, my own special way
I wonder if they will ever reboot Voyager?? Oh boy
Of all the series I think Voyager is the only one that could be. TOS has already undergone one. Next Gen has so many movies out it would be hard. DS9 pretty much wrapped everything up in a pretty little bow. I'm not sure Enterprise was loved enough. Voyager is apparently the most watched of all the series on Netflix. Since the studios are all about the almighty dollar I could see it.
Would I want them to...that's a whole nother story. Its tricky getting a crew with the kind of chemistry this one had. I'm not sure it would work without that.
What I find with reboots in general is that with existing characters you sometimes get actors/actresses become parodies or copies of the original actor or actress. There's a fine line between recreating a character and recreating another performer in that character. Yet when a totally different look is affected, there's the other problem of changing things! It's hard not to invest a liking in what you know and being loyal to that, but there is potential in Voyager to exploit its journey and storytelling anew.
I'm not sure you could reboot it from the beginning. Too easy to make comparisons to the actors and characters who came before. TOS worked because they changed one thing and then went 15 plus years into the future to sent the entire story in a different direction. We also never saw the crew initially meet each other. No canon to mess up. With Voyager that's hard without changing the entire premise.and you have the canon from TOS, Next Gen. and DS9 to consider.
Maybe you could reset Endgame (time cops come to mind) and continue the journey. I have to think on it.
Of course, silly me being locked into what we saw but repeated. Post Endgame (but with them not getting home perhaps or at least somehow staying together for another reason) would possibly also satisfy those who wished there had been some post-Voyager timeline.
Maybe we could reboot it somewhere closer to the beginning. Deadlock had two ships. Maybe there were three. One destroyed, one we followed, another goes in a different direction. I don't know. I feel like I'm stuck in a temporal anomoly. Lol
What do you mean? The premise that was lasted seven seasons.
Apologies up front for the long post...
I don't think I could ever really hate Voyager, and I think the shows biggest problem, in terms of attracting and retaining viewers, is when it was more than what it was.
TNG set the pattern for the next 15 - 20 years of Star Trek. "They" (Berman & co.) tried to do something different for Trek with DS9, and were seeing ratings decline. I think its possible their natural reaction was to return to TNG to the extent possible. It's possible that the criticisms of DS9 by the fans who weren't happy with it pushed them in that direction. You can't literally bring back TNG without killing the movie franchise, but you can return to the formula, which is evidently what they tried to do with Voyager.
That sort of thinking seemed to have permeated the entire production staff - that Star Trek was a strict formula you could stretch slightly but you really couldn't deviate much from. Almost like the Corn Flakes of Sci Fi - something that's been around for 100 years, and will be around for another 100 - with different packaging and advertising, but the stuff in the box - the core of the product - doesn't change.
That really hamstrung the series in many ways. If you're telling essentially the same stories, you only need a paragraph of a character to know whose voice goes in which role. You start to rely on what you start to consider the "hallmarks" of the formula (a.k.a. too much technobabble). You recycle the same stories with only slight tweaks (and end up with diatribes from actors like Robert Beltran, who think such things are beneath him). You tightly control how actors play their parts (like Garrett Wang saying the humans had to be unemotional). The formula trumps reality. (aka infinite shuttlecraft, clean ship every week. You could assume that TNG went to a starbase between episodes. You can't do that with Voyager's premise.)
I'm sure there's an element of gender bias, conscious or unconscious, that drove some number of fans out, but I would like to think of that as a VERY small piece of the audience tune-out.
Star Trek didn't change. We the audience did, and Star Trek as a franchise was too afraid of losing more viewers by giving us something other than our weekly Corn Flakes. That's why Voyager couldn't stop the ratings slide, and Enterprise continued it.
If we could rewind time, and Voyager were played in place of TNG - would it have reached similar heights of popularity? Impossible to say, but I tend to think so.
Voyager wasn't a bad show. I can understand that lots of people would hate the package that left "that" taste in their mouths even if that actual product was the same.
I don't think I could ever really hate Voyager, and I think the shows biggest problem, in terms of attracting and retaining viewers, is when it was more than what it was.
TNG set the pattern for the next 15 - 20 years of Star Trek. "They" (Berman & co.) tried to do something different for Trek with DS9, and were seeing ratings decline. I think its possible their natural reaction was to return to TNG to the extent possible. It's possible that the criticisms of DS9 by the fans who weren't happy with it pushed them in that direction. You can't literally bring back TNG without killing the movie franchise, but you can return to the formula, which is evidently what they tried to do with Voyager.
That sort of thinking seemed to have permeated the entire production staff - that Star Trek was a strict formula you could stretch slightly but you really couldn't deviate much from. Almost like the Corn Flakes of Sci Fi - something that's been around for 100 years, and will be around for another 100 - with different packaging and advertising, but the stuff in the box - the core of the product - doesn't change.
That really hamstrung the series in many ways. If you're telling essentially the same stories, you only need a paragraph of a character to know whose voice goes in which role. You start to rely on what you start to consider the "hallmarks" of the formula (a.k.a. too much technobabble). You recycle the same stories with only slight tweaks (and end up with diatribes from actors like Robert Beltran, who think such things are beneath him). You tightly control how actors play their parts (like Garrett Wang saying the humans had to be unemotional). The formula trumps reality. (aka infinite shuttlecraft, clean ship every week. You could assume that TNG went to a starbase between episodes. You can't do that with Voyager's premise.)
I'm sure there's an element of gender bias, conscious or unconscious, that drove some number of fans out, but I would like to think of that as a VERY small piece of the audience tune-out.
Star Trek didn't change. We the audience did, and Star Trek as a franchise was too afraid of losing more viewers by giving us something other than our weekly Corn Flakes. That's why Voyager couldn't stop the ratings slide, and Enterprise continued it.
If we could rewind time, and Voyager were played in place of TNG - would it have reached similar heights of popularity? Impossible to say, but I tend to think so.
Voyager wasn't a bad show. I can understand that lots of people would hate the package that left "that" taste in their mouths even if that actual product was the same.
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Actually I think you make Beltran's point for him. The show was afraid to take too great a risk even though the potential was there to truly go where no trek show had gone before and thereby give all the actors some meat to their roles. Instead we got dessert, with lots of frosting. They limited themselves to the star trek box, unwilling to look beyond it.
Interestingly Discovery is trying to do that now and some fans are kicking up a fuss about it...and it's not the 90's anymore either. Tjmo though.
Interestingly Discovery is trying to do that now and some fans are kicking up a fuss about it...and it's not the 90's anymore either. Tjmo though.
As far as Beltran is concerned, my problem is not the shortcomings he outlined but how he responded to it. If he was so unhappy with the product, he should have brought them up internally, and quit the show if he was unsatisfied with any change(s) they made to address them (if any at all).
Instead, he publicly mocked the show at nearly every opportunity and was happy to sit there and collect a paycheck. All he ends up doing is his level best to speed the decline.
As for Discovery, I haven't seen the show. I do want Trek to succeed, but I refuse to get some online subscription to view it. I don't doubt however that there are fans who are screaming that it's too different from their favorite. There will always be some people who want nothing to ever change. The question in my mind (and I don't know the answer, I haven't looked) is viewership growing or declining at a macro level?
Instead, he publicly mocked the show at nearly every opportunity and was happy to sit there and collect a paycheck. All he ends up doing is his level best to speed the decline.
As for Discovery, I haven't seen the show. I do want Trek to succeed, but I refuse to get some online subscription to view it. I don't doubt however that there are fans who are screaming that it's too different from their favorite. There will always be some people who want nothing to ever change. The question in my mind (and I don't know the answer, I haven't looked) is viewership growing or declining at a macro level?
Sure, but it's still nice to have some consequences associated with the lost part, until they are found.
Exactly this.
I am not a fan of any actor. I'm a fan of characters so I guess I'm not the one to talk to about this but on a grand scale I don't have a problem with someone kicking dirt up about a company or employer but the people you work with are off line imo. So I guess he can complain about the show per say but not make negative remarks about his fellow actors. That's just me though.
Regarding Discovery and viewership I don't know how it is doing. I do know they green lit a second season though so it can't be doing that bad.
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