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The Business of Star Trek
angkor writes "Paramount claims merchandise sales have exceeded $4 billion over Trek's lifetime; 470 people have actually paid $5,000 apiece for a life-size replica of the villain Locutus." And that my friends, is why Nemesis didn't even have to be a really good movie.
...and what was that industry claim, again, about how pirate DVD's are hurting the industry...and why anyone should care?
Or does the USD$4bil include estimates of perceived gain as well (as opposed to projected loses)?
There are so many serious problems with that article that it is hard to take it seriously.
First of all, it refers to Rick Berman as the "new" honcho of Star Trek. Huh? He has been the honcho for more than a decade.
Second, it "buries the lede." That is a journalism phrase to indictate that the most important element of the story has been pushed to the bottom. At the end of the article you will find that "Enterprise" is the lowest rated Star Trek show in history, achieving one third of the ratings of Voyager. And Voyager's ratings were always quite low.
Sometimes an editor gets an idea for an article and it remains despite the article no longer representing the headline. The headline wants you to believe Star Trek is continuing to be lucrative for Paramount, but when you read the article you begin to scratch your head. The box office chart is not adjusted for inflation and if it was, you'd see each movie seems to do basically less worldwide box office with each iteration.
Etc etc
I'd expect that the Romulans would have been training him to speak with a British accent before they gave up the infiltration plan and abandoned him on Remus. He looked about 10-12 in the flashbacks that showed him being thrown into the dungeons, so it seems reasonable that he'd already developed his accent by that time.
Not that I'm saying I thought he was a good villain --- he wasn't really --- but the accent certainly isn't any less believable than the idea of a universal translator that can even make aliens' lips move like they're speaking English...
Precisely. Churning out these heavily advertised schlock movies is no longer about quality, and hasn't been for quite some time. Back when Star Wars prequel 1 was in the works I was working in the special effects industry, and a full year in advance of its release date I remember hearing from the higher-ups at Lucas that the movie was already guaranteed profitability, because of all the merchandising follow-ons and themed advertising partnerships that were already in place. It made me feel ill, and I have refused to go see prequel 1 or 2, and in fact will not see another star wars movie. I'd rather have the time for other experiences.
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- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
I thought that over all, it was a good scifi movie. It had the visuals, cools toys, and special effects that looked good. The acting was actually far better then I thought it was going to be, especially the bad guy Shinwa (or however they were saying the name) and Picard. The way that the film makers made you think about origins and the way one turns out in life was cool. However, I had a hard time believing that a human that grew up with a bunch of aliens would have an English accent, but whatever. He was still a dark and ominous character. I do remember some of the series plotlines and character relationships, so it was nice to see the way that some of them have evolved. This aspect seemed well done, especially when you consider that this is the last film. I also liked the way that Data went out, that was pretty suprising.