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TrekUnited Reports Mission Successful at Trek Rallies
Lord Prox writes "TrekUnited.com has the scoop on the LA/Paramount, Tel Aviv, and New York rallies. Surprises include a group of donors pledging a resounding $3mil and the appearances of cast and crew members. Reuters and Wired have details on the rallies and I took a few snapshots as well."
I think when you see this level of support for a show like Star Trek it shows it has passed the point of being a mere "TV show" and has become a full-fledged cultural phenomenon like jazz or abstract art or classical music.
I have a friend who is a grant writer. She does work for charties applying to government agencies and private foundations for to get money.
I think there is a good chance of supporting Star Trek through the use of grants from the government and from charitable foundations, the way PBS and NPR do. Museums do this kind of thing all the time, look at the MOMA in New York, that thing isn't funded by selling commercial time. Someone from Star Trek should look into this.
What happens to the money?
Theres a good chance they won't raise enough money, and a chance that even if they do the studio won't be interested or they won't find anyone to air it.
If such a thing comes to pass, what happens then?
The mistake here is that these dedicated fans are essentially casting their cash into the coffers of a company who has it out for their TV show. This shouldn't be viewed as a project that requires their donations to make it happen. This should be an investment, something with a potential return on their capital.
I agree with everyone who said that the first couple of seasons sucked, although it had its moments; season three was sometimes pretty cool, definately an improvement. The lack of other good shows on TV (I hate reality TV) kept me watching.
Now that Coto's in charge, season four kicks ass! Too bad so many people already wrote the show off. I just saw an episide that explains beautifully why Klingons looked different in the original series, and even fits in with Worf's comment in the DS9 "tribbles" episode ("We don't talk about it"). That's the kind of thing they should have done from the get-go, rather than screwing around with that "tempral cold-war" crap.
Here's hoping the show can continue!
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I am a 'Trek fan, but I have to agree with the parent's sentiment (except for the comment on "giving away software for free"). There are much better uses for $32M US.
As long as we keep trying to maintain the old franchises, there is no incentive for new material.
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Personally, I think the series hit its stride somewhere in the 3rd season....By the 6th and 7th, I can't say that it was incredible, but by no means was it as unwatchable as some of the Voyager episodes.
if the season is financed by money from the public, then it will play without advertisements because they need recoup no money on it's production, right?
Not bloody likely. Why in the hell would anyone want to line the pockets of some TV station? If you like it that much, then make it a straght to DVD thing. OR...
at least give a dividend of the profits to each who contributes according to ratio of investment. I mean, really -- how daft is this? Why not raise public money to keep those cool beer commercials on the air, then? (snicker) What's the difference?
This is a buisness, folks, and this is daft.
They need to do a Next "next" generation. Put Star Trek 500 years in the future.
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
Contrary to popular belief, the best actors and writers are not necessarily the veterans: Tom Cruise, James Woods, etc. You can find awesome writers and actors who are fresh out of acting school.
For starters, I think your comment just proved that we shouldn't be looking for writers on Slashdot.
1 - To Enterprise fans, while it may be slowly turning into a good show, it's still not Star Trek. It's not set in the familiar setting and universe that Star trek fans like and know. They seem to have ripped off token aliens such as the Klingons, Romulans, and even the Borg (!!!), but half the time they mess up the characterizations, such as the suddenly dictatorial emo Vulcans. An upside-down Akira-class is kinda cute, to those who get the reference, but it doesn't make much sense 100 years before Kirk. Heck, it didn't even have "Star Trek" in the title for the first two seasons, and they're only just now trying to tie it in!
2 - I think it would've worked much better had they left it as a Quantum Leap spinoff, although it pissed me off that they threw in that Temporal Cold War thing but refused to offer an explanation as to why Al couldn't communicate with Sam. Or is that Daniels guy supposed to be Al's descendant or something? And if he can travel through time at will, why can't they just use his gadgetry to (finally) bring Sam home? And does Sam really survive into the 22nd century so he can leap that far? If so, he must be getting pretty old and moldy strapped into that chair at the research institute. I can see why they abandoned that premise, but I think a complicated resolution would be more interesting than this after-the-fact Star Trek prequel bullshit.
Star Trek has *always* been a mirror of US politics... even TOS had it (klingons/federation = russians/americans). TNG (ooh look we made peace with the rus..err..klingons). The films (the last one was about a terrorist leader with a big WMD).
Enterprise got a bit blatant with the unprovoked attack on earth that wiped out half of the US and the subsequent hunt for the cuplrits, but it's just following a pattern that's always been there.
Just today I finally got around to watching that fanfilm.
I can't help but think that the dudes who put together "Starship Exeter" could probably get a lot more bang for the buck with that $3 million that anything Paramount could ever come up with.
Sure, the acting was obviously amature. Those guys are no professional actors. Strangely enough, it wasn't really that much worse than the average Shatneresque episode, and you had to give them credit for putting their heart and soul into those 35 minutes. And it showed.
And, heck, the audio and the video FX was far above than any computer-generated eye candy pablum that a few million bucks would buy you these days.
I say - if they can't raise enough cash to save the show, give whatever they got to the Starship Exeter dudes. They'll put it to good use.
He calls a friend on the mobile communicator and says, "I have just had the worst nightmare in which I lived a version of the ancient history taught at Star Fleet Academy. The entire universe was screwed up. Hand-held phasers are called 'phase pistols', and on-board phasers are called 'phase cannons'. Further, some incompetent moron was serving as Captain. Also, one of the engineers spoke Ebonics, which was eradicated from earth centuries ago. Also, there was this Vulcan with big breasts, and she tried to act sexy. Ugh. It just did not work. Bit breasts with a boyish haircut but without emotions just does not make "sexy". She looked horribly repulsive. It scared the living daylights out of me."
The voice out of the communicator says, "Don't worry. It was just a nightmare. Everyone knows that Vulcans do not have big breasts. [laughter] Go back to bed, James."
Your criticisms essentially boil down to "WAAAAH, IT WAS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT I'M USED TO!"
What was wrong with "phase pistols/cannons?" What would make you assume that "phaser" was not a contraction? "Phase" is not a transitive verb. You can't phase something.
Ebonics? What? Trip is from Florida and he has a slight Southern accent. If someone had an urban African-American accent, why would that be surprising? This show takes place not too far in the future after the events depicted in First Contact, and that wasn't too different from modern America.
T'Pol is a complicated character who happens to be hot. She is anything BUT a typical emotionless Vulcan.
Stop whining and pay attention to the content. Not everything in the Star Trek universe is going to be just like TNG or TOS, and you shouldn't want it to be or expect it to be.
Personally, I'd like to see another show focus on the civilian part of the Trek universe. Maybe something similar to Firefly.
+++ATH0
"Why spend so much money to save an unpopular show?"
Because it's not unpopular at all. The *lowest* ratings that ST:ENT has ever recieved amounted to 5 million viewers. That may be poor for network TV, but it's great for cable. Even BS:G averages around 3-4 million.
People are not rational. Some people actually *pay* for the privilege of wearing a shirt with "GAP" written on it or with the Nike logo.
They will pay to advertise a brand that already sells them products with insane profit margins, that already hammers them with incessant and mindless ads any occasion it gets, and they pay to do it both to themselves and to others...
Once you've seen that, the Chewbacca defense makes perfect sense.
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Note how everybody here who is defending it is solely defending Season 4? That's because Season 4 is *good*. More than that, it addresses all the problems you had with it.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I feel sorry for the actors who signed aborad Enterprise. I'm sure they were expecting a nice 7-year ride and some chances to do some challenging acting once in a while. Instead, they got Breman and Braga'd into a 4 year soap-opera.
If you take a look at the history of the Star Trek franchise, the show's quality started out remarkably good (considering it was a campy 1960's wagon train in space). They got a good diverse set of writers to write about topics of the day and tried to both produce fluffy entertainment AND slip a few social messages through the censors.
When TNG was created, Gene Roddenberry had the chance to tell the kinds of stories he wanted to tell back in the 60's, but without the overwhelming concerns of money and the delicate ears of the country. The success of the original show in syndication(!) and the movies gave him all the clout he needed, and so he made a show that revived ST and fired it up for years to come.
Expanding the franchise, he came up with the ideas for DS9 and Andromeda. DS9 would be a story about the invasion and corruption of the Federation, possibly culminating in its fall. The show that is now Andromeda was originally to have been the story of what happened after the fall of the Federation.
All well and good. Unfortunatly, he had Beavis and Butthead -- errr... Breman and Braga as assistants from TNG days. As his health started to decline, he was forced to hand over more and more of the day-to-day operations of the show to them. When the network balked at the idea of the Federation collapsing, they rethought the whole dominion wars aspect of DS9 and came up with Voyager as a way to explore a galaxy without the Federation.
By that time, B&B had taken the helm and thrown the idea of social commentary out the window. They believed in old-schoold demographics. Ratings slipping? Ok, Hire 7 of 9 and put her in a illogically tight jumpsuit.
Just as DS9 was supposed to be about a seedy and corrupt corner of the Federation, and Voyager was supposed to be a dark Federation-less corner of the universe, Enterprise now took on the challenge of being the 'Really-Dark-This-Time' Trek. Pre-Federation, we wouldn't have to worry about Prime Directives, or about fleets of starships showing up to save them. Transporters were supposed to be flaky and unreliable. Phasers were supposed to be little more than laser guns. Communication would be limited to launched probes.
Instead, we got a captain who (through no fault of the actor!) has a split personality -- swinging back and forth between concerned pacifist and vengeful hitman. We got a hot vulcan chick who could have developed into a really interesting character -- if she were allowed to do more than change uniforms every season. And we get to encounter most of the familiar alien races which act much the way they acted towards us in the future... even though it should have been first contact.
I'll say what I said with Voyager. If Paramont wants to save the franchise, they must fire Breman and Braga and hire people who care about the show, not just the ratings. I can't remember which one (does it matter?) but one of them actually bragged about having never seen the original series.
TOS: Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov (Sulu and Chekov were just kind of their in the series but improved in the movies, I thought.)
TNG: Picard, Data, Worf, Troi, O'Brian, Riker, Q, Wesley Crusher
DS9: Sisco, Quark, Kira, Odo, Worf, O'Brian, Weyoun and that fey Cardassian
VOY: 7 of 9, The EMH (Torres and Paris almost but they still ended up as milktoasts like the rest)
ENT: Shran, Trip, the Dog (I like T'pols breasts as much as the next guy but I don't care what happens to the character)
The lists are getting shorter!
Sometimes at night I imagine the darkness is filled with horrible things with too many teeth, like Julia Roberts.
2. They get some decent writers. Far too much of Trek in the past few years has been about moralising rather than just telling a good story. I definitely vote for Michael J Straczynski doing some of the writing for the shows.
3. They stop dicking about with the movies. Stop doing Trek movies "for the masses", keep them within the Roddenberry guidelines and for the fans. For example, I do not want to see our favourite bald captain spending 15 years or so following the Prime Directive only to tear around the surface of a planet like a lunatic in a sand buggy (as in "Nemesis")! Definitely not in Picard's character...
4. Go forward rather than back. Why wasn't Enterprise just set after Voyager rather than before TOS? Prequels always introduce plot discrepancies which are going to be picked up by a fan-base as involved as Trek fans are. This seemed the ultimate stupidity with "Enterprise", IMHO.
5. Look at entertaining the fans first, then worry about the money-making. If the fans like it, they'll by the merchandise and go to the conventions.
I'm a middle-aged geek who's followed the shows since childhood - TNG was great, DS9 was good, Voyager had about half-a-season's worth of good episodes, Enterprise was rubbish. Now I've about given up on Trek completely and won't be coming back until I feel I am being entertained rather than just ripped off by Paramount for as much money as possible.
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Why relative to Tom Baker? Was he your favorite Doctor? Personally, I preferred Jon Pertwee, but I think I would rank Tom 2nd in the pantheon of Doctors Who. (Peter Davison would come a close 3rd.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
If people are willing to pay for the show, I wonder why the studios don't just release the show a la carte over the net or something? Perhaps shows that have a niche with a strong interest should ditch the advertisement model and just charge per show, or sell subscriptions to the series...
Actually, when firefly ran on fox, SG1(and Atlantis) wasn't on friday nights. The last Sci-fi show that did well on Friday's was X-files. You see on network TV friday is the night for Walker, Texas Ranger and Matlock. Most young people who would watch Sci-fi would be out, not watching TV.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.