Wow, this thread has taken off! Settle in for a longish post...
...The result is a property that's fallen completely out of touch with the tastes and expectations of the modern audience.
I question whether anyone really has a finger on "the tastes and expectations of the modern audience."
No one has suggested that "anyone" does - but the folks who finance and create mass entertainment right now successfully produce thousands of hours of movies and television every year that to varying degrees accord with what people, especially the so-desirable youth demographic, want to see. In the broadest sense they do know what they're doing...
I'm skeptical about that, at least unless you enlarge the "varying degrees" to an extent that pretty much swallows the original proposition. The distinct majority of TV and film projects out there today, just as in times past, are, in a word, failures.
Why do you think "franchises" are so prominent, after all? Executives will latch onto anything they think gives a project more of a "guaranteed" audience. That's why the new Terminator movie that's out right now is such a runaway hit, right? Oh, wait...
Dennis said:
There's no reason to believe that Star Trek can be the sole exception that thrives by fossilization rather than innovation after five decades.
Probably not, but you're arguing against a straw man, since I don't think I nor anyone else in the thread was arguing for "fossilization." What I said was that what Trek needs for a resurgence in popular awareness is to be guided by new creative hands, not to imitate what's been done before.
(Heck, even the latest film,
Into Darkness, was at its weakest when it was imitating a film that was done better the first time...)
Trek fans want Star Trek to be taken seriously as "adult" while never veering outside the safety of being a "family show."
I'd be leery about making sweeping generalizations about what "Trek fans want." Doesn't take more than one thread on these boards to show that they have widely varying desires.
That said, the balance you describe isn't impossible to strike. Case in point: the modern
Doctor Who. DW is itself an example of a property that was dead as a doornail a decade ago, not merely derided as outdated but just utterly ignored by everyone outside a narrow niche of hardcore fans, yet since the relaunch it's become a hugely popular phenomenon. And it did that by crafting a strong, fresh creative vision that also respects the show's history, and that offers storytelling sophisticated enough for adult fans while still remaining within the bounds of what the BBC considers a "family show."
The result is a property that's fallen completely out of touch with the tastes and expectations of the modern audience.
So what is the updated, contemporary style that people want? ...we don't know unless you spell it out for us from your POV.
Indeed, this is kind of the point I was getting at. There is no formula for entertainment success, much less one that distinguishes "contemporary" from "dated" forms. Whatever distinction you have in your head is less than clear from your posts so far.
Dennis said:
Yeah, which is why movies are written and performed the way they were in the 1930s ... Fact is that the audience and styles have moved on and oldTrek is never coming back in the form you like to imagine. It's dead.
You really are overstating your case. Any cinephile out there will happily discourse at length (and rightly so) about how some of the best movies ever made date to the "studio system" days of the 1930s and '40s. So again, please clarify the distinction you're so adamant about: what exactly is the form of Trek you think the rest of us "like to imagine," and what sets today's audiences and styles so clearly apart?
That begins with portrayals of human emotions, motives and behavior that are far more observant and nuanced than fits into the oldTrek format. Human beings in adult drama may be complex but they're motivated by a few simple things, none of which are really acknowledged in Star Trek. ... If you want to cling to the simplistic, supposedly Utopian characterizations of oldTrek you're not creating something that will hold the attention of a lot of intelligent adults for very long.
Okay, you're at least offering some details here. Not enough to make it clear where you're coming from, though, because this description of Trek is very much at odds with how I (and I hope and trust most other fans) perceive it. You seem to be painting the entire franchise with a brush dipped in the worst moments of the TNG era, and it's unfair to do so. Indeed, I'm hard pressed to discern what if anything you actually
like about Trek.
All I know is whenever anyone tries to sell me on GOT "it has boobs" is all they say. Hell, just three weeks ago my boss ranted on for five minutes about how great GOT is because of the boobs. Even women I know go on about the boobs in GOT.
Wow. I don't know where you live and work, but I'm glad I'm not trapped with those people. When my friends and I talk about GoT, it's all about the appeal of the labyrinthine politics and the complicated, dysfunctional family relationships and the historical allegories in the worldbuilding.
I'm only at the start of this thread, but I'll jump in. A great many of my midwestern high school students have NO idea who Kirk and Spock are. Not even from the recent movies.
That's just sad. I wonder, though, how much they know about other cultural artifacts that predate their own lifetimes? I'm thinking again about my hypothesis upthread... that now that literally
everything from the past 80 years is out there, on disc and on the internet, none of it really stands out and commands attention, and it's all easier for the average consumer to ignore.
plynch said:
In the 1980s did the general kid know movie characters from 50! years prior? I saw posters of WC Fields and Laurel and Hardy -- had NO idea.
I did. Didn't they run old B&W comedies on TV on the weekends when you were a kid?
This all makes me wonder, actually — and I'm surprised this hasn't come up already, given the OP and the kinds of generalizations everyone has been making in response to it —
how old are the folks posting in this thread, and
when did we each get into Trek? I think the answers might do a lot to contextualize some of the opinions being thrown around. For my part, I was born the year TOS went off the air, and I started watching it (in afternoon syndication) in 1977. I've seen every one of the movies on its original theatrical release.
plynch said:
I was the high school chess club advisor and have been quiz bowl coach for 10 years put together. I have my pulse on the nerd community, my peeps. Even THEY aren't into Trek.
DOCTOR WHO, baby!! Tardis everything, sonic screwdrivers, lunchboxes, etc. (It's well done in its way, and is on EVERY week.)
Doctor Who again! Yes. A show that's well-deserving of the new fans it's won, and still enjoyed and respected by the old ones too. It serves as an exemplar, I think, of how Trek can and at some point hopefully will experience a revival in the public consciousness. It'll just take a good creative hand at the wheel.
(Personally I think the studio suits should've handed the franchise to J. Michael Straczynski years ago. But that's just me.)
I think for Trek to be more successful it not only needs to be well done, but also have a greater presence.
Hard to argue with that. But the one requires creative integrity, and the other requires a commitment from the owners (CBS), and neither has been much in evidence in recent years.
Both of those things could easily change, of course. And in the meantime, as this thread itself demonstrates, there
are new, young fans discovering Trek all the time. The difference is it takes effort; it's not the "path of least resistance" for people to follow.
I don't know what CBS is waiting for with the Trek franchise, though. They just keep sitting on the Trek properties thinking its a gold mine that will pay off some day... I think at LEAST 1 movie a year, and possibly a miniseries or half season show on something like Amazon or Netflix would help Trek remain relevant A LOT.
That would be good, wouldn't it? Ten episodes a year is all it takes these days... and if anything, a shorter season makes it easier to keep the quality up, rather than having a long season full of filler.
There are plenty of memorable conversations in the Abrams films. They just aren't long drawn out affairs where everyone sits around a table discussing things til they've sucked all the momentum out of the story.
Oh, yeah, like all those long, tedious conversations in
Game of Thrones, around this dinner table or that tavern or this small council room or that general's tent. Why, some of those conversations go on for five minutes or more! And all they do is deliver exposition and delineate character details and play out convoluted plot machinations. They just drag the story to a complete halt. No wonder the show is such a dismal failure.
Okay, I'm being perhaps a bit more sarcastic than strictly necessary. TNG, in particular, was too often guilty of having briefing room scenes that did nothing except drop exposition anvils. Still, if you're holding the Abrams films (!) up as examples of sparkling dialogue, it just kind of invites a sarcastic response. There are lots of talented screenwriters out there these days who do fantastic, memorable dialogue, ranging from Joss Whedon to Aaron Sorkin and every style in between. Orci and Kurtzman are not among them.
Personally, I think going the movie route was a mistake. Doctor Who has shown how you can successfully relaunch and rebrand a stale and stuffy franchise and go on to be arguably more popular than ever.
Okay, third time it's come up now! I think we're zeroing in on a model Trek might be well-served to emulate...
I think I know why the younger crowd isn't all that into Star Trek. Nothing to do with attentions spans. Everything to do with tastes changing.
...The morality in the most popular TV shows today is far more gray and gray than black and white because that's how the viewing public doesn't see the world that way, and thus a squeaky clean utopia seems more unrealistic. ... the worlds they are put into are no longer clearly divided between good and evil as they once were.
Whence this idea that Trek is set in a squeaky-clean utopia with clear delineations of good vs evil? Except arguably for the early seasons of TNG, that's just not a credible description of what Trek is or has ever been.
Even the JJ Ab rams Star Trek movies are not real Star Trek or science fiction. They're just adventure yarns. ... Nerds like to think about things. That's why nerds love things like science fiction and astronomy and history and the like. Most people in America are not like that. ... Most people in America are not really thinkers.
Aside from the valorization of nerds (they're just as capable of being shallow as anyone else), you're onto something here. There's a strong strain of anti-intellectualism rooted deep in American culture. There's nothing controversial about saying that; it's been well-documented for decades. And you're certainly right (IMHO) about the Abrams films playing to that kind of audience.
The thing is, that's not a new thing — as I said, it's always been part of this culture. So it doesn't really suffice as an explanation of what's different
now... since Trek has always, at least at its best, aspired to more than that. Ask anyone who became a fan of it during its first run in the '60s... it was a "thinking person's" TV show, unquestionably far more sophisticated than any SF that had appeared on TV up to that point. And granted that it wasn't an instant runaway hit, still it did manage to build a seriously impressive following over time. That following may be at a low ebb these days... but if so it's because something has changed about Trek itself, not about the intellectualism of American culture.
(It might also reflect a change in the levels of
cynicism in American culture, as others have alluded to... but that's a different matter.)
[Starborn Dragon], you can't say "Americans don't think" in one post and then complain about those using logic as a way of "putting people who don't agree with them down" in another.
Yeah, that struck me as odd as well. He started off with an an interesting point, but then went off on a tangent...
And the ONLY reason to point out a flaw is to put someone down so you control how they express themselves. There is no other reason.
...as this post demonstrates. I was completely flummoxed by this bit, since it would hardly occur to me that this could even be
a reason for pointing out an argumentative flaw, let alone the
only reason. Why take things so personally and assume that someone intends to "put down" a complete stranger, when it's completely reasonable to assume the poster's intent was actually focused on the merits of the argument, not the person making it?
Doctor Who for example is extremely optimistic and one of the more popular sci-fi properties active today.
Fourth time now! It's frankly puzzling that no one amongst the CBS PTB seems to have thought of this comparison...
One of my favorite scenes, in all of Star Trek (and I mean all) is in Star Trek 2009. It is Prime Spock and nuKirk in the cave on Delta Vega and Kirk asks if he knew his father in the Prime reality. Kirk's face has a brief, but intense, look of pain and loss.
Another favorite scene is Sarek and Spock in the transporter room. Again, a fascinating insight in to both characters, as well as the importance of fathers that permeates Trek 09, specifically, and carries forward in Kirk's character arc.
De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess. The first scene you mention stands out in my memory not at all, and the second I actually remember as a painfully artificial moment that mostly left me thinking the guy playing Sarek was no substitute for Mark Lenard.
I'm so excited that if I have a daughter, she will have some really awesome women in media to look up to, and good examples of wildly different people interacting with one another peacefully.
Hear, hear! Thanks for reinjecting a note of optimism into the discussion. And from the sound of things your marriage itself is a case study in people from different backgrounds getting along well! Props to you and best of luck to your offspring.
Positive images of women = oppressive demasculising political correctness, amirite?
j/k, mostly...
