Star Trek - ok, who went?
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
F*ck it. I did. Liked it. Didn't love it. But that shit just rescued the franchise. 
mannybolone
Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
Comments
We aint talmbout Star Wars/Lord Of The Rings/The Matrix.
The Animated Series came out a minute ago and the last movie wasnt that long ago. On top of The Enterprise tv show.
Star Trek has never been "off the radar" since I was kid.
Even if the last movie wasnt loved, i dont recall folks sayin the franchise was dead the way Lucas killed his shit and The Matrix pimpin itself out.
Just Sayin -
I rode for the original series, TNG, and Deep Space Nine. But Voyager and Enterprise plus a series of craptastic movies killed the franchise for me and many of my friends.
Berman & Braga are still considered dirty words in our household.
Cool.
One of my buddies is a Trek dude and liked all the variants.
Enterprise was boring when I checked it out, but its existance is a testiment to the franchise's durability - wack,mediocre,or good....imo.
Simon pegg and Zoe Saldana and that Green girl were the best things in it for me.
- spidey
The franchise - relative to where it had been - was moribund. There are no more TV shows on the air (and given that Paramount had rolled out four over the course of the last 20 years, that's a big deal) and the critical and commercial failure of "Nemesis" was about to put future films in jeopardy.
I don't know what Animated Series you're talking about. There hasn't been a Star Trek cartoon on their air since the 1970s! You thinking of, um, Star WARS maybe?
I'm no hardcore Trekker but I decided to scan the message boards after the new film came out and much to my surprise, it's gone HUGE with fans, most of whom have said the same thing as I was suggesting: the franchise was on the ropes and this brought it back in a big way. If this new film had tanked, it is entirely possible that ST would only live on in novels but not in any visual medium.
I would also disagree with the other examples you gave - Star Wars is hardly dead. Far, far from in. Creatively, Lucas might have just knocked out three shitty films, but you look at the box office? Dude was minting his own money off that shit. If he wanted to make another SW film, people would be lined up around the block to see it - costumes and all. And as for "Lord of the Rings" - how is that franchise "dead" when they're making a new movie of "The Hobbit" that will, no doubt, be huge once it drops in a couple of years? Compared to those two franchises, "Star Trek" was deathly anemic, at best.
watched the og reruns as a kid. it was literally the first television show i'd ever watched. never watched any of the following series's. thought the movie was good,not great. the main drwback was the weak villan imo.
LOL. Yo - is it me or is Zoe Saldana like a better-looking, younger version of Thandi Newton? Just saying.
And yeah, Eric Bana (and his character) are the latest in a long, long line of uber-lame arch-villains. You'd think they would have learned something from "Wrath of Khan" and "Undiscovered Country" and created a villain with charisma rather than yet another psychopath (the Borg excepted).
Im talmbout the official release of the 70's series, which wasnt available commercially.
Like music - sales doesnt tell the whole story. Mad folks were dissapointed at Lucas for how 1,2,and 3 ended up. And i dont know anyone that watches the cartoon.
The video games do well, but after that its not the great mythology it was from the 70's/80's.
Ill check the Hobbit, but that last installment despite the "sales" didnt leave folks talmbout "That's That Shit!"
Might as well bring Harry Potter up in this discussion, cause that franchise has been the dominant shit for a minute.
Chopper would've told them to harden the F*ck up
Personally, I thought the plot was kind of ridiculous - and that's even by Trek standards - but it's really easy to get into the film and overlook that fact because frankly, it's really kind of fun in many, many ways, especially as a Trek fan. It also looks very different from any previous Trek film, I think specifically because it's not beholden to what the TNG films looked like in style and art direction.
You'll likely like it. My main issues with it come back to the plot but I still found myself enjoying the film despite that.
Maybe we're just splitting hairs but I guess it depends on how you define a franchise being "alive" or "dead."
"Star Wars" is a healthy franchise insofar as you could reasonably expect to see more Star Wars-related media coming out in the future (whether you'd WANT to is a different story, especially after the hatched job Lucas did on his own creation). However, whatever flaws in Lucas' approach, I just don't see how one can suggest Star Wars is remotely "dead" given that its still viable in contemporary pop culture.
Just to give another example: I thought "Transformers" was a shitty-ass film but that franchise = alive and well. People (and by that, I mean companies) are willing to keep these franchises in the public imagination through movies, tv shows, comic books, etc. Once that stream ends, even if there's still a cult following, it's no longer part of a common cultural experience. "Star Wars" = still in the game, regardless if it deserves to be.
As for "Return of the King" - I thought it was the best of the three "Lord" films and given that it was also the most successful AND critically acclaimed of the three, I don't think I'm alone in that assessment. In my opinion, that WAS that shit. And like I said, they're making "The Hobbit". Ergo, franchise = alive and kicking.
I don't think "Star Trek" was on the verge of disappearing into obscurity or anything. But as I was suggesting, relative to the health of the franchise since the 1980s, it's been anemic since the disappointment of both "Nemesis" and "Enterprise". The success of the new film is going to rejuvenate the series' cinematic future though I doubt we're likely to see a new TV series anytime soon - creatively, it's just hard to figure out where they could take that after 4 shows since 1987.
... I think he would have overwhelmed the real focus of this movie, the young crew of the enterprise. This movie was about them (more specifically Kirk and Spock) than it was about a cool villain.
You can also think of it as a meta-narrative where the new, reinvigorated movie kills the turgid and slow awfulness that came before.
Word. As far as reboots go, it was ballsy to say the least. I was so surprised that fans weren't in a bigger uproar over how Abrams went about it but from what I've seen, response amongst Trek folk has been incredibly positive.
Maybe we're just splitting hairs but I guess it depends on how you define a franchise being "alive" or "dead."
"Star Wars" is a healthy franchise insofar as you could reasonably expect to see more Star Wars-related media coming out in the future (whether you'd WANT to is a different story, especially after the hatched job Lucas did on his own creation). However, whatever flaws in Lucas' approach, I just don't see how one can suggest Star Wars is remotely "dead" given that its still viable in contemporary pop culture.
Just to give another example: I thought "Transformers" was a shitty-ass film but that franchise = alive and well. People (and by that, I mean companies) are willing to keep these franchises in the public imagination through movies, tv shows, comic books, etc. Once that stream ends, even if there's still a cult following, it's no longer part of a common cultural experience. "Star Wars" = still in the game, regardless if it deserves to be.
As for "Return of the King" - I thought it was the best of the three "Lord" films and given that it was also the most successful AND critically acclaimed of the three, I don't think I'm alone in that assessment. In my opinion, that WAS that shit. And like I said, they're making "The Hobbit". Ergo, franchise = alive and kicking.
I don't think "Star Trek" was on the verge of disappearing into obscurity or anything. But as I was suggesting, relative to the health of the franchise since the 1980s, it's been anemic since the disappointment of both "Nemesis" and "Enterprise". The success of the new film is going to rejuvenate the series' cinematic future though I doubt we're likely to see a new TV series anytime soon - creatively, it's just hard to figure out where they could take that after 4 shows since 1987.
I was with you up until that last part. Best believe that a new Star Trek TV series is in the works as we speak.
Chatting about whether or not "franchises" are alive is murky and depressing, what with Trek Burger Kings cups, Transformers video games, Lord of the Rings online universes. Our self-referential, infinitely ironic culture is going to ensure every piece of crap movie with a solid box-office run is turned into a trilogy or, at the very least, remembered by Mo Rocca on some VH1 show.
Seems like the new Trek film will definitely be quality pop-corn fodder. Still unknown to me is whether the Trekkie "real heads" will "co-sign" -- and also whether or not that even means anything. How can you really trust folks who follow middling, sub-par Trek series on the WB? I don't think I can. One thing I was reading, can't remember where, was a review that said the new movie, more or less, wasn't "sci-fi enough." That it didn't look at our present through the lens of the future. That sorta rubbed me the wrong way.
I like movies that are really nerdy but some of the so-called Trek heads are nerdy in more of a pop culture sense. I'd rather something be more Philip K. than Andy, dick-wise, if that makes any sense.
I think the operative word is "franchise," meaning the "entity that generates money" as opposed to the art end of things. You could argue that artistically, Star Wars fell off years ago, but the franchise itself is alive and well.
I don't know if you were predicting a new series or actually know of a new one in prep. From what I've read, there have been no plans and I don't know if the success of the movie will jump-start that again. Producing a new sci-fi TV series tends to be expensive and more and more networks are getting gunshy but hey, given the success of Battlestar Galatica, who knows what's possible?
Now that was a 'DEAD' franchise.
They had nothin to show for themselves since the second TV series in 1980.
Unless u wanna factor in the convention presence w/ toys,bootleg vhs,and Dirk Benedict autographs.
As well as the Rebooted series went, I dont hear about it anymore.
I waiting for the Logan's Run Remix along w/ the TV show DVD.
I dont see a tv series after 1 flick.
I also agree with the comment that the real point of the movie was to go into the backgrounds of the characters. That worked for me.
george takei should have protested that shit
my girl watched it with her friends and liked it though
Yeah, the hell with the Trek. Essential Headz will be checking for what is sure to be the Greatest Movie Ever Made:
Actually my Sci-fi homie used to watch it w/ his kid but they both lost interest.
Ill have to disagree that the Cartoon is just for young kids. They know that dudes my age, who are heads and are still interested in the mythology, will check for this. Its far from the Ewoks Cartoon.
BattleStar Galactica(first season) had a serious buzz w/ sci-fi/comic fans and casual tv watchers. Same w/ the first season of Heroes.
They've all fizzled out.