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5 Star Trek Shows in Development, 1 Could Star Patrick Stewart, Reports Say (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In the wake of shocking allegations against Star Trek: Discovery's showrunners, producer Alex Kurtzman recently took over the role of showrunning the latest Trek series' sophomore season. But according to multiple reports today, he's just signed a new deal with CBS that could usher in multiple new Star Trek shows. Variety reports that Kurtzman has inked a $25 million deal with CBS as part of a five-year plan to bring more Trek shows to TV in the wake of Discovery's success. According to the site, five series are currently in early development: A teen-oriented series set at Starfleet Academy from Stephanie Savage and Josh Schwartz, the duo behind the recent Dynasty reboot and Marvel's Runaways adaptation. A limited series with a currently confidential plot. A limited series based around the beloved character Khan, from the original Star Trek and the classic film The Wrath of Khan -- something that's been rumored for a while as being spearheaded by Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer. An animated series with another currently confidential plot.
So we've got 5 Star Trek shows in the works and 7, 8, or 9 Star Wars prequels, sequels, whatevers, as well. This isn't innovation. It's not new ideas. And it certainly not exciting. It's whipping a dead cow laying out in the desert somewhere for the past 2 years in order to get a few more drops of milk.
It's done, guys. It's over. Time to let go.
What's Discovery even like; I completely lost interest in the whole franchise after the "re-imagined' of Wrath of Khan.
The whole "pay for the streaming service to just watch one program" thing kinda of stopped me*.
*That plus I thought the show sucked anyway. Between watching the first episode of that and also of The Orville .. I could see more potential in the latter.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Definitely it's about money. The whole leftist conspiracy you allude to has more to do with media coverage and social media than it does with the political beliefs of rich executives at production companies. Ultimately all of them, left and right, worship the same god, the Almighty Dollar.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Absolutely wrong. Star Trek has traditionally portrayed a liberal ideology, not a leftist ideology. I know those two very different philosophies are often wrongly conflated with each other these days, so I can understand your confusion. Liberalism, as expressed in the Star Trek universe, is about independence, tolerance, acceptance and voluntary collaboration. Leftism, on the other hand, revolves around highlighting differences between people to try to cause disruption, anger, hatred and strife. They are polar opposites in most respects, with the term 'liberal' having been recently hijacked to try to create a positive, albeit false, veneer over the otherwise unpalatable negativity of leftist ideology.
What were the shocking allegations? All I heard was that two guys got canned for making too much money and yelling at some Millenials.
Causing unwanted and artificial 'controversy' is also a very effective way to destroy a media property. A good example of this is literally right in front of our faces: the /. web site. This was once the premiere tech-oriented online destination. Industry leaders used to participate here on a daily basis. Getting your product or service noticed by the /. community used to be a huge deal. It's hard to believe it these days, but /. used to be an extremely important and influential media outlet. Then we started seeing more and more submissions, many of them politically charged, that appear to only have been on the front page to generate 'controversy'. While this did result in lots of discussion, and presumably lots of advertisment views, in the short term, it also has had serious long term repercussions. Many of the top individuals who were influential in the industry wanted no part of this nonsense, and they left for other discussion forums. The low quality submissions also started driving away other regular users who made positive contributions to the community here. As the community has continued to disintegrate due to this forced 'controversy', we've seen, in my opinion, things get quite bad around here. The submissions, comments and moderating are now the worst that I've ever seen here. The sense of community is long gone; all we get now is bickering and name calling. In my opinion, the generation of 'controversy' here shook the foundations of this community, ultimately fracturing it in a way that is likely irreparable. If manufactured 'controversy' could ruin /. so completely, I can see it doing the same to other media outlets and series. It's a very risky stunt to attempt.
>"In the wake of shocking allegations against Star Trek: Discovery's showrunners"
Discovery? Is that really a thing? I am a huge Trekkie and have not seen a single episode. Their distribution model sucked, and I have heard it is nothing but "PC overkill" combined with total fantasy. Strangely, I don't know ANYONE who has actually watched "Discovery" and when I ask them, they have no interest in doing so, even the Trekkies like me. But....
Meanwhile, the Orville came along and THAT became my Star Trek after Enterprise. Enterprise was a bit shaky, but was just getting into its grove when they killed it. Reminded me of the issues with Deep Space 9, until STTNG ended and the writers apparently focused their attention on DS9 and it improved a lot. Anyway, who would have thought "Orville" would have somehow hit the Trek nail on the head??? I am still in disbelief.
I loved the original, REALLY REALLY loved ALL of The Next Generation, loved most of DS9, really loved all of Voyager, loved much of Enterprise, after the awkward start. Most of the original Trek movies were so-so (Wrath of Kahn clearly the best). The Next Generation movies were all quite good. And I really loved the reboot movies. But now it seems Paramount has really lost their way, at least with TV (and especially in combination with CBS).
Diversity was an important backdrop. It wasn't ever pushed in the viewer's face. There was a black woman on the bridge, and very little was said about that. I'm okay with that kind of diversity. The modern kind of "diversity" is fake. It's diverse like a wax apple is a fruit. Diversity of opinion is forbidden and a whole race and sex are strongly depreciated. It's sexism and racism by a different name. By all means have a diverse cast. If it's a good show I'll watch it. But make every third person a fat black lesbian otherkin and you're not only not diverse, you're clearly throwing the whole show under the bus.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Not just Uhuru, the regular cast also had Japanese, Russian, Scottish and of course Vulcan characters.
Hard to realise the significance of a Russian character as one of the good guys at the height of the cold war.
And then of course you had episodes that were dedicated to condemning racism, such as "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" where the aliens were half black, half white.
And of course having Kirk and Uhuru kiss was quite literally "pushing it in the viewer's face", at a time when segregation was still an issue in some US states.
If you have a problem with diversity in 2018, you are an asshole.
I don't think the issue is with diversity, but with presentation. Yes, TOS had "Plato's Stepchildren" and "Last Battlefield" and the one with the nuclear war fought within a computer...but how often was putting a Russian in charge of navigation and shields a point of contention? How many times was Sulu's Japanese heritage brought up (remember, we didn't like Japan much after WWII, and it was still very much in living memory)? Uhura being black during the civil rights movement is what everyone remembers, but how often did her gender come up in the context of her being a bridge officer and other than Plato's Stepchildren, did her race come up more than maybe once or twice? The answers to all of these questions are "It didn't", "It didn't", and "It didn't", and "I'll have to double check...but I'm pretty sure it didn't".
Roddenberry's most amazing statement throughout TOS was paradoxically the most subtle - these things were such non-issues that they weren't worthy of anyone's attention. Uhura wasn't perceived by the crew as "a black woman", she was "the communications officer, and a damn good one", and everyone from Kirk on down respected her as such. Same for Chekov and Sulu. The whole ship was egalitarian in that sense - skills and rank were respected, but nobody treated anyone else better or worse based on race or gender. As it should be.
I don't know the GP, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he would have an issue with a diverse cast in itself. The issue is when that becomes such a point of focus that it starts being the defining characteristic of the individual at the expense of anything that would give the character any real amount of depth. When a show starts doing that, the push for diversity starts seeping into the scripts. Even then, there's presentation to be had. The infamous interracial kiss between Kirk and Uhura was controversial based on its existence, but the story itself didn't depend on the shock value of that scene. Roddenberry did this sort of thing well. Few today can say the same - characters intended to provide diversity tend to make that diversity a featured part of the story, rather than "the person doing the thing who happens to be a non-SWM".
Sometimes things do need to be pointed out directly, but most of the time, treating it like a non-issue is the best way to illustrate how normal something is in the future. Few directors can do this well.