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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.
A life sized Beverly Crusher... Maybe.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
At least they found a new way to skill the red-shirt guy on the bridge.
...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
Why would someone pay that kind of money for a big giant borg doll when Realdoll sells one that actually looks pleasent. If you need companionship due to your nerd induced ugliness and low social status, don't compound your unnattractiveness by screwing a giant borg man. Go buy a sexy lingerie doll and pretend its a real girl, its good practice for pretending you actually have a life.
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
Wow, a life sized LoB model? And here I was happy with my Borg Cube Christmas ornament! "We are the Borg, Enjoy your hollidays, Resistance is Futile!"
People are more violently opposed to fur than leather
because it's safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs
is pre- or pro- Roddenbury?
I wonder why they didnt use the RIAA method of calculating sales. I bet the 'actual' number would be around 300 trillion.
Lets see, you have to count lost sales as 'stolen revenue', so every time someone looks at an episode of star trek without watching commercials, lost revenue. Every utterance of a copywrighted line from any star trek, lost royalties...you get the idea...
Shut up...its funny to me, but Ive been up since the day before yesterday doing networking layouts...
Intel has made lots of money off of computer processors, but to say that they can release a substandard chip and not care about it is wrong.
It's the same way with Nemesis. I've sworn off seeing these Treks in the theaters anymore. After Insurection and now this turkey of a movie, I've decided it just isn't worth it. I'll wait until someone else buys the DVD, or I'll download it from Kazaa. If you take into account that I saw the STII:TWOK in the theater three times and STIV:TVH twice, I think it's safe to say that Paramount stands to lose money from bad movies.
Friends help you move. Real friends help you move bodies.
The US has been in an economic pit for the past two years. Now's the time to be spending money on whatever you damn well please. I it's Christmas, buy yourself some new LOTR costume that you can prance around the woods in.
It's your duty as a consumer to buy you country out of the recession!
Sheesh.. how broad an assumption is that?
How the hell would you automatically assume that 470 lifesize borg figures were all sold to Open Source 'zealots'?!
They are more likely to be bought by wealthy collectors, or movie memorabilia stores.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Use that computer you claim to know so much about and buy Quicken or something. It will really save you dearly in the end, and perhaps save your family.
Dammit, when are you going to learn? You've got to wait for GNUicken of XQuicken or Open K Quicken to be done first. In the mean time, any idea where I can get one of those full-size replicas?
Funny I saw nowhere in that article where it said that the main demographic of the people that purchased the life sized replica were people making $30,000 a year with a family, 2 kids and a dog.
Go troll someplace else.
I mod down any one who says "I'm sure I will get modded down for this"
I'm a pretty big trek fan, as trek fans go, and I REALLY liked the film. I'm terrible at writing reviews without giving away plot hints, but I'm here to say that it was probably my #3 favorite trek film.
One thing, though. I can see people interested in Locutus, Borg Queen, Khan, or a few other star trek-related bad guys. But this film's bad guy? He's just picard with a narrower, younger head. He was still a good bad guy, I thought, but I don't think he has the sinister style that sticks with people like the other bad guys I mentioned.
But anyway, go see the movie... it was excellent.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
How this post got mode so far up is a mystery to me. All that is being said is that some poor folk spend their money unwisely on entertainment, and other nonessentials. This is, or at least ought to be, common knowledge.
There are people who will cough up major bucks going to casinos, playing lotto, and getting drunk or stoned. Others will spend big cash on sporting events, and/or sporting goods that they can ill afford. Still others will spend more than is prudent on homes that are in "exclusive" neighborhoods, sports cars, big @$*!^ SUV with all the bells, and whistles, or parade float sized limos. The list is finite but none the less large.
I'm not immune to this sort of behavior, though I do like to think that my case of consumeritis is a mild one. I spend way more than I need to on fishing tackle. Not to mention computer gear, and associated gadgets, and gizmos.
"...but ask yourself if you'd rather have three meals a day, or some new LOTR costume that you can prance around the woods in."
Given the obesity rate here in the US I'd say that a lot more Americans need to be vigorously prancing around around (be it in the woods or elsewhere, or in costume or no) than consuming three meals a day.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Who the hell bought that Trek chess set from the Franklin Mint? (Does anyone really fall for that $30/month .. for the next five years. [Do the sales people get a Five Year Commission?])
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I'm sorry, which doll was it that we were talking about here? :^P
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Free software is about freedom to reuse, redistribute, and change software that you use. That has nothing to do with whether you pay for the software or not. I have paid a lot of money for free software over the years, as have many other people. In fact, tech support and services are some of the main ways in which free software advocates recommend making money with free software.
Don't mean to sound vicious or judgemental or anything,
No, you just sound stupid.
i'm sorry but nemesis was a good movie.
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.
.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Seriously. If people are spending money on Locutus of Borg dummies (how much would a lifesize, vibrating 7 of 9 go for?), you know that they would buy a PCS phone that looks like a classic trek communicator. Paramount can't be so much above being greedy that they cannot have figured this one out.
Then again, maybe that would push the creation of the Church of Star Trek, and if you watch Futurama, you know what that means...
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Even adjusting for inflation doesn't do it. You have to adjust for changes in ticket prices, which have accelerated well beyond inflation. Throw that in, or look at the actual number of tickets sold, and the picture gets even grimmer.
Everyone knows the Borg are an evil, closed-source monopoly.
"For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public relations for nature cannot be fooled." -Feynman
two reasons even their built-in audience might give this a miss:
one and two
the people who own/write/act/produce trek are bored with their cash cow
'Be the change you want to see in the world' - Al Gore
- It incorporated the theme from the TOS movies. While the original TV theme is a requirement, the TOS movie theme is the domain of the TOS cast, in my opinion, and shouldn't have been used in a TNG movie.
- The Star Trek logo was changed in a way just for this movie. While it might have been appropriate to change the Star Trek logo for a genre of movies, such as all TNG movies, or a trilogy of TNG movies at the smallest subset, changing it for just one movie is just too haughty.
Brent Spiner obviously put his heart and soul into this movie. But he wasn't humble about it, for the above reasons, and because he went through the whole movie with that p***ed off look. I can't believe I haven't read the comment on Slashdot yet, "Why was Data constipated the whole movie?"Every appearance of this movie was not that it wasn't intended to be just another movie in the franchise (as suggested by this article, being published at the time of the movie release), as Insurrection was (it was just a TNG episode, not an epic). This was intended to be a good movie, and I might have even thought it better than ST8 if it hadn't been for the haughtiness.
<wisper>it's only a movie</wisper>
The domain fetish-is-futile.com IS available, for what it's worth.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
some poor folk spend their money unwisely on entertainment, and other nonessentials
I'm guessing you posted from a computer, yes? Let's not cast stones here.
Keep your packets off my GNU/Girlfriend!
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.
And they still havent made any money
I'd say no stones have been cast.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I saw it, and loved it.
I was appalled by the review that R. Ebert gave it. I can't trust him to dis bad movies anymore because he "shit the bed" on his remarks about Nemesis. He might plug some pretty good ones, but how can we trust a critic who spoils one of the best scenes late in the movie? Don't trailers do enough of that!
As for this article, people have already pointed out how flawed the research is.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The above comment was written by my young son with my account. So, even he knows more than you!
===== Fiction ebooks and paperbacks.
What's the difference between star trek and star wars?
In Star Trek, the heros are multiracial genetically typical individuals like you and me who have worked hard to make themselves the best they can be. People work to better themselves and equality of all races, sexes and creeds is stressed. In Star Wars, the heros are white males who have been given incredible genetic gifts that they then use to rule over the lower class. It's hard to tell exactly what they are working towards and they can't even keep large numbers of their ranks from defecting and joining the opposing faction (Sith Lords).
You can read a fuller explanation here
GMD
watch this
Before Nemesis, I had never seen an actual Star Trek movie.
And you dare to call yourself a nerd?!? Hang your head in shame, young man!
GMD
watch this
in actually buying one of these, in the Las Vegas Hilton in their Star Trek wing (seriously) they have a store where you can see the life-sized locutus for real (and other such rich-folks collectibles), and buy them if you like.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd never buy anything like that unless I've seen it up close in real life.
... Also for $12,000 you can have them (the paramount wardrobe department) custom make you a Klingon Warrior Uniform.
...Also, I didn't know Buggalo could fly.
Two British parents immediately ensures that whilst you might know the rules of cricket, the skills and tactics of the game are totally beyond you...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
470 people have actually paid $5,000 apiece for a life-size replica of the villain Locutus
While I'm sure there are some trek weirdos and collectors that have these sort of things... how many were collected by theatres, conventions, and other businesses/events that wanted to promote some $tar Trek cash inflow?