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The Business of Star Trek

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the rolling-in-the-bucks dept.

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.

3 of 232 comments (clear)

  1. Uh huh... by djupedal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...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)?

  2. That Article has Serious Factual Problems by loggia · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  3. Opinion of a non-Trek fan: by mao+che+minh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Before Nemesis, I had never seen an actual Star Trek movie. I have only seen an episode of the newest version, and as a kid I saw about 10 episodes of "The Next Generation". So, as someone without any pre-disposition to like or dislike the film, here goes:

    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.