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Fans Attempting to Pay for Enterprise
An anonymous reader writes "What started of as a suggestion to pay for season 5 of Enterprise has actully snowballed into a project that no one has ever attempted before, that of getting fans to pay for the production costs of a tv series. It has brought on board a raft of people including lawyers. I wonder if the quoted $50 to $80 million is reachable." I gotta say that Enterprise has been better this season, but I feel like it's still only mediocre. Battlestar Galactica might be the best SciFi airing right now. And I woulda chipped in for more Firefly in a heartbeat.
By taping in my basement and wearing our homemade costumes! Live long and prosper.
The main stumbling block, of course, is securing a suitable source of gold-pressed latinum.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
How much extra would it cost to fire Berman?
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
GET A LIFE!
I'll create an amusing sig when I have something meaningful to post.
I thought about paying for Enterprise, but in the end I decided to download Fedora Core for free.
*ducks*
I wish that my inferiority complex were as good as yours.
-RenderHead
There is no way both fans have that kind of money.
Hell, isn't this just the business model for HBO/Showtime/Skinemax and PBS?
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
The biggest problem with that show was that they skipped the second and third spin-offs and went straight to the "stranded a bagillion miles away from home with a younger, hipper crew" one.
It may seem alright now, but just wait until they start the "hundreds of years earlier but we have better technology than the first guys" one. Billy the Kid and Abraham Lincoln making contact with the aliens that take over your body back in the 1800s just won't work. Everyone knows it was Q that brought those aliens around.
Some trekkies are obsesive and they they'd donate their soap and shampoo money for this.
This assumes that they had any money budgetted for soap and shampoo in the first place.
"You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older."
I wonder how much money could have been raised from a bunch of "save your favorite show" websites scamming money from various rabid fans? Scamming money for a good cause is legal right???
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
It could be done for a lot less than $80 million if fans were willing to accept some changes in the production methods of the show. Here are my ideas:
1. Use a prosumer type videocams to record shows instead of network grade production equipment.
2. Don't use the studio sets to produce the show; build a set on somebody's property elsewhere.
3. Don't use the actors; go to a theatre school and find some actors. You don't need Mr. Quantum Leap to be the captain. In the theatre business, plays are produced over and over with different actors all the time.
4. I'm sure a bunch of slashdotters could scrounge up some CRT's and write some graphics to simulate the computer technology shown on the ship.
5. Use scripts written by fans instead of the schlock that Berman et al have been putting out.
Of course none of this will happen because of the hammerlock on the copyrights that Roddenberry's estate has. I think that is part of the problem with the franchise; Roddenberry's will constrains the types of plots that can be used in these shows.
Just my two cents...
"Lack of technical competence coupled with the arrogance of power, as usual, leads to no good end."
I think your comment neatly summarizes the Star Trek ethos pretty well.
Or not.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
If I was paying for an entire run of a TV series, I'd at least want to read the scripts. Get a bunch of Star Trek fans involved with a script approval process and you'll have a riot.
No, *I* get the cameo walk on role...
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
OH oh! and we should have a secret word to call scott by so when we need another fan we'll know ... say "Broktune"?
(10 points if you get it)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Out of a cannon? At $5/ticket it'd be PURE PROFIT, BABY!!
heyyy... maybe we've finally discovered what the "???" part of "The Plan" might actually be!!
This space intentionally left (almost) blank.
I can't tell if you're confusing Enterprise with Voyager, or if you're making a subtle comment about Archer. :)
It's OK! I'm a limo driver!
I agree, mailing DVDs to one or two people would be far cheaper than a commercial-free distribution.
What if Bill Gates payed? I'm pretty sure he'd do it if Enterprise ran Windows XP - and it'd give the slashdotters a laugh when it BSODed right in the middle of a battle :P
--
If you can do it for BattleStar, why not? Now let's see, who could we cast as Kirk....
Attach a dynamo to Gene Roddenberry's corpse and play the first few seasons of Enterprise at his gravesite. Sell the electricity generated from his spinning corpse to the power companies and it should be more than enough to finance several more seasons of the show.
What would they spend their money on then? A date? I don't think so...
I'd laugh if this now becomes incorporated into the Slashdot meme. That is to say, every future "Plan" post, no matter what the subject, somehow features firing Rick Berman out of a cannon and selling tickets. It'd serve him right. I mean, look how quickly the "old people in Korea" thing caught on.
Hm, I'd better get started propagating.
Wrong Show.. Voyager had a female captain, Enterprise has Scott Bakula. But that's besides the point.
The original series had KIRK. Kirk cannot be compared to any other captain in the ST universe because Kirk's Prime Directive was to seek and and find new alien civilizations and determine if "all the parts fit", if you know what I mean.
Kirk was THE MAN. Kirk GOT LAID. Kirk had his priorities straight. Kirk was the pimp-daddy of all pimp daddies.
The rest are just pussies by comparison.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Plan:
1) Incorporate '???' profit into running gag on Slashdot similar to 'all your base' and 'in soviet Russia'
2) Bitch about Microsoft
3) Promote Linux
4) Fire Berman from a cannon for $5
6) Profit!
Holy shit, it works!