Watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds, I’m enjoying so far after watching season 1, but I personally think Paramount appeals for nostalgia more than a new public, specially with lots and lots of reference who only fans will catch.
And I start to remembering those people who complaing about Star Wars or Fallout, with the idea of franchises which need a 360 grades turn to bring something new, for example, Fallout fans complain about the overuse of Broterhood of Steel, something I think is a silly thing to complaing since is almost the face of Fallout franchise is a whole.
But my question is; do Star Trek fans has the same opinions and thoughts? Of letting go the franchise?
Image as example, also, I’m waiting for respectful discussion and not flamewar.
I would start by suggesting we look at fewer youtubers and their views on the subject. I’m tired of dumb facial expressions on thumbnails and exaggerated video titles that do not aim for calm, measured critique but to please the algorithm. And the algorithm likes controversy. So this linked video may be the outlier - I wouldn’t know because I refuse to click through. These video links are more often than not efforts to increase views and thus nudge the video up in the ranking.
Is the death of the franchise nigh? Maybe. It wouldn’t be its first. We have had deaths after TOS S3 and ENT S4/Nemesis. There was stuff in print or in games but nothing on screen until Star Wars became a success and the arrival of the binge streaming age/Star Wars again respectively. We may be on the verge of another lull. We are very dedicated fans of a franchise that needs to be bigger to be financially viable long term. But we are a big enough chunk of the market that executives will be tempted to bring it back.
Can Star Trek tell more stories? Sure it can. It depends on the writers. I was personally disappointed with the stories Disco and PIC told. They thought Star Trek storytelling needs to be Breaking Bad’s mixed with Game of Thrones’s and that equalled universe destroying threats that need to be fought every season. For SNW they learned that you can have a season long plot but you want to be more episodic. Academy is like that as well. There is a lot of fan service in them by design and references only a subset of viewers will catch. But I don’t think that makes the shows less good or accessible to new audiences. And Marvel has established the easter-eggification of storytelling in modern franchises so a lot of viewers will want that.
Many scripts that became Star Trek stories were just sci-fi ideas that were then molded around the universe. There are still good sci-fi story ideas out there that can be told.
My fear is that we are at a ENT S3 point in time. It’s a good season but not enough people are watching. Same with SNW or Academy. That’s partially pissed off fans but also people not paying Paramount to watch it for reasons unrelated to the fandom. And the maneuvering around the Warner deal makes me fearful that all new projects will be shelved very soon for lack of funding and projected economic success. If the third lull is upon us, it’s for economic reasons, not the lack of stories to be told.
100% agree with your Youtube preamble. The “pundits” over there rarely bring anything besides shallow nitpickery to the table.
The video I put of example is not about Star Trek.
Nowadays, especially nowadays, I’m just grateful that the optimistic spirit/energy of star trek is having a next next generation of its own. I’m here for it. Mostly (sorry disco).
I do love that it’s a literal next generation…again
honestly, don’t watch star trek content on youtube. it’s full of haters. for some reason it seems like podcasts have a higher percentage of people who are not into performative hatred.
This 100%. YouTube algorithm pushes people towards the most extreme stuff, soif you search for Star Trek you’ll eventually always end up on some ragebait “show”.
The closest that I get to watching pure Star Trek content is some videos of Lore Reloaded.
Even then, his content isn’t so much about the current Star Trek but more going into politics and military theory of the Federation.
I love the hell out of SNW, but I agree that as a TOS prequel it’s limited in its ability to move the franchise forward.
Thankfully, Starfleet Academy has turned out to be really, really good. I just hope it survives and secures a strong enough following.
You cant have corporations producing stories about the struggles of today because they are the root cause of most of our troubles. We’re not getting deep introspective episodes with great plots that relate to today because its so glaring a problem that they cannot paint themselves in any other way when examining it.
as long as there’s a vision for a better tomorrow, Star Trek has more to offer
I think they’ve managed to strike a balance with the new shows so far - each one of them feels unique enough that I don’t necessarily feel any fatigue.
New star trek is basically just marvel/disney coded slop. A few good bits here and there but nothing all that worth watching imo.
I really hope they do something better than quip filled star trek flavored comedy sometime soon.
i dont think the franchise will run out of new stories. its about infanite possibilities and hope, there will always be room for more of that. i do think a lot of trek fans miss that not all trek shows are aimed at all of trek fans. tng and ds9 had wildy different vibes. theres peace between those fandoms now, mostely, but people thought ds9 ruined trek. people though voyager and discovery ruined it. personally i think one of the coolest things about trek is that it will run different shows with their own tone. discovery made a lot of people feel connected to trek in a way older trek never could. new worlds i still havent started because episodic isnt my favorite. and picard was hard for me to finish because the fan service was from tng which is my least favorite trek.
give me ds9, voyager and discover on repeat. someone else in here is gonna be a dire hard enterprise fan. its a universe built on exploring differences, makes sence it’ll do that in different ways for different audiances too right? if you’re not feeling the current in production trek its a great chance to binge some old trek.
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I personally think Paramount appeals for nostalgia
Discovery was a big hit, and although it had some nostalgic elements in the first season, it very quickly became it’s own thing and had a unique style.
SNW also seems to be pretty popular and features TOS characters, but even though it’s set in TOS era I wouldn’t say it’s appealing to nostalgia.
SFA is another one that very much it’s own thing and is NOT relying on nostalgia.
Lower Decks and PIC absolutely appeal to nostalgia, but those also seem to be much less popular with general audiences.
Just saying- that if I was a Paramount big wig I think it makes more sense to take the franchise where no star trek show has gone before, rather than backwards. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.
To my eyes, the second season of Disco was way more nostalgic in its focus on Spock and Pike — they even had a whole episode revolving around the original TOS pilot.
And all of SNW basically takes place between “The cage” and “Where no man has gone before”, filling in (sometimes pretty hamfisted) back story and foreshadowing events of TOS. It very much does appeal to nostalgia in and of the legacy characters, and the ways it references TOS. Unnecessarily so, IMO.
On the movie side of things, almost every film made or announced to be in development post-TNG have centred squarely on the TOS crew.
So I think it’s natural for OP, upon watching SNW s1, to get the impression that Star Trek is retreating into nostalgic fan service. But for the most part, Disco did the opposite, paving the way for SFA as well.
The Section 31 one-shot was… a lot of things, but that didn’t dwell on past lore either. The machine gun fire of deep cut references had Lower Decks walk a tightrope between nostalgia and mining a vast canon for its own purposes. I think it succeeded toward the latter.
Star trek as a whole is doing a less stellar (sorry) balancing act. There appears to be suits involved with the franchise, as well as creative staff, who need to have the TOS cobwebs shaken out of their heads, so the show can be allowed to grow without recasting Spock and Kirk every decade.
Yes thanks, I forgot all of the Spock and Pike stuff was S2, not S1. Also I apparently forgot Section 31 existed!
I apparently forgot Section 31 existed!
That’s a personal life goal for me.
We had an amazing universe of novels Paramount needed to end so they could complain that we didn’t like what they shoveled at us.
I loved the Relaunch novelverse but I also love the new shows.
It’s unfortunate that the IP holder decided that for the books — unlike Star Trek Online — the storytelling in the alternate timeline couldn’t continue.
Star Trek has more to offer, unfortunately it’s in the hands of a soulless corporate entity that doesn’t. I don’t have my hopes up for good new Star Trek stuff, and at this point I also can’t support Paramount Skydance in good faith.
Far be it from me to tell everyone else what to do, but at this point I’m content with sticking with the classics that I already have downloaded.
