Why isn't Star Trek a big movie franchise?

Nero died, but Khan went back to sleep. Edison was doomed--it's the new odd-movie curse.

 

In some ways it needed a fifteen minute teaser set on the Franklin. But that would change the shape of the film, and delay focus on the main cast. Edison needed to be at least a character presence in the story prior to the reveal. Maybe more logs being found and spread through, so the Enterprise crew maybe knows it's investigating this missing ship. But that would clock up the running time too.

 

And hasn't done them a lot of favors, considering most people still try to pretend that both X3 and the first Wolverine movie didn't happen. Bad movies are bad.

At the risk of oversimplifying, I think the problem is that Star Trek has absolutely HORRIBLE marketing. The previews are hard to come by and don't always land correctly, they have very little (if any) direct merchandizing, very FEW tie-in novels in the Kelvinverse. Most of all, they've been reticent in pushing new material in the video game markets; new games and apps are still obsessed with TOS and TNG and even STO took seven years to even BEGIN to touch the Kelvinverse media despite frequent callbacks to it in storylines.

You just can't push a big movie franchise with half-assed marketing like that. If nobody knows about it, nobody gets excited about it, nobody shows up.

 

I have no idea. I've noticed that the majority of "Star Trek" movies have a running time that is 10 minutes longer than a two-part episode (without commercials). And most of their movies, at least to me, are not that great. I can only regard at least two of them as "great".

 

TMP is the only film made intentionally as art. The others, to a greater or lesser extent, are all primarily a commercial exercise related to continuing the franchise as their primary concern.

 

None at all, in fact.

 

Agreed. That's my main problem with the Kelvin universe. Every thing else can work, but the marketing is so lackluster.

 

They haven't been pushing much at all in the video game markets in recent years. A few forgettable apps, one terribly-reviewed game (the Kelvin tie-in) and one which barely got any attention (DAC) - both of which have now been pulled from sale, at least on Steam.

There is certainly a market for Trek games out there - just look at how many Trek mods are available.

It baffles me that they can't get a decent one made, and why their licences are so restrictive that the games get removed from sale after a few years. On the latter point, we've only recently seen some of the Interplay games made available, and the rest are still left in the void.

Make a Trek Telltale, 4X or LEGO game, and I'll buy it in a flash.

 

Star Trek is poorly marketed, particularly to kids. Much as I would bemoan overcommercialization of Trek, it sure does a hell of a lot for other franchises, like the MCU and Star Wars. Trek toys and figures are like these unique relics from the 90s that you have to scrounge up on eBay. I like that aspect of it, but I'm a 28 year old collector now, not a 10 year old kid looking for toys to inspire him at play. I remember playing with Micro Machine ships when I was young. Do CBS or Paramount bother with that kind of thing anymore?

 

Doesn't feel like it, which is sad. I didn't pick up nearly enough Trek toys when I was younger (32 now) for my girls to enjoy. Frustrating, especially, as I argued earlier, when Star Wars i picking up the education side and the science side of the marketing.

Am I the only one who thinks that a Star Trek themed science play set series is a good idea?

 

They DID do a couple of supposedly young-adult genre Starfleet Academy novels based on ST09, which were surprisingly good."Assassination Game" features Kirk playing an increasingly deadly game of tag with Finnegan and "The Delta Anomaly" features a very interesting (and stupendously creepy) take on the Kelvinverse Borg. Four novels altogether, but those two were the best IMO.

 

FFS, they didn't even manage to sell a license for actual LEGOs. Hell, even Megablocks would have been a viable alternative if Lego was asking for too much of a share of the profits.

But... KREO? What the fuck is Kreo?
Is that REALLY the best you idiots can do?

 

Toys alone aren't going to make kids love Star Trek. They need an action-packed animated series. Star Wars has Rebels, Marvel have shit-tons of animated shows. Kids get hooked on them, they want to see the "real" versions on the big screen and buy all the toys.

 

Even when I was younger I didn't like tie-in toys. If I was ever going to collect anything it would have been the small Star Wars figures, but even those didn't attract me.

I was attracted by primarily the films themselves, and the novel tie-ins. There's no novels for the new releases, and I don't like the films...

 

Not always the case, as evidenced by the Walking Dead toys that are marketed out there, and not just the McFarlane ones.

There are a variety of ways of gaining kids interest through toys, not just an animated series or what not. I mean, there are several toys that I have from various comic books, and TV shows that I have never seen, and this includes Star Wars, Star Trek, as well as Final Fantasy.

I do wish there were more novels and more tie in materials or pretend play stuff out there. Again, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones get better material than Star Trek.

 

Those are collectibles marketed to adults. I don't know about you, but personally I haven't seen kids playing with Walking Dead or Game of Thrones toys. Star Wars Clone Wars/Rebels toys on the other hand…

 

The dart guns and foam swords next to the Nerf guns are collectibles?

 

…And these are kids?

Spoiler: You know! For Kids!!

 

I'm just saying it's not all merchandised for "adult collectors" regardless of who else buys them. If it's McFarlane, the I get it. But this isn't an "adult collector" toy company, nor it is merchandised in a collector way. It's in the toy aisle with the Nerf guns.