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More On Save Enterprise Donations
Malfourmed writes "TrekUnited.com today announced that three anonymous contributors from the commercial spaceflight industry have stepped forward with a $3 million pledge toward the campaign to ensure a fifth season for the recently cancelled Star Trek: Enterprise.
The benefactors explained why they believe this campaign deserves such a substantial contribution: 'We think Star Trek and especially its latest incarnation, Enterprise is the kind of TV that should be aired more often. The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not. We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks. The people airing this kind of TV have a responsibility; inspiration.' " We reported on this a few days ago, but this is more info about the largest donors.
What's a doner?
I think it's nice sentiment but ultimately ineffective. You're trying to tell arrogant people with enormous egos that they're wrong. They don't want to hear that. Unless their board is energized by powerful stockholders, they don't have to hear that. Good try, though.
Rb
...but I can't bring myself to pay to keep hearing that horrible opening theme. If they would promise to get a new theme, I would cough up some duckets.
"We think Star Trek and especially its latest incarnation, Enterprise is the kind of TV that should be aired more often."
Have they watched it? If so, have they ever seen things like ST:TNG, Babylon 5, Firefly, or even Battlestar Galactica?
If they had, they'd realise there's better things to do with their money, no matter how much "better" this last season was.
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What TV shows did Neil Armstrong and Gene Kranz get inspired by to ACTUALLY GET TO THE MOON!?
.. a fool and his money are soon parted.
The difference between "news" and "entertainment" stories is that news stories are ongoing, while entertainment ends with the punchline. Because news is just messages about the real world, where events have consequences and interrelationships. I know it's hard to recognize news, now that all the TV, radio, newspaper and other media that call themselves "news" are really just killing time, giving the weatherman a straightline, or spinning something politically damaging. But real news requires updates and context, and often has wild tangents that tell compelling details about something important, without any celebrity gossip. We now return you to your regularly scheduled infotainvert.
--
make install -not war
If the fans manage to cough up enough to pay for another season of Enterprise, does that mean it will air with no commercials?
However, Enterprise is horrible... Voyager was bad... but Enterprise is REALLY bad. I know im really drawing straws between determining which one is worse... but that really is non releveant to the point.
The show was and is very terribly made and is even contradictory to what the intentions of gene rodenberys universe were. It's lost it's multi-culturalism, the founding principle and indeed the trademark difference star trek brought from it's very first iteration throughout the rest of it's tenure. "Enterprise" is nearly an all-white western crew with the exception of a black driver and a vulcan.
This is NOT the vision of our future Gene painted, and it is NOT star trek.
I understand the fans love this show for some strange reason, or maybe they simply love the Star Trek universe and will bear the burden of this worst incarnation just to keep it going... but i believe their efforts... and money.... would much better spent on getting paramount to create a new quality star trek true to its roots.
Abandon the scot bacula, the country western intro, the nearly all-white and all-western crap of a show theyve created, and return to what star trek was supposed to be.
If you havent forgotten, Trek was supposed to be about a HOPE for humanities united front against "the final frontier". At last mankinds differences werent as great as the difficulties in facing a diverse and strange universe beyond our little backwater pond of a planet.
This money should be spent creating a show with better writers, a better cast and crew, and something far more canon than they have been. I would much rather see the rise of anything at least on the level of deep space nine, than any continuance of this voyager "enterprise" drivel.
3 million could at least hire better writers, and change the cast.
Lastly, these guys hit it on the head when they said that star trek's important role in our society is inspiration, there is no doubt it's had a cultural impact of untold magnitude by instilling the grandest dreams in our children of decades ago to even now with the belief that we could at least try to make this great society of our future. An earth united, and the stars at our footsteps... let us not let it be so easily trampled upon by cheap writers and bad marketers.
--Vision
Just my 2c.
--Idiots, Every single one of YOU, A flaming mass of conglomerated morons, hey wait a second, isnt that how RAID works?
well.
actually...
it's not the production costs that really matter in the end.. it's the money they think they can make with it - that's the reason to butcher up a show in the end anyways. a noisy minority that wants the show to continue doesn't bring in that much advertising revenue. and seriously speaking, if they brought out a new better show most of the enterprise fans would jump right in.
as for responsibility.. bah. grow up. i don't think anybodys going to run out of inspiration anymore and it certainly isn't coming from enterprise.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You raise a point- one of the worst natural disasters on record happened not three months ago, and we have people pledging money in the MILLIONS OF DOLLARS for a commercial TV show to stay on the air. Give me a break. What about 3 Million for education? Scientific research? Hell, even Iraqi freedom!
To quote Milo Bloom in response to Opus the Penguin spending $79 on shoes for walking in a mall: You realize this is why the Roman Empire fell
>>Aren't there better destinations for donations?
NO! There is no better use for THEIR money!
I am soooo sick of all of the holier than thou posters who feel that any time money is spent that it should be spent to feed the homeless, fight AIDS, fund anti-terrorism, or cure halitosis.
As long as they earned it/raised it legally there is absolutely no reason that they shouldn't spend it however they want. If donating to the above causes is how you want to spend the fruits of your labor then so be it. On the other hand, if sticking the money in a stripper's g-string makes you happy it's just as legitimate a usage.
The last freedom you have is your choice of spending the fruits of your labor the way you want to.
Last time I checked, amazon.com was selling the
first season of Deep Space 9 for $103.99!! Compare that to the price for the
first season of Stargate SG-1 at $52.47,... Now, we all know the, "true cost" of producing DVDs these days, and given that, even the Stargate guys are making a buttload of profit off of their DVD sets
Granted, I like Enterprise and all, especially now that the show is actually getting good this season (and not to forget about T'Pol's boobies
I personally have always felt the Star Trek franchise is more oriented towards "exploration" and general scientific curiosity.
I'd just like to point out that time in Enterprise's first season when they landed on a "rogue" planet that had escaped it's sun and therefore was in permanent darkness.
They landed in a JUNGLE full of PLANTS with LARGE LEAVES.
These people should have had a tad more scientific curiosity in highschool biology when the teacher explained what leaves are for.
I mean, nitpicking is one thing, but damn, people, follow through on the logical conclusions of "no sun"!
You can't take the sky from me...
These people exemplify the worst trait of science fiction TV show fans- they don't realize that it is JUST A TV SHOW. It's not a religion, or a philosophy. It's a TV show. Made by a business. Played out by actors.
Does it have to be?
Does it have to be just a television program? Can't it grow into something more? Can't it be a movement? Can't it be a means to spreading a message of hope and logic and tolerance?
Star Trek was all these things, once. Paramount has been letting Rick Berman kill all of that, they want it to be a cash cow, not a symbol.
I thought they'd suceeded in killing it, but those campaining fans seem to still feel "it".
You can't take the sky from me...
With the large number of absolute garbage shows that the networks develop and rapidly cancel each fall, why not try to run Trek in prime time on a large network? They haven't done that since 1969, and it just might work..
I agree regarding CBS. Alternatively, syndicate it, and accept that UPN is a disaster.
Primetime seems destined to fail, though, in my mind - there are a lot of shows you'd be up against, and Trek still has somewhat of a "stigma" associated with it.
Run it where TNG and DS9 did so well - Saturdays at 6 or 7 PM. To me, that seems very safe - a lot of people are just lounging around then, and if you flip through the channels and see that, you might just leave it on. Shift it around if you've got to have the "Will Lesbianism Destroy Your Family?" news shows. Geck.
I think most people are choosing to do exactly that--not give any money. It's okay to talk about why we're not giving money.
I'm choosing to do that for a good reason: I'd get nothing for my donation. When I donate money to my local community radio station, a far more cash-poor outfit than Viacom, I get a t-shirt or a CD. Gifts like these are small but nice (this is a common way for the organization to say thanks to their donors). Even though my community radio station is incorporated, I get something far more valuable for my contribution: I become a member of the station. I volunteer there and I can rise as far in the station's hierarchy as I wish to go. I can make important station decisions as I dedicate more of my time and effort there. Anyone in the public can come to periodic meetings where everyone (who isn't on-air) goes to meet and discuss station issues. This is unusual--corporations are built to deny democratic access.
Quite the contrary is true of donating to a multinational corporation like Viacom. You'll get nothing in return for your donation (not even a DVD copy of the episodes you helped to make possible--considering how few people are donating, this would cost virtually nothing to supply). As a producer, you'll have to see the shows you funded with ads as they run on TV the first time. In exchange for paying the production costs, you won't control the copyright to the episodes (even jointly with all the other donors).
So when the revenue from DVDs and syndication dries up, you will have no power to relicense the shows you paid for. This means you can't relicense the shows under, say, a Creative Commons license where others can non-commercially share and enjoy the show, or build on it so long as they share their work under the same terms you shared your sponsored work with them ("ShareAlike").
This donation effort is apparently run by people who don't seem to understand the wisdom behind not treating a corporation like a charity. They also don't seem to get that when you pay for something to be produced you get more control over the result. Considering all the additional revenue Viacom makes from Star Trek (merchandising, for instance), which apparently Viacom would be allowed to keep, it becomes clear that these donors aren't so much donating to keep Enterprise going as they are donating to keep Viacom going.
Digital Citizen
You know, what's really silly here is that the show failed for one single, solitary reason: small audience=small ad revenue. Turning Star Trek into a charity is ludicrous. It's run by a for-profit corporation. Hand them a bucket of cash and they'll take it, redecorate Berman's office, produce one more crappy season and deep-six the series mid-season again. You want to keep Star Trek on the air: BUY ADVERTISING SPACE. Why not solicit advertisements from Virgin Galactic, Scaled Composites etc. etc.? If they really want to "inspire" commercial spaceflight, then don't just pony up the cash, start, erm, MAKING COMMERCIALS.
Better yet, do that, but get Barry Diller to buy the property. God knows there's enough money in NBCUniversalUSASciFi to buy it off Paramount and Sci-Fi sure as hell is doing a better job of producing shows worth watching than Paramount ever has...