Star Trek

I heard Discovery and the JJ Abrams films are so different from earlier Star Trek is because of copyright related reasons.

 

Seems very dubious to me.

At the moment, Viacom have the right to make Star Trek movies through their subsidiary Paramount Pictures, whilst CBS have the right to make TV series, and I believe the right to syndication of old series. I'm not sure how they handle the trademark use in general for merchandising etc. I suspect CBS have it, because I remember the Star Trek Online devs mentioning that there were a couple of things CBS wouldn't let them do. The situation is a holdover is from when Viacom purchased and effectively became CBS, and then the company split 5 years later, making a new Viacom. For whatever reason, Viacom took Paramount Pictures with them, whilst CBS kept the now defunct Paramount Television, effectively splitting the movie and TV rights to Star Trek.

From that, you can maybe argue that CBS owns or has more control of the Star Trek "brand" as a whole and had Viacom/Paramount make the Abrams movies look different to the series as part of the deal to let them make them. That level of micro-management seems unlikely to me, but as above, they have some interest over what can and can't go on in Star Trek Online, so maybe they do go down to that level. But it makes no sense that both Discovery (made by CBS) and the Abramsverse movies (made by Viacom/Paramount) would have to be different since surely one or other of them has to own the trademark and can do what they like with it?

If it's about Rodenberry's estate or some other old Trek name (Bermega perhaps) still having a finger in a pie somewhere, surely simply calling it Star Trek would entitle them to royalties?

"Hear all. Trust nothing"

 

Speaking of Discovery, when I first heard about it I thought it'd have the same aesthetic as TOS since it's set around the same time. I wasn't expecting a JJ Abrams-esque thing with magic space spores.

 

I didn't know STNG had a clip show. Now I know.

 

Absolute worst ST episode ever, imo.

 

The planet surface set in Arsenal of Freedom looks like something right out of TOS.

I don't know of anyone who really likes it.

 

They ran out of money and it was during the writers strike so they made the cheapest episode they possibly could. The entire episode was filmed in three days.

 

fuckin shatner dude

 

Shatner had the greatest fighting moves of all time

 

It's perfectly normal for a rider to keep a saddle in their quarters.

 

Quick question. How many lights do you see right now?

 

The Romulans are very patriotic. Or brainwashed. The Romulan imperial symbol shows up everywhere. On their uniforms, on console panels, on the wall of the bridge, etc.

 

Well, there are many elements of the franchise that are trademarked, from the uniforms to the weapons to the ships, etc. And since those trademarks are divided up, no Abramsverse movie or Discovery episode will have all of them together. At least that's what I understand, anyway.

The more cynical take is that Discovery is made to look visually similar in style to Abrams (lens flare, big glass walls, etc) in order to attract normies who saw the movies, while seeding it with proprietary Trek elements to capture the Trekkie base.

I will say that, since almost everyone who signed up for the streaming service did so to watch this one show, and are likely to cancel when the season is over, it's pretty greedy of CBS to have a "mid-season break" to milk them for money when there's nothing on that they want to watch. (Not that I would do anything other than pirate it, myself. I figure it's fair considering I already pay a "broadcast retransmission fee" to CBS and the other major networks in my cable bill for the privilege of watching something with commercials that's already broadcast over the air for free.)

 

Easy solution: make a new series set even further than the TNG/VOY/DS9 era, with a new crew and new Enterprise with more to do and explore. It worked for STNG vs TOS.

Of course corporate media today isn't exactly known for creativity.

 

Or, hell, set it between TOS and TNG. There's an entire century there that's been unexplored (except for, I believe, a single TNG episode "Yesterday's Enterprise.") Why not have a series set on the Enterprise C? It has a female captain so you check that box off. And you have an interesting background of Klingons and the Romulans entering a state of war and the Federation coming to the aid of the Klingons, following an uneasy peace between the Federation and the Klingons established in Star Trek VI.

As a bridge series you could even use surviving TOS cast members for cameos as this would be the actual time when they were old and retired (and you wouldn't have to resort to "aging diseases" or other gimmicks). And you could show the creation of Data, or a Klingon (Worf) at Starfleet. Whatever.

And since the time gap is big enough you don't have to worry too much about continuity issues. The dumbest part of Discovery is setting it 10 years before TOS along with mentions of Spock being the unseen brother of the main character as a main plot point, which is awkward and never mentioned anywhere in the entire rest of the canon.

 

Sounds like a good idea, but they may not be able to do that because of intellectual property issues though.

 

I watched the TNG episode "First Duty" again tonight. (It's the one where Wesley and his fellow Starfleet Academy cadets are investigated after the death of one of their squad members during a stunt flight.) It's a fine episode. However, at the end of it, this time I couldn't help having no

Spoiler

respect for Wesley. If the right thing to do was to put "truth" before all, well he refused to do so until Picard almost forced him to own up. If the right thing to do was to not rat on your friends, well in the end Wesley ended up doing just that (in fact his squad leader came out looking more honorable as he asked to take full responsibility for the incident and got expelled).

But I digress.

My main reason for bringing this up is that it could have made a first part of a two part story arc that would have seen Wesley's character off the series. Will Wheaten ended up wanting to leave anyway and his departure episode was some retarded space Indian vision quest thing. But my idea would have been the next episode be all about Wesley bearing the emotional

Spoiler

toll of his actions. Nobody in their right mind would have wanted him on their crew after the bullshit he pulled. So there could be Data coldly telling him that what he did was wrong. Worf could show his disgust, saying Wesley has no honor. Feeling the shame from his mother, the memory of his dead father, and Picard, he goes back to the Academy to try to get his studies back on track. But he can't concentrate. As Picard said in "First Duty:" "It's not going to be easy here, with everyone knowing what you did." So we show scenes of Wesley being shunned by classmates. He also has extreme guilt over his squadmate's death. Finally Wesley decides that the only way out is a phaser set to kill. He puts it in his mouth, sobbing how sorry he is, then vaporizes his head. Boothby the Gardener finds his corpse in the garden. Picard comes into Beverly's office..."Beverly...I have some awful news..." Starfleet refuses him a ceremonial burial since he died in disgrace, but Riker says "To hell with that. He may have been a disgrace...but he was our disgrace." They arrange a burial at space like in the end of Wrath of Khan. O'Brian plays bagpipes. Worf does his Klingon grief howl thing.

The series was getting pretty dark by this point but I say why not go all the way here...plus it would give Beverly something interesting about her character and we would never have to see Wesley again. What do you guys think?

 

It seems like Star Trek is dead nowadays. The only (really soft) scifi I hear about anymore is Star Wars.

 

Yup to both points.
ST really messed up with the pile of shit they are making.

Let me speak as a marketer and income maker over a fan boy, so please bite a retort before reading it all. Everyone loves good lore. SW was bought by the mouse and sucks. Star Wars was amazing as it was a rip off of Samurai movies put into space. It's the Ford Mustang of film. What I mean by that, ok some people are dodge people some are gm. But we ALL know the mustang is fast and cool. For not a lot of money. So don't over think it, it's iconic. I love to car sperg and we can all day. But tell 99.5% people mustang they go wow cool car. Star wars had that.

The mistake Disney made was well... we are needing to get more fans, and back fired. Star trek made same error just harder. I want to make more car references but most would be lost.

I'm grumpy as even with 2 junk series the lore broke out so much we had so much to work with as ST fans. Voyger was horridbad but took place during a crazy time and could be expanded on. Enterprise.. well anyone not that ship. Personally I think Voy time line better to work off as people into sci fi love tech and we could close plots from DS9.

I'm done with both lines atm... and sinking deeping into 40k... and that's hard to be a happy person with a sex life and enjoy 40k lol.