Dalek and Warcry's Endless Star Trek Thread

[Tetsuro]

He could have married a man and they could have a daughter either through any number ways.

Or he could just be bisexual.

Unfortunately, Hollywood (and by consequence, a lot of the audiences) seems to consider sexuality entirely in black and white terms.

[Warcry]

I haven't even considered going to see this after how much I didn't enjoy the first two. I'll probably see it on DVD or something eventually, but the first two made it pretty clear that the reboots aren't for me. I'd imagine I'm not the only old-school Trek fan who thinks that way, and the franchise has never really been embraced by the same generic action movie crowd that Star Wars or even Transformers manage to bring in. So if the fans are souring on things the box office performance is going to show it.

Also, I wanted to reply to something dalek said in a different, comic-spoiler-filled thread but didn't want to totally derail yet another comic discussion thread into Star Trek rambling, so...

I'm surprised anyone would consider it less successful than Voyager tbh, it never hit the iconic heights of TOS or TNG (and I think people downplay how iconic that show was, as someone on another forum I post at recently mused Picard has more internet memes by himself than almost any other contemporary US TV character), but it certainly got more viewers than VOY-a result of how they were broadcast differently of course but still means it was more widespread--and was always more critically acclaimed, especially once it hit that post Worf stride.

It probably depends on the market you're in, and how the shows were/are distributed there, but here at least Voyager has always been the stronger of the two shows and it's not even really close. Going back to when they were first broadcast, unless my memory is failing me DS9 was crammed into a Saturday afternoon death slot while Voyager got broadcast in prime time. And Voyager thrived in syndication -- it ran on local channels for ages, and then on the cable sci-fi network (alongside TNG and TOS but, notably, not DS9) for ages more. I think the Trek reruns have finally been dropped from the rotation this year, but there was Voyager available on my TV screen for two decades and I can't say that about DS9.

None of which is to say that Voyager is a better show or even that I like it, but it does seem to have been more commercially viable than Deep Space Nine in both the long and short runs, at least around here.

The best description of Voyager I've ever read was it was the least succesful successful show ever made, running for seven years as the top rated show on its network but even the people who made it think it was a bit shit.

I don't think Voyager is very well-remembered, but it was very popular at the time with, broadly speaking, my parents' demographic -- people who watched the original as it aired, got sucked back in with TNG as grown-ups and generally had a very set idea of what Star Trek should be: episodic adventures of a ship and crew exploring the unknown. It also seemed to attract more casual viewers, at least in my social circle. Even though the quality was never what it should be, it was and is "comfortable" and attracted a lot of watchers on that basis.

And whilst a lot of Trek fans weren't embracing of DS9 (famously it's the Trek show for people who don't like Trek) that's as much to do with things like no space ship like wot proper Star Trek has as the actual quality.

I don't think many will argue that Voyager is actually better than DS9 these days, but it's not like quality has ever been a major determining factor in how successful a TV series is.

And while I don't 100% agree with the "Trek for people who don't like Trek" line, there's more truth to it than I would like to admit. And it's a bit of a double-edged sword in that regard. On the one hand, you have hardcore fans rejecting it because it doesn't fit the traditional format. On the other, the Star Trek name drives away a lot of people who'd probably eat it right up, because they wrongly assume that it will fit the traditional format.

In terms of the show ending though, don't forget the 24th century Trek was continuing in both Voyager and the TNG films (no one knew when season 7 was finishing Insurrection would lead to a big gap and a rethink), with some serious thought given to bringing Voyager home now the Alpah Quadrant was freed up. The show was ending but the overall Universe was carrying on... just as with MTMTE.

The universe was continuing but the story that DS9 was telling (excellent relaunch novels aside) was drawing to a pretty conclusive close. Worf aside I don't think much from DS9 was even mentioned after the series ended, other than some references on Voyager about how the Dominion had utterly destroyed the Maquis. That gives you a pretty free hand when it comes to...well, not giving a damn about attracting new viewers. Nobody was going to tune into Voyager or Nemesis to find out what Jake did next, or whether Bajor ever did wind up joining the Federation.

[Cliffjumper]

Finally saw Insurrection. It's astonishingly shit - does someone want to tell Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner they're not ****ing movie stars and they don't get to just turn up and do schtick as if they're Morgan Freeman and Jim Carrey? Hey, do you know what this film needs - a romantic subplot that's never going to go anywhere. Or two, perhaps. And then you've got F Murray ****ing Salieri Abraham drowned under slap while Gates McFadden's strutting around like she's got some basic right to be in a major film. A bloated TV episode with a couple of "dated by the time it hit VHS" model scenes thrown in.

Seriously, when Data does his funny slap on Riker to show he has Learnt the Human Emotion Of Being A Cockpipe for the 400th time I actually hoped Brent Spiner was having a stroke wherever he is now.

[Warcry]

That's the one with fat old beardless Riker, right? And also the one that could have happened any time, except they specifically name-dropped the Dominion War, making you wonder why the Enterprise is dicking around doing piddly shit like this while an occupying Jem'hadar army is hanging out on Betazed?

I have to admit that the TNG movies (aside from the actually entertaining First Contact) all kind of blur together for me. Generations, Insurrection and even Nemesis all feel like they could have been TV two-parters, and not even particularly good ones. I want to say that Insurrection is the worst of the bunch, but truth be told I don't think I've seen it in over a decade and have no plans to change that any time soon.

[Cliffjumper]

Personally I don't think the TNG crew work for films at all. I like First Contact but that's because it junks the format and it's basically a space actioner focused largely on Picard and Data. The rest... we've seen enough of them, basically. We've had seven years of, say, Troi or Crusher or Worf not really going anywhere, why do we need another ten minutes a few years later? TOS there's a certain amount of getting to see more of a series which ended early plus the growing age of the regulars gave a nice organic progression to them. There was no real time for anyone to miss TNG or for anything to really move on in the meantime; Generations feels like a TV movie capstone on the series whereas whatever you can say about the TOS films they were significantly different from the series.

I'd seriously argue how much of a popular footprint TNG will actually leave. Like TF G1 you can argue the better quality of later incarnations till you're blue in the face but you can't escape that for so many people Star Trek is synonymous with Kirk, Spock and McCoy the same way Transformers is Optimus Prime the truck going up against Megatron and the new films are only going to underline that.

[Tetsuro]

The biggest problem with people raving about DS9 is that they often mistake good acting for good writing; there's a lot of gunk, especially in the later seasons, that just doesn't work; I think the biggest "jump the shark" episode is the one where they discover their descendants on a planet after having crashed there in the past and Odo decides to wipe out everyone because he couldn't get past Kira's death in 200 years, which is probably the most out of character moment for anyone in the entire series - hell, it's probably the most out of character moment in all of Trek history.

After that, moments where you realize the writers had no actual long-term plan and they shamelessly backpedal on character development when it doesn't work become increasingly obvious. Kira and Odo's relationship in particular feels forced all the way to the end (and I'm pretty sure the only reason it gets reintroduced into the series is because the writer was a fan of it in the early seasons).

I wish I could say Voyager is better of the two, but the trouble with it is that it fails to make the most of the characters. My favourite TNG episodes are the likes of Cause & Effect where the Space Anomaly of the Week is relatively simple and the fun comes from watching familiar characters interacting with each other as they try to figure out what's going on; Voyager fails to do any of that and goes for the Trek Cureall solution of Technobabble. At least with TNG, the cast kinda felt like a group of real people and not a bunch of Star Trek pastiché.

At least even when DS9 completely f***s up it's own cast, it at least has an interesting overarching plot going on for it.

[inflatable dalek]

Finally saw Insurrection. It's astonishingly shit - does someone want to tell Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner they're not ****ing movie stars and they don't get to just turn up and do schtick as if they're Morgan Freeman and Jim Carrey? Hey, do you know what this film needs - a romantic subplot that's never going to go anywhere. Or two, perhaps. And then you've got F Murray ****ing Salieri Abraham drowned under slap while Gates McFadden's strutting around like she's got some basic right to be in a major film. A bloated TV episode with a couple of "dated by the time it hit VHS" model scenes thrown in.

If it makes you feel better Brent Spiner felt the same and campaigned hard against Data's role in the film as it felt it ignored all his character development and reset him to season 3 levels. He only had luck squeezing one mention of the emotion chip not being plugged in.

I've mentioned Michael Piller's unpublished Writing of... book before (though it is now coming out. as a $95 library book) and it is fasinating how much the fan claims of "Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner's egos plus studio interference ruined it!", when every single note from the two leads and Paramount were pretty much every fan complaint about it. It looks like the success of the previous movie gave Berman the clout to ignore these things. Certainly the only studio note (and they had some real issues with the "Rights of affluent white people are really important!" message) that was listened to was that maybe instead of giving Barcley a big guest role that should let Geordi say something.

That's the one with fat old beardless Riker, right? And also the one that could have happened any time, except they specifically name-dropped the Dominion War, making you wonder why the Enterprise is dicking around doing piddly shit like this while an occupying Jem'hadar army is hanging out on Betazed?

I can see why they'd do a standalone film tbh, tying things into the Dominion War would not only be unfair on DS9 (in terms of having their story usurped, I think that's why Behr lied and said "Oh, the war will be done when the film comes out" when Piller first asked him if that were a possibility) but put in danger of feeling like the first X-Files film. Which is considerably worse than any Trek film, precisely because it has no ambitions beyond furthering the TV plots and doesn't expect to be seen by anyone outside of a rewatch in that season 5/6 gap.

It not being a good standalone film is really the problem. I think the biggest issue is that, regardless of them being handled badly, the themes and issues are just too serious and complicated for a film that is trying to set out to be a light and fun contrast to the previous one. It needed to be either darker, or based around a fluffier concept (like, you know, rescuing Whales).

I have to admit that the TNG movies (aside from the actually entertaining First Contact) all kind of blur together for me. Generations, Insurrection and even Nemesis all feel like they could have been TV two-parters, and not even particularly good ones. I want to say that Insurrection is the worst of the bunch, but truth be told I don't think I've seen it in over a decade and have no plans to change that any time soon.

Personally I don't think the TNG crew work for films at all. I like First Contact but that's because it junks the format and it's basically a space actioner focused largely on Picard and Data. The rest... we've seen enough of them, basically. We've had seven years of, say, Troi or Crusher or Worf not really going anywhere, why do we need another ten minutes a few years later? TOS there's a certain amount of getting to see more of a series which ended early plus the growing age of the regulars gave a nice organic progression to them. There was no real time for anyone to miss TNG or for anything to really move on in the meantime; Generations feels like a TV movie capstone on the series whereas whatever you can say about the TOS films they were significantly different from the series.

I don't know, I think you could have carried on in the style (if not the tone) of FC easily enough. Not building on the success of that movie is probably the biggest squandered opportunity in all of Trek. I certainly think Picard and Data (and to a marginally lesser extent Worf) were well known and liked enough to be able to carry films with the others as minor support if done right (and even gratuitous Something To Do scenes might not have been so bad for the others, everyone loves the Drunk Troi stuff in FC), it just was only done so once.

The refusal to age and change the characters is another big factor of course. The best thing about the TOS films is that V (tellingly the least popular) is the only one to treat the startus quo of the series as "Normal". The others have them being called back in, or stuck together by circumstances. They haven't just sat in the same chair for 25 years straight.

Of course, it's easy to forget that Insurrection wasn't a failure, just a much smaller success as its predecessor. The TNG films could have recovered from that (and they took the time to have a think, though ironically IIRC part of the reason for the gap was Stewart not wanting to go head to head with the first revived Star Wars...), but the net result was in the end worse.

I'd seriously argue how much of a popular footprint TNG will actually leave. Like TF G1 you can argue the better quality of later incarnations till you're blue in the face but you can't escape that for so many people Star Trek is synonymous with Kirk, Spock and McCoy the same way Transformers is Optimus Prime the truck going up against Megatron and the new films are only going to underline that.

The diminishing returns of each New film suggests the new Kirk and Spock really aren't taking, despite massively favourable reviews the not outright failure but still not good enough takings for Beyond actually places the film franchise in a similar place to where it was with Insurrection. I really think the next one will be make or break for this cast at least and probably the films as a whole for a good long time.

[Warcry]

Personally I don't think the TNG crew work for films at all. I like First Contact but that's because it junks the format and it's basically a space actioner focused largely on Picard and Data. The rest...

...

Generations feels like a TV movie capstone on the series whereas whatever you can say about the TOS films they were significantly different from the series.

I would actually say that these two points are pretty clearly connected -- the one time that they did treat the TNG movies like the TOS ones, and made something distinct from the series, they got First Contact out of it. I think if they'd continued in that vein they could have made a few more solid movies with the TNG cast, no matter how hard it was by that point to care about Geordi or Crusher or Troi.

I think the problem was less with the actors and more with the production crew and writers, to be honest. They were already running out of ideas when TNG ended, and understandably so. But it really wouldn't have been a bad move to bring on some fresh blood with new ideas, like the TOS movies did after Roddenberry's first effort turned out to be so blah.

I'd seriously argue how much of a popular footprint TNG will actually leave. Like TF G1 you can argue the better quality of later incarnations till you're blue in the face but you can't escape that for so many people Star Trek is synonymous with Kirk, Spock and McCoy the same way Transformers is Optimus Prime the truck going up against Megatron and the new films are only going to underline that.

I'm not so sure about that. Picard at least is cemented in popular culture pretty firmly, as evidenced by all the internet memes based on him (and the fact that everyone loves Patrick Stewart). And TNG references in pop culture aren't exactly rare either, as it's frequently brought up in shows like Family Guy or Big Bang Theory. It's nowhere near being forgotten in the popular consciousness, not like DS9, Voyager or Enterprise are (or, frankly, the new movies probably will be). Though TNG definitely does suffer in relation to TOS because it's just not as easy to poke fun at.

The biggest problem with people raving about DS9 is that they often mistake good acting for good writing; there's a lot of gunk, especially in the later seasons, that just doesn't work;

Oh, I won't disagree with that. Any series that runs for seven years is going to have it's share of bad episodes, and DS9 is no exception, though personally I'd actually point to the first couple years as being the source of most of the stuff I didn't enjoy. But having the strongest ensemble cast out of all the modern Trek shows does a good job papering some of that over.

I can see why they'd do a standalone film tbh, tying things into the Dominion War would not only be unfair on DS9 (in terms of having their story usurped, I think that's why Behr lied and said "Oh, the war will be done when the film comes out" when Piller first asked him if that were a possibility) but put in danger of feeling like the first X-Files film. Which is considerably worse than any Trek film, precisely because it has no ambitions beyond furthering the TV plots and doesn't expect to be seen by anyone outside of a rewatch in that season 5/6 gap.

Oh, I completely agree with all that. The best thing to do would have been to just ignore DS9 entirely, rather than namedropping plot points from the series that open up plot holes in the movie itself. Just don't mention it, and if anyone asks, say the movie takes place before or after the war. Especially since there's no way Worf's time on the Enterprise could fit into DS9's timeline. I mean, can you seriously imagine Worf of all people taking a vacation in the middle of a war when he's on the front lines, especially after his wife died?

So don't do that. Ditch any attempt to tie the movie into the TV show, be vague about the timeline and that's one big headache gone already.

Though obviously the main problems would still be this...

It not being a good standalone film is really the problem. I think the biggest issue is that, regardless of them being handled badly, the themes and issues are just too serious and complicated for a film that is trying to set out to be a light and fun contrast to the previous one. It needed to be either darker, or based around a fluffier concept (like, you know, rescuing Whales).

...combined with them ignoring Data's character development even though he's the only one of the TNG crew aside from Picard to get any in the previous movies. In fact, hell, he's probably the only one of the TNG crew aside from Picard to get any lasting character development since the middle of the TV show.

The diminishing returns of each New film suggests the new Kirk and Spock really aren't taking, despite massively favourable reviews the not outright failure but still not good enough takings for Beyond actually places the film franchise in a similar place to where it was with Insurrection. I really think the next one will be make or break for this cast at least and probably the films as a whole for a good long time.

Yeah, I really don't buy into the whole "Star Trek = Kirk, Spock and McCoy" paradigm myself, and never really thought that bringing them back was going to save the franchise all on it's own. I mean, it's not like the characters have a track record of unmitigated success. TOS was a commercial failure that only attained cult status retroactively, and the movies starring the original cast were mostly just modest successes themselves. The question of whether Trek can succeed without the big three was answered pretty decisively in the 1980s, and with the continued success of multiple spin-off series since then. I mean, hell, we all talk like Enterprise was an epic failure and even it outlasted the original by one season and twenty episodes. If the show is good people will watch it, and if it's not (like the first two new movies) people will stop watching, and that's what'll happen whether it's got Kirk in it or not.

[Cliffjumper]

I'd seriously argue with Picard making much impact; Patrick Stewart, with his decade as Professor X, his nice-blokishness, his showreel Extras scenes and his social media bromance with Ian McKellen had made a lot of impact but I'm not sure how much that transfers back onto the show or character anymore than the 'smirk' meme does on TAS. It was a popular show a lot of people watched but not much more; Kirk, Spock and McCoy are full-blown cultural touchstones. Data notso much.

Regarding the diminishing box office, I think it's kind-of inevitable with any franchise. Trek, as a long-running TV franchise, just doesn't have the "wow" factor for cinema (all of the pre-Abrams films were solid hits rather than runaway phenomenons; annually they're in the lower top 10 and then top 20 by the nineties) and has been outgunned and squeezed by the Marvel/Disney onslaught and ever-rising budgets which mean films have to take $200m to turn a profit. I don't think in that climate Trek has the profile to compete, not when it's never quite shaken off the Trekkie stigma.

Generations and Insurrection are both soulless little films IMO; lazy stuff where old pals' networks have meant that everyone's wondering how many lines they've got and no-one's got the balls to say "**** you, there's nothing for you to do in this film without compromising it". It's all very safe and cosy. Generations IMO had some potential but then you've got TV show politics in there; should have hung more on Kirk as he's in the A plot but there's this insane desire to make sure everyone else had got something to do. Imagine if Star Wars did what these films did and every now and then the plot just stopped so we could see Lando overcoming some minor personal obstacle that has no real bearing on the plot.

[Warcry]

I'd seriously argue with Picard making much impact; Patrick Stewart, with his decade as Professor X, his nice-blokishness, his showreel Extras scenes and his social media bromance with Ian McKellen had made a lot of impact but I'm not sure how much that transfers back onto the show or character anymore than the 'smirk' meme does on TAS.

Patrick Stewart is great and everything you say about him is true, but none of that happens if Captain Picard didn't make him a household name first. Without TNG he wouldn't have been anything more than a mildly successful, prematurely bald theatre actor.

And maybe it's just that we move in very different circles outside of this place, but I can't go more than a few days without seeing people post Picard facepalm screencaps or making "there are four lights!" references or seeing random quotes pop up. Hell, I've even had coworkers send me Picard memes when they're having a rough day. References to him and his show certainly pop up a whole lot more in my daily life than the TOS crowd do, simply because TNG strikes the same nostalgic chord with my peers that G1 Transformers does. But again, maybe that's just me.

It was a popular show a lot of people watched but not much more; Kirk, Spock and McCoy are full-blown cultural touchstones.

Honestly, I don't know if I'd agree with that. Twenty years ago, absolutely they were. But I don't even know if you could say that Trek itself is a full-blown cultural touchstone anymore. The brand has just lost so much lustre over the last couple decades, and the new movies have done nothing to restore it.

But in general, I think Kirk, Spock and McCoy are towering sci-fi cultural icons...to anyone old enough to remember when TOS and the movies were the only Trek. Most people who grew up with the TNG/DS9/VOY block of shows airing likely don't give them the same weight, though naturally if they're Trek fans they'd still know and care about them. And people who grew up after that...well, most of them probably don't care at all.

I'm cautiously optimistic that the new series will be good enough to change that.

Regarding the diminishing box office, I think it's kind-of inevitable with any franchise.

That makes sense but I don't know if reality bears it out. I mean, obviously the "new toy" lustre comes off eventually, but a good series will be able to keep profitably trucking along even if it's not putting up billion-dollar receipts. After all, James Bond movies have been solidly successful for five decades now.

The problem is that the new Trek movies weren't even all that successful to begin with. They out-sold the TNG movies, but they also had triple the budget, so they really didn't do anything to improve the franchise's standing beyond "middling box office success". Taking a step back from that isn't the same as Star Wars or Marvel seeing a dip in ticket sales -- Beyond looks like it's only a hair above being a Nemesis-tier disaster right now even with 200M+ in sales.

Generations IMO had some potential

I think I watched Generations again last year, but it's such a blah movie I'm not even sure anymore. I had to double-check to make sure all the plot points that I thought happened there, actually did.

But even above and beyond the misuse of Kirk, the nonsense plot (I can use the Nexus to go back in time to any moment I choose? Well, I'd better go have a fistfight with Sauron instead of saving my brother and nephew, then arresting the man for having illegal weapons before he uses them on anything!) the biggest problem with Generations is that it feels like Serenity. That is to say, a movie made years after the fact to wrap up a series that didn't get a proper finale. The problem being, of course, that TNG did get a proper finale (a better one that the film itself) just a year before that.

And that just makes Generations itself feel a bit uncomfortable -- it's a terrible standalone film since it relies on numerous plot points and minor recurring characters from the series to make it work. And at the same time it makes you wonder why, if those characters and plots were so important, the series itself couldn't be bothered to give them proper resolution.

[Cliffjumper]

Patrick Stewart is great and everything you say about him is true, but none of that happens if Captain Picard didn't make him a household name first. Without TNG he wouldn't have been anything more than a mildly successful, prematurely bald theatre actor.

Undoubtedly; he'd never have got Xavier without that level of exposure for one. But it doesn't mean it's why people still like him and why he's still relevant - in these days of social media allowing slebs to walk among us things like this are more random; look at Will Wheaton and George Takei, beloved internet personalities long after they ceased to be particularly relevant in the mediums that gave them their first exposure.

And maybe it's just that we move in very different circles outside of this place, but I can't go more than a few days without seeing people post Picard facepalm screencaps or making "there are four lights!" references or seeing random quotes pop up. Hell, I've even had coworkers send me Picard memes when they're having a rough day. References to him and his show certainly pop up a whole lot more in my daily life than the TOS crowd do, simply because TNG strikes the same nostalgic chord with my peers that G1 Transformers does. But again, maybe that's just me.

Might be different circles, yeah. But at the same time the facepalm's just a meme; is Leonidas a cultural icon? Or Ned Stark or Boromir? Sometimes these things just take off.

Honestly, I don't know if I'd agree with that. Twenty years ago, absolutely they were. But I don't even know if you could say that Trek itself is a full-blown cultural touchstone anymore. The brand has just lost so much lustre over the last couple decades, and the new movies have done nothing to restore it.

I'd agree there; while naturally DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, the TNG movies and the reboot have all been broadly successful the profile's been dwindling and the property seems to be struggling for relevance. The lack of a simple conflict to focus on is certainly hurting it in cinemas, compared to Marvel Hero v Villains or the Rebels v the Empire or Autobots v Decepticons; there's no over-arching hook to quickly clue non-fans in, which means the big screen really doesn't have much to offer than the small screen. I'd hesitate to say it's too smart because Trek's quite often dumb but the habit of constantly rehabilitating any villainous species and starting up another one I think prevents the space battle extravaganza that'd let Trek really clean up in the cinemas. If they dropped the attempts at characterisation and the TV-style plots and just did a big space battle of the Enterprise kicking the crap out of a Klingon fleet with lots of bantery one-liners it'd probably sell like gangbusters.

That makes sense but I don't know if reality bears it out. I mean, obviously the "new toy" lustre comes off eventually, but a good series will be able to keep profitably trucking along even if it's not putting up billion-dollar receipts. After all, James Bond movies have been solidly successful for five decades now.

Bond's different where basically any element can be changed and people actively love the tropes - which I think the TOS films did manage to replicate, with running character jokes like Kirk ignoring any orders, Scotty's engineering miracles, Spock's comical non-sequiters, McCoy calling people savages and that sort of thing - character shorthand is the lifeblood of action cinema. But there was never the serious option of recasting people as the series went on; that sort of infusion of fresh interest has always been crucial to Bond's cinema success.

Bond's an exceptionally well-managed franchise too; by default or design each lead's been moved on at the cusp of the shine coming off rather than waiting for a bomb; success has bred success and the producers can take a few years off if the market's not right (e.g. playing it cool when the Cold War ended); trends are largely resisted (so there's been no serious attempt to respond to the success of, say, Bourne) and the brand's never really been diluted by anyone trying to turn out annual sequels or turn out a TV mini-series to cash in.

There are exceptions to the rule as there are with any - Harry Potter and to a lesser extend Twilight managed to keep figures up though having a set saga to move through, ditto Star Wars. But I think when your plan is to do a standalone film, see how the figures look and then do another one if they're good you're going to be in the cycle of reacting and left wide open.

The problem is that the new Trek movies weren't even all that successful to begin with. They out-sold the TNG movies, but they also had triple the budget, so they really didn't do anything to improve the franchise's standing beyond "middling box office success". Taking a step back from that isn't the same as Star Wars or Marvel seeing a dip in ticket sales -- Beyond looks like it's only a hair above being a Nemesis-tier disaster right now even with 200M+ in sales.

I think the first one benefitted from weak opposition, certainly - pre-Marvel, Sony's X-Men/Spider-Man/F4 on the wane and abolutely no sign of Star Wars coming back. Now the landscape's much more different, with sci-fantasy action dominating the box office and yeh, it's not hard to imagine the whole thing being on ice. The new cast certainly don't seem to have captured the imagination particularly well, and it's just another reboot/remake series doing the rounds.

Right now Star Trek's beginning to look like something which has ran its' course and then some - it's certainly hard to see how it'd actually transcend in cinema again when things more suited to outright spectacle with the tech to do them justice are everywhere.

But even above and beyond the misuse of Kirk, the nonsense plot (I can use the Nexus to go back in time to any moment I choose? Well, I'd better go have a fistfight with Sauron instead of saving my brother and nephew, then arresting the man for having illegal weapons before he uses them on anything!) the biggest problem with Generations is that it feels like Serenity. That is to say, a movie made years after the fact to wrap up a series that didn't get a proper finale. The problem being, of course, that TNG did get a proper finale (a better one that the film itself) just a year before that.

Mmm; by potential I felt it had promise if they'd focused on the baton-handing and easing the TNG cast onto the big screen but yeah, it'd need a near-total rewrite and TBH the big gap between the series in fiction would make it impossible - your ideal would be a Force Awakens-style thing where aged beloved original characters mingle with new ones and gradually fade away with dignity but the hundred years or so obviously made that impossible.

So hooking Kirk in made sense even if the way he was handled wasn't great; get him to mingle a little especially with Picard (their actual interact is pretty good) and ease the rest in gently. Instead it's being made by all the TV people all worried about being usurped, so Shatner's tacked on and everyone's got to get their little subplot or show-off scene.

TNG's weakness in these terms is its' number of characters, really - TOS had Kirk, Spock and McCoy; Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura were just amiable background who rarely did much of huge import but be likable. For the films they're all happy enough with a scene in each movie that lets them show off a little bit, the odd line and leave it at that. Whereas Generations felt like it was obliged to touch base with everyone and their same threads we'd been watching for seven years, with the time restriction seeing them reduced to crass repetition - Data wants to be more human, Picard's emotionally repressed, blah.

Toddler duty calls...

[Tetsuro]

The gap between TNG ending and Generations isn't even that big; it came out during the first half of DS9's third season, so it was only slightly longer than if it'd simply been another season.

I mean sure, the stardate in the film would place it way at the end of said season, but First Contact did the same and it was referred to in much earlier episode in DS9, which suggest a massive disconnect between the writers of the TV series and the movies.

Or maybe they just didn't care.

[inflatable dalek]

See, I'd agree it's Patrick Stewart who is the icon rather than Picard, but equally it's Shatner, Nimoy who make Kirk and Spock (and Kelly with McCoy to a lesser extent because he was a much more private man), I don't think people generally distinguish between the actors and the characters in either cases. When was the last time anyone did a Captain Kirk impression that sounded anything like he did in the series?

I think it's easy to forget because of the way the film's died on their arses just how successful a TV show TNG was, IIRC All Good Things is the most watched episode of Trek ever and it would have been a regular top ten series had it been networked. It's comfortably the most popular Trek TV show during its first run by a massive margin. Considering its rough contemporaries that enjoyed syndication success as well (and helped knock DS9 down the charts) Baywatch and Xena are being revived it's hard not seeing there being a Captain Picard Show based film happening now if it had been called anything but Trek. Everyone involved seems to regard 94ish (around the time of the Shatner/Stewart Time cover) as the absolute peak of Trek's success and that's mostly down to the TNG crew.

Of course, being a big TV icon doesn't automatically guarantee film success (ask the Robot from Lost in Space), but they really had a good chance of achieving it and threw it away. Especially as the only real obstacle-the large for film cast-wasn't really a problem by the end of the series. They'd worked out what people liked and the show had firmly become the Picard-Data------Worf---------------------------------------------------------The Others series rather than the ensemble it started out as. That's not much different from the original's set up. For all the fan moaning no one was going to see the films for a Geordi plot (though letting him speak sometimes might have been nice).

I think that might be where the current films are going wrong. The original Kirk, Spock and McCoy became icons because of the actors, how they played off each other and how that inspired the writers (pretty much every gimmick of Spock's was invented by Nimoy!). The secondary characters were almost entirely defined by what the actors could get out of the material. Who the show was about was basically an organic discovery over that first season.

Same with TNG, there were very different plans for it when it started and what it became was entirely down to Stewart and Spiner going down really, really well with audiences.

The new films are trying to recreate the TOS chemistry exactly rather than letting the actors develop their own. Leading to odd things like Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin intentionally doing bad accents to mimick the not intentionally bad but just the result of them doing the best they can predecessors. Or Urban doing a full on Kelly impression despite McCoy never really feeling like the same character because he's now built like Judge Dredd.

So rather than playing to their strengths the films being written around what is shown to work everything is straitjacketed in a way even normal remakes aren't. In many ways doing the remake "In continuity" is probably going to be seen as a mistake. Chris Pine is always going to be hamstrung by the fact he has to grow up to be William Shatner.

Zoe Saldana is actually an interesting example of this. She's the most succesful member of the new cast and has good roles in big films with fan bases (including of course, the most successful film of all time). In normal circumstances this would have had the same result as Fox realising the blue naked woman in X-Men First Class is suddenly the lead in a massive film series and by gum she's going to have a much more front and central role in the sequels. But because Uhura is official third tier behind Scotty they've never really pushed that advantage and have gone back and forth on how important the character is, especially in Beyond when it firmly swings to "Spock's most important relationship is with Bones, that who he plays off most" again.

[Warcry]

Might be different circles, yeah. But at the same time the facepalm's just a meme; is Leonidas a cultural icon? Or Ned Stark or Boromir? Sometimes these things just take off.

Maybe not cultural in the proper, capital-C "Culture" way that academics would talk about. But pop culture is a different animal, and from that perspective some of them probably are. Leonidas in particular seems to be pretty much here to stay, between "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" and all of the hilarious facial expressions that people use for reaction images, but it's anyone's guess whether we'll still be bringing him up when the movie is thirty years old, like people do now with Picard.

You're right that the facepalm (and various other Picard images) are just memes, but memes are a form of communication that only work when you recognize what they're referencing, at least to some degree (which is why anime memes or stuff based on kids' shows post-Beast Wars always fly right over my head). So if a lot of people use Picard in memes it means that there's a lot of people with at least a basic cultural understanding of who and what Picard is, just like nobody would joke about Shatner's stilted delivery or go "He's dead, Jim!" if they didn't have a basic cultural understanding of the TOS main three.

In fact, you know what? TNG itself explained this far better than I could ever hope to.

"Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra."

The lack of a simple conflict to focus on is certainly hurting it in cinemas

I don't know why this never occurred to me, but this is 100% truth. The TOS movies were able to use the Klingons as a vague, looming threat and did a pretty good job of that (it's been a while since I've watched them, but I think the Klingons were in all but TWOK as either the primary or secondary baddies), but the TNG era lacked any real solid, first-string enemies that could fill that role -- the Borg never work as anything other than a one-and-done big event baddie, and the producers had allowed DS9 to rope in the rest of the known enemies. In retrospect it's a shame they didn't try to build the Romulans up as a running antagonist for movie-era TNG, since they were easily the most memorable of Picard's antagonists on the TV show and it would have made Nemesis a far more fitting end to the TNG franchise than it actually was.

And the new movies don't do much better.

Bond's different where basically any element can be changed and people actively love the tropes - which I think the TOS films did manage to replicate, with running character jokes like Kirk ignoring any orders, Scotty's engineering miracles, Spock's comical non-sequiters, McCoy calling people savages and that sort of thing - character shorthand is the lifeblood of action cinema. But there was never the serious option of recasting people as the series went on; that sort of infusion of fresh interest has always been crucial to Bond's cinema success.

I'm not sure that those same things don't apply to Star Trek, though. They've had a lot of success replacing the cast, the ship, the antagonists, the setting, etc. in the TV versions of the franchise, so I don't think that people would reject those things out of hand on the big screen either. It's just a matter of doing it well, and the Trek franchise hasn't produced many good movies since the 80s.

Right now Star Trek's beginning to look like something which has ran its' course and then some - it's certainly hard to see how it'd actually transcend in cinema again when things more suited to outright spectacle with the tech to do them justice are everywhere.

I think the new TV show might breathe new life into the franchise, but as it stands right now it doesn't look like there's much life left in it. And honestly I think the new movies have hurt rather than helped. Regardless of quality, they've mostly avoided the usual "flavour" of older Trek stuff in favour of being fairly paint-by-numbers action pieces, which probably leaves the new generation of viewers feeling like Trek isn't much but a Star Wars knockoff.

Mmm; by potential I felt it had promise if they'd focused on the baton-handing and easing the TNG cast onto the big screen but yeah, it'd need a near-total rewrite and TBH the big gap between the series in fiction would make it impossible - your ideal would be a Force Awakens-style thing where aged beloved original characters mingle with new ones and gradually fade away with dignity but the hundred years or so obviously made that impossible.

I get what you mean. I'm not sure a movie that focused more heavily on torch-passing would have felt any fresher, though. The series brought in McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty, after all, seeing the original cast alongside the TNG crew didn't have the novelty that it once did by the time the movies rolled around.

TNG's weakness in these terms is its' number of characters, really - TOS had Kirk, Spock and McCoy; Scotty, Sulu, Chekov and Uhura were just amiable background who rarely did much of huge import but be likable. For the films they're all happy enough with a scene in each movie that lets them show off a little bit, the odd line and leave it at that. Whereas Generations felt like it was obliged to touch base with everyone and their same threads we'd been watching for seven years, with the time restriction seeing them reduced to crass repetition - Data wants to be more human, Picard's emotionally repressed, blah.

Oh, absolutely. TNG's big cast helped to make it a more dynamic TV series than TOS ever was, but it hurt the transition to the big screen. Even with the scripts actively trying to find stuff for everyone to do, the movies mostly turn into the Picard and Data show. Personally I think that's a natural evolution for TNG, since those two were easily the most popular characters (and the third most popular, Worf, was still on TV every week), and with less time to play with, obviously those two are the ones you want to focus on. But clearly there was a lot of pushback against it because all the other actors were used to being more than just glorified extras.

The new films are trying to recreate the TOS chemistry exactly rather than letting the actors develop their own. Leading to odd things like Simon Pegg and Anton Yelchin intentionally doing bad accents to mimick the not intentionally bad but just the result of them doing the best they can predecessors. Or Urban doing a full on Kelly impression despite McCoy never really feeling like the same character because he's now built like Judge Dredd.

This is a good point, and it's something that bugs me about the new movies. I do think that Chris Pine does a good job of making Kirk his own, and Zoe Saldana actually gets the chance to play Uhura as a character, but the rest of the cast seem like they're pantomiming, or parodying the original series. Some of them do better than others (Urban's Kelley impression is a lot of fun even if, like you say, he's got nothing in common with the man physically). The new Chekov in particular is so painful that, shamefully, I was actually glad when the actor died simply so I'd never have to see it again.

Zoe Saldana is actually an interesting example of this. She's the most succesful member of the new cast and has good roles in big films with fan bases (including of course, the most successful film of all time). In normal circumstances this would have had the same result as Fox realising the blue naked woman in X-Men First Class is suddenly the lead in a massive film series and by gum she's going to have a much more front and central role in the sequels. But because Uhura is official third tier behind Scotty they've never really pushed that advantage and have gone back and forth on how important the character is, especially in Beyond when it firmly swings to "Spock's most important relationship is with Bones, that who he plays off most" again.

I don't know if I'd agree with that. I haven't seen Beyond, so I can't comment there, but in the first two movies I felt like Uhura was a solid #3 behind Kirk and Spock in terms of screen time and characterization, definitely ahead of McCoy and Scotty. It was one of the things I spotted right away, and just assumed it was down to them wanting more prominent female representation in the series since it's not the 1960s anymore.

[EDIT]

I think it's easy to forget because of the way the film's died on their arses just how successful a TV show TNG was, IIRC All Good Things is the most watched episode of Trek ever and it would have been a regular top ten series had it been networked. It's comfortably the most popular Trek TV show during its first run by a massive margin. Considering its rough contemporaries that enjoyed syndication success as well (and helped knock DS9 down the charts) Baywatch and Xena are being revived it's hard not seeing there being a Captain Picard Show based film happening now if it had been called anything but Trek. Everyone involved seems to regard 94ish (around the time of the Shatner/Stewart Time cover) as the absolute peak of Trek's success and that's mostly down to the TNG crew.

This is true, for sure. It's easy to forget that in it's day, TNG was basically the be-all, end-all of televised "space" sci-fi. It's success basically relaunched the whole genre and led to who knows how many other shows taking off, not just Trek spinoffs but stuff like B5, Stargate, Andromeda, and who knows how much else. Even stuff as far along as the new BSG at least partly owes it's existence to TNG opening the door.

Being "the spinoff" makes it hard to reboot on it's own, though, you're right. I wouldn't have been surprised at all to see the new universe find a way to bring in new versions of Picard, Data or Worf if the movies had gone on long enough, though.

[inflatable dalek]

I think the new TV show might breathe new life into the franchise, but as it stands right now it doesn't look like there's much life left in it. And honestly I think the new movies have hurt rather than helped. Regardless of quality, they've mostly avoided the usual "flavour" of older Trek stuff in favour of being fairly paint-by-numbers action pieces, which probably leaves the new generation of viewers feeling like Trek isn't much but a Star Wars knockoff.

I'm clinging to the fact it's early days, but everything about this show feels so backwards looking and aimed solely at fans who were going to watch anyway. "Spock's Mother" ffs (if they've got recently career resurrected Winona Ryder to do a bit fine, that's sellable. "Spock's Mom" alone isn't). If you want a name from the wider series to guest star to get attention... this looks to be set at the time of SHOUTY Spock and Captain Pike, get Greenwood and Quinto to do a cameo! Or set it later and have Patrick Stewart do a crowd pleasing guest turn.

I get what you mean. I'm not sure a movie that focused more heavily on torch-passing would have felt any fresher, though. The series brought in McCoy, Spock, Sarek and Scotty, after all, seeing the original cast alongside the TNG crew didn't have the novelty that it once did by the time the movies rolled around.

TNG itself was always very sensible about not doing Kirk (two episodes were at one point "Bring Kirk back" ones, can you guess which?), and him and Stewart being together really should have all the oooommppphhhh it needs to make the film an event, especially as there were only two Trek captains at this point (Commander Sisko don't forget). It's just so fumbled. Kirk and Picard...make eggs!

But clearly there was a lot of pushback against it because all the other actors were used to being more than just glorified extras.

I don't think the other actors seem to mind the size of their roles so much as the quality (I think Marina Sirtis has always been upfront about just being happy to be working!). There's none of the bitterness you get from the original cast over "I was shrunk out", "He stole my lines", "I never got enough to do". Really they should all hate Spiner as much as anyone ever hated Shatner but everyone always seems pretty mellow and cool about it.

I don't know if I'd agree with that. I haven't seen Beyond, so I can't comment there, but in the first two movies I felt like Uhura was a solid #3 behind Kirk and Spock in terms of screen time and characterization, definitely ahead of McCoy and Scotty. It was one of the things I spotted right away, and just assumed it was down to them wanting more prominent female representation in the series since it's not the 1960s anymore.

I think she has like, two lines with Spock in the new one (though their relationship is the basis for one of the best gags, it's a gag between McCoy and Spock), for the rest of it she and Sulu are basically listening to Idris Elba give exposition.

One other thing to remember about the TNG films is that Stewart is only about a decade younger than Shatner. He's older than Bill was in TMP in Generations and older than he was in the Undiscovered Country in Nemesis (though the general lack of energy in that film makes him--and the rest of the cast--feel even older than they are). Playing him as an action hero was a ludicrous thing to have done and by the final film it never convinces. In VI both of Shatner's fights (balls in knees and against himself) are played for laughs. In Nemesis we're supposed to think Picard can take on an army of monsters by himself and win.

Action Picard only works in FC, and there because it's presented as inherently wrong. If Picard had been treated more like Kirk was in the TOS films (there's very few big fight scenes, Kurge being the main exception. Otherwise it's sitting on the bridge, plotting and occasionally shouting "FIRE!") they'd have gotten away with it. Maybe keep Hawk around to do the rough stuff considering Riker and Worf really stop looking convincing at it by this point as well.

[Cliffjumper]

I think the problem with the TNG films is as said they're the Picard and Data show but there's also the seeming obligation to give the rest something to do; whereas the TOS ones and the TF films for two examples are the Kirk/Spock/maybe a bit McCoy but it kinda varies show/the Optimus and Bumblebee show with the rest making up the numbers - and it's a format that works because people who like Chekov or Ironhide will be happy enough making the best out of their little lines and odd scene in the sun; the TNG ones fall between the two stools as they put nearly everyone in (I seem to remember Crusher gets sidelined in the first three pretty majorly; I've still yet to see four - and I'm yet to work out how Insurrection jumped so far up my running order) and then fail to do much with them. IV is the only one to really be anything like demographic and that's because there's basically no plot.

The new films have cost the franchise the high ground without much gain, yeah - I think they're going to be pretty harshly looked upon in 10-20 years time for sure, whereas the TNG ones are always going to have the TNG fans who love the TNG crew keeping them alive. I've only seen the first one - Into Darkness is around somewhere but probably in a box somewhere at least a year's worth of viewing away. It left me cold because everyone is either playing or playing off the TOS actors rather than the characters; it's either homage or subversion, like the idiotic "OMFG Kirk and Spock are rivals now! SYKE NOW THEY'RE BUDS!!!!" shit.

It might well be in the future that it gets the TF movie treatment, though - I could see a 2030s reboot with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Worf, Dax and 7 of 9 thrown in or something, like the way the Bay films started off as G1-inspired before lobbing in stuff like the Fallen, Drift and Lockdown.

[Brendocon 2.0]

Speaking as somebody who doesn't give a shit and hasn't seen the new one yet, I genuinely think they would have been better off just doing something new with these films right from the start.

Considering the original conceit of the show seems to have been "utopian vision of the future", running with "let's just rehash what they did 50 years ago" is monumentally ****ing stupid even before you factor in my biased schtick. It's point missing on an epic scale and shows a complete misunderstanding of what you're doing.

I mean okay, taken as Abrams' audition for Star Wars, we got the Force Awakens out of it, but he could easily have done the same thing with an original pitch rather than reducing the usually quite cerebral Trek to another generic all-sizzle/no-sausage sci-fi action movie.

[/goes back to watching Doctor Who and playing Pokémon]

[Warcry]

I'm clinging to the fact it's early days, but everything about this show feels so backwards looking and aimed solely at fans who were going to watch anyway. "Spock's Mother" ffs (if they've got recently career resurrected Winona Ryder to do a bit fine, that's sellable. "Spock's Mom" alone isn't). If you want a name from the wider series to guest star to get attention... this looks to be set at the time of SHOUTY Spock and Captain Pike, get Greenwood and Quinto to do a cameo! Or set it later and have Patrick Stewart do a crowd pleasing guest turn.

The what now? They think people care about Amanda Grayson enough to watch the show because of her?

Honestly, what puts me off the most is all the talk about, on the one hand, casting everyone in a "colour-blind, gender-blind" way, and then on the other hand going off about how the lead character is definitely gonna be a female minority. It just comes off as "we have no idea what characters we want to write or what we want to explore through them, so we'll just cast whoever and pretend it's us being progressive", with a dash of ignorance tossed in about just how diverse the cast of the last three shows had been, and how little it mattered to the finished product. DS9, Voyager and Enterprise had black actors, Asian actors, a Native American, a Middle Eastern actor, various Europeans and probably others that I'm forgetting, but with the exception of Sisko everyone's background was either ignored completely or played for ugly stereotypes. If they actually cared about diversity surely it would make sense to create a diverse set of characters first and then cast people who fit that, rather than making things up as they go after casting a bunch of randoms?

Though honestly, it's probably a moot point anyway since nobody's going to watch it in the US. I hope I'm wrong, but running it on a random streaming service that nobody subscribes to is a good recipe for getting cancelled after one season regardless of quality.

It's just so fumbled. Kirk and Picard...make eggs!

And get their asses kicked by an man who looks even older than they do!

Honestly, if they wanted to do a passing-the-torch movie they should have done a time travel plot so the two Enterprises could have worked side by side, crews and all. That might have been worth the price of admission.

I don't think the other actors seem to mind the size of their roles so much as the quality (I think Marina Sirtis has always been upfront about just being happy to be working!). There's none of the bitterness you get from the original cast over "I was shrunk out", "He stole my lines", "I never got enough to do". Really they should all hate Spiner as much as anyone ever hated Shatner but everyone always seems pretty mellow and cool about it.

I don't think the pushback would have necessarily come from the TNG cast (who, as you say, seemed to have been a lot more chill than the TNG bunch, probably on account of actually liking each other). But the writers would have been used to writing like that and were probably set in their ways, as were the fans who would have expected all the mains to at least get something to do even if it was irrelevant.

One other thing to remember about the TNG films is that Stewart is only about a decade younger than Shatner. He's older than Bill was in TMP in Generations and older than he was in the Undiscovered Country in Nemesis (though the general lack of energy in that film makes him--and the rest of the cast--feel even older than they are). Playing him as an action hero was a ludicrous thing to have done and by the final film it never convinces. In VI both of Shatner's fights (balls in knees and against himself) are played for laughs. In Nemesis we're supposed to think Picard can take on an army of monsters by himself and win.

It's true that Stewart was older than Shatner at those places in their careers, but age in Hollywood is always something that's more about perception than reality. The premature baldness and grey hair made Picard look a decade older than Stewart actually was, which meant that he didn't show very many visible signs of aging as the series and the movies went on (in fact I'd say older Picard looked more physically capable, since Patrick Stewart seemed to have put on a bit of muscle in the movie era). Whereas Shatner had got very obviously old and fat by TWOK, at least in comparison to the handsome young man he was during the series.

Picard doing the action hero thing was silly for all sorts of other reasons, mind, since it didn't fit with either the character or the tone of the series, but I didn't find him to be an especially-unbelievable action star. Not when Hollywood keeps trotting out Stallone and Arnie for one more go-around, anyway.

the TNG ones fall between the two stools as they put nearly everyone in (I seem to remember Crusher gets sidelined in the first three pretty majorly; I've still yet to see four - and I'm yet to work out how Insurrection jumped so far up my running order) and then fail to do much with them. IV is the only one to really be anything like demographic and that's because there's basically no plot.

From what I can remember, Crusher probably fares the worst of all. I don't think she actually contributes anything meaningful in any of the four, and if you told me she had less that twenty lines across all of them I wouldn't disbelieve you. Worf was a big part of First Contact but was otherwise pretty useless, to the point where I'm kind of surprised they bothered jumping through hoops to include him in the last couple. Troi is mostly just there to flirt with Riker, who doesn't fare especially well himself (but then Frakes directed two of the things, so he probably didn't mind). Geordi, in spite of being the poster boy for unused characters, actually isn't, since he had a meaty role in Generations and had lots to do in First Contact too. It's just that he's completed disappeared in the last two.

I honestly don't think Insurrection or Nemesis would be much different if all they'd brought back from the series was Picard with Data as his first officer. Well, aside from losing the "payoff" to the Riker/Troi romance that hadn't had any heat to it in a decade. And yet they took pains to make sure everyone was on-screen and getting a few lines in, like you said, and that really did eat up time that could have been better used on something else.

It might well be in the future that it gets the TF movie treatment, though - I could see a 2030s reboot with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Worf, Dax and 7 of 9 thrown in or something, like the way the Bay films started off as G1-inspired before lobbing in stuff like the Fallen, Drift and Lockdown.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them do that, or to do a new Enterprise-focused TV series starring Kirk and co. with the crews from the other series flitting in and out as guest stars (i.e. Picard and the TNG crew are on the Stargazer, and they show up to help Kirk a few times a season).

Speaking as somebody who doesn't give a shit and hasn't seen the new one yet, I genuinely think they would have been better off just doing something new with these films right from the start.

Yes, probably. The franchise really seems like it needs to be dynamited and rebuilt from the ground up. As much as I love some of the old stuff, I don't think they should be tying into that when the old stuff going off the rails is a big part of why the franchise is where it is right now.

[Heinrad]

Maybe keep Hawk around to do the rough stuff considering Riker and Worf really stop looking convincing at it by this point as well.

Hawk was already commanding DS9, intimidating the hell out of the Cardassians.

-crickets chirp-

Oh, come now, I can't be the only person here to have seen Spencer: For Hire, can I?

To, kind of, defend the reboot movies, they are fun. They probably would benefit more from drawing from a TV series, and other than a ship reveal, I've seen nothing about Discovery. In extremely short bursts, they're trying to build up the character relationships that were built up over the course of a season or 3. Beyond felt like the right kind of universe building.

The down side to all this is, to make sure they(hopefully) draw in the money, they need to be far more big-budget summer popcorn blockbusters than any of the Trek movies before.

[inflatable dalek]

Happy 50th birthday Star Trek!


I'm off to London overnight to see The Wrath of Khan at the cinema.