Marketing Trek

This is the second time I'm talking about this on my blog already.  I'm probably going to keep talking about this, even though I'm not an industry professional.  I'm an armchair sports commentator, but I'd love to be better informed about this kind of thing.  A few quick Google searches isn't a good substitute for market trends that I can't see as a consumer.

600 quatloos on Star Trek Beyond being a box office flop!

According to Chris Pine, "You can’t make a cerebral Star Trek in 2016. It just wouldn’t work in today’s marketplace."

I'm sorry, what?  What marketplace is he talking about?  Who is he marketing to?  Probably not Star Trek fans.  And when you're charging market-competitive prices on StarTrek.com's web store (~$50-$300 for brand-related merch) and fans are actually paying for it, it seems to me like they've got money in their pockets to burn on seeing the kind of Star Trek they grew up seeing on television.

I want to take a second to qualify my picture of the Triskelion Brains above - I think that Star Trek Beyond will be a box office flop for a multitude of reasons.  I don't think that it will be a terrible movie by any means (though certainly not something counted among the best of Trek).  I'm still excited to see it, and as someone who wants to see more Star Trek in the future I will pay money for this movie to show my support.  My reason for asserting that it will be a box office failure has a lot more to do with the real market - the one that doesn't recognize the Star Trek franchise name as belonging to an action adventure series.

That's why Kirk never learned how to actually fight in hand-to-hand combat.

You see, when you have 726 episodes of high-concept science fiction rigmarole, your franchise picks up a bit of a reputation (you know, the one that screams, "NERD!").  That reputation is not affiliated with science fiction action, even when you've got almost 15 movies under your belt as well.  Not surprisingly, the three generations of Star Trek television shows still have more weight than the movies.

There are some other reasons why I think it won't be a huge success, and another big one is that successful movies (especially sequels) don't have to have their cast and crew giving defensive interviews before the movie comes out.  The folks who made this movie are well aware that it's a different kind of Star Trek.

We've tried action adventure Trek before, we know what it looks like.

Going back to my earlier post, there has only been one cerebral Star Trek movie.  And that's fine - I don't expect Star Trek movies to be thought provoking for the same reason The Motion Picture was a slow, boring mess.

My God!  It was mankind all along!  We caused this problem!

But what Christopher Pine is arguing isn't limiting the franchise to movies.  Christopher Pine is arguing that any and every kind of cerebral Star Trek is just not suitable for the current marketplace.

Computer, let me have a readout of all Netflix viewing trends for the past decade.

Netflix has every episode of Star Trek aired to date, and more than once have the series popped up on the Netflix Trending menu (especially The Next Generation).  The streaming service is known for upsetting visual media consumption trends along with its counterparts Youtube and Twitch.Tv.  In 2014, when CBS was in covert talks with Paramount about what new Trek on television would look like, Netflix was rumored to be emailing CBS in hopes of funding their own season of Star Trek.

Now, Netflix has a fancy algorithm they run in order to determine what is and isn't popular which they have used in the past to successfully synthesize such hot shows as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and (a personal favorite) BoJack Horseman.

This show is all about how classy Hollywoo really is.

If there's any truth to the rumor that Netflix was seeking to acquire the rights to make their own Star Trek series you can damn well be sure that there was demand for it.  And since in 2014 Netflix wasn't streaming all of the Star Trek movies, all of that demand was derived from the 726 episodes of the television series.

So when Christopher Pine says he thinks that you just can't sell a cerebral Star Trek in 2016's marketplace, what he's saying is that he thinks the average consumer is an idiot.  That's the bare bones honest interpretation of what he's saying.  Although the actors who've played Kirk haven't exactly been known for having humble egos...

You like being the only genius level repeat offender in the Midwest?

...it seems clear to me that Chris Pine thinks he's a cut above most, at least in terms of determining what will sell to Star Trek fans (or anyone who might watch anything with the words "Star Trek" in front of it).  Despite most likely being an intelligent and well-educated person, I'm not sure he's the best market analyst to be predicting what kind of Star Trek movie will sell in "today's market" at all.  As an actor, I'm not sure how much of the marketing side of things he's actually involved in with Star Trek aside from how many royalties he gets when toys are made of his likeness.

So remember, Mr. Pine, and any naysayers of intellectualism in Hollywoo, that when the people who pay to see things from the franchise request more, they're talking about...

...Spock dealing with the struggle of logic versus emotion...

...Riker falling in love with a being of androgynous gender...

...Picard warning about the dangers of trading security for peace...

...Sisko exploring what it means to continue to exist as a human being...

...The Doctor learning what it means to have a family...

...Phlox refusing to stop the natural extinction of a species...

...and many, many more examples of why cerebral Star Trek is the best Star Trek.  It was difficult to narrow it down to even these few examples, and TNG definitely got two mentions (there are many more from every series) but my point is that these kinds of stories are the ones that appeal to us.

When we go to the theaters, and when we watch Star Trek at home on our TV screens and computer monitors, let us all come together as Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra.  Let us not be as Shaka when the walls fell.  There is indeed a market for cerebral Star Trek in 2016, and it's with the people who buy things that say Star Trek on them (not with traditional action movie-goer audiences).

If you're concerned about whether that's too small of an audience, well...

...I think you may find that there are a lot of us out there and we all want to see more Star Trek!

Rules and Regulations

The Mary Sue published an article in response to CBS/Paramount issuing a set of guidelines for Star Trek Fan Films in the future.  The whole kerfuffel came about when Alec Peters, producer of the fan film Axanar, made willful abuse of his position as a fan film maker.

To make something clear, Alec Peters got J.J. Abrams and Justin Lin on his side so that Paramount would drop their lawsuit against his motion picture and then Peters went back for more.  And now there are rules in place for do's and don't's when it comes to making Star Trek fan films.

I agree with many of The Mary Sue's points (or, more specifically, Teresa Jusino who wrote the article).  She's hit the nail on the head in recognition of some of the wiser aspects of the guidelines Paramount has laid forth.

What she missed was this tidbit:

The fan production must be family friendly and suitable for public presentation. Videos must not include profanity, nudity, obscenity, pornography, depictions of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, or any harmful or illegal activity, or any material that is offensive, fraudulent, defamatory, libelous, disparaging, sexually explicit, threatening, hateful, or any other inappropriate content. The content of the fan production cannot violate any individual’s right of privacy.

So to be clear, what that means is that there can't be any more of this:

Klingon Blood Wine

Romulan Ale

Ketracel White

Harmful activity

I said NO harmful activity, Kirk!

Criminal activity of any kind...

I mean, I guess we didn't see him do these things...

Or Nudity.  She makes it into every single post, I swear...

But most terrifying about this clause are the more subjective terms they use.  Obscenity and any material that is offensive.

There are a lot of people who find this offensive.

Violence, however, is acceptable almost everywhere.

Star Trek has always been about pushing the limits in the pursuit of expanding our collective understanding of the IDIC.  (That's Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination for those of you who are new to the Star Trek scene).  In order to push those limits you've got to break a few eggs.

Like the delicate subject of mind rape as a metaphor for sexual assault.

Now, I don't disagree with the sentiment of this rule.  I don't think Star Trek is best suited to a host of foul-mouthed nudists who feast on the entrails of their victims after eviscerating them on screen.  However, there is a risk of preventing fans from using Star Trek to truly explore some of the aspects of the established universe by enforcing these guidelines.

I also chafe at the time restriction.  Not that there is a time restriction, but rather at what it is.  Under 15 minutes for an episode, and only 2 episodes for any particular story (no seasons or longer arcs are permitted).  This means that between your two episodes you can only make half of an episode of Star Trek.

For 750+ episodes of Star Trek, every single episode has been an hour long.  Fans get half of that.

It's clear that CBS/Paramount in no way desire you to make an episode of "Star Trek."  And, with guys like Alec Peters representing the fandom's filmmaking industry, I can see why they feel that way.

Teresa Jusino does touch on something hugely important, though, and I want to emphasize it here.  Sometimes the people who helped make Star Trek are fans of the show themselves.  Guys like Tim Russ have been contributing to fan films for years and turning out some truly awesome work (they fund it, too).  They just like Star Trek!  But now they can't share that love in their own particular way and that's unjust.  I don't like the idea that these folks can't make their own Star Trek fan films anymore.

Hell, even Walter Koenig does fan films!

(On that note, if you've never seen Star Trek: Renegades, I can't recommend it enough!  It's good Trek.)

For all my opinion is worth, I hope things get brighter for Star Trek fans in the future.  I remember receiving a cease and desist letter from Paramount six years ago over a shirt I created on zazzle.com just for myself and my mother that had Star Trek zombies on it.  They're pretty serious about their franchise.  Sorry I don't have my own shirt press, Paramount.  I'll keep it in my head next time!

New Trek

As 2017 slowly approaches, information continues to be slowly leaked to the public about the upcoming Star Trek television series.  And, of course, there's a movie or something coming out this summer I think.  Bed Bath and Beyond ... or something.  Anyway.  David Fuller has answered questions that have been reported in questionable contexts all over the internet about 'details' about the new series.  Here's what they're saying:

Literally the only visual information we have about the new show

• There will be 13 episodes in the first season, 6 of which are already planned
• The season will have a season-long arc to it
• Fuller is planning on doing "color-blind, gender-blind casting"
• Fuller plans to use the show to push beyond broadcast-acceptable limits

In abstract, this information is really helpful to fans of Star Trek as far as what we can expect from 2017's Star Trek.

But there's some other stuff that's being reported that's kind of odd to me.

As a disclaimer, I expect to get a lot of negative feedback for my first point.

No defense for myself, no caveats, no buts.  I'm just telling you that if you get easily offended by not listening to someone's argument then you're going to tell me to go hang myself or jump off a bridge or something.

C'est la vie.  I'm saying what I'm gonna say.

It's been asked of Fuller if there's going to be an openly LGBQT character for the "first time" on Star Trek.

I guess we all forgot about this.

I hope there is - but I hope it's not central to any kind of plot unless the love story is important to character building or high-concept sci-fi.  We already know that by the 24th century, Starfleet is cool with men wearing the standard-issue miniskirt.

He has great legs for it, too.

Pictured above is a background character, so we don't know much about them.  But having someone (particularly a trans character, imho) as a central character would be nice and inclusive in the way that Star Trek does inclusivity.  But Star Trek usually makes a point to normalize this kind of behavior among Starfleet officers, and so an LGBQT character needs to be LGBQT as more than just their "forehead of the week" quality.

To be clear: I want to see LGBQT characters be normal and accepted members of the crew - exceptional because they're exceptional people and not because of their sexuality or gender identity.  I don't want to see anyone saying stuff like, "she's pretty cool for a dude in a dress!" or "I'm so glad they added a gay character to Star Trek!"

In the television show Brooklyn Nine-Nine, my favorite character is Captain Holt.  He happens to be gay, but his best jokes aren't at the expense of his sexuality, they're usually a direct result of his overbearing professionalism - or his rivalry with a fellow senior police officer.  He has a quaint relationship with his husband.  In The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Titus has a very sweet relationship with his boyfriend (who helps break him from his over-the-top stereotypical gay tendencies).  I really like Titus and his boyfriend in Kimmy Schmidt.

That's my opinion of the topic; I'd rather not waste whole episodes of Star Trek droning on and on about how equitable things are in the future - it's Star Trek, we know they are.  By the character's very presence it's clear that such preferences have been normalized.

Moving on to my next commentary, the characterization of the new Star Trek as "edgy."  This is consistent with Fuller's desire to go beyond what is acceptable on broadcast television.

There's a lot of room for high-concept science fiction in this field.

But there's also a lot of room for gratuitous sex and violence.

He's dead, Jim.  They all are.

Star Trek has a long history of struggling with sex appeal as a means of staying interesting to their audience.  The demand for sex appeal has put skin-tight catsuits on such wonderful actresses as Marina Sirtis, Jolene Blalock, and Jeri Ryan.  Fans aren't unhappy about this - and the actresses brought enough to their characters to keep the show from pandering too much.

I'm not unhappy about it either.  But it's a dangerous path to tread.

Some of the early TOS episodes had some very racy content for 1966.  I'm not talking about the famous interracial kiss (although that's the hot-button topic).  I'm talking about when (Evil) Kirk actually molests one of his yeomen.

This scene is actually pretty disturbing when you go back and watch it.

There are no two ways about it - this episode is very disturbing and edgy, and the amount of molestation it shows might not even be allowed on modern television.  If Fuller stays true to this kind of edginess, he's walking a very tight rope.

Censorship is very ugly, but being gratuitous may be less about raising awareness than feeding latent aggressive fantasies in immature man-children who flock to high-concept science fiction shows like tribbles to a container of quadrotriticale.

Remember that Nichelle Nichols has always been an incredibly handsome woman, but her role on the Enterprise was not sex object.  Nor was Marina Sirtis', Jeri Ryan's, or Jolene Blalock's, or any of the other Trek women.  They were all respectable officers.

Oh, are we bringing this up again?

The other scary thing about gratuity is gratuitous violence.  Sex and violence are very easy to flash on the screen to catch the eye.

Seriously, look at how cool that is!

But it doesn't make for very thoughtful entertainment, either.  Fuller has said he wants to stay true to the spirit of Star Trek - in particular TOS.  TOS was Roddenberry's baby, and it's a little rough around the edges but the Great Bird of the Galaxy made a few things abundantly clear about his vision:

• Humans don't make war on each other (and really try not to make war on anyone else)
• Violence is the last resort of a Starfleet Officer (something Picard really nailed)
• Starfleet officers don't fight among themselves

Have you ever noticed that the Dominion War didn't happen until after Roddenberry had passed?

Even the Klingons and the Romulans were never directly at war with the Federation during the run of TOS.  They had established Neutral Zones established through peaceful negotiations.

That Neutral Zone is pretty close to the Romulan homeworld...

I'm not a total Roddenberry purist.  I love all of the Post-Roddenberry Trek, even the stuff I feel went a bit off-base from its creator's original design.  Star Trek is in new hands now, and I don't rightly expect anyone to express it in the same way he did.  Not all of his ideas were good ones, anyway.

Gene apparently really wanted a rock monster in Star Trek: TMP

But I do hope the new television series isn't the answer to the question, what would happen if HBO made Star Trek?

There has been some suggestion that there may be more profanity.  Now I think that profanity can be appropriate dialogue in the right setting, but I'm not sure it's thematically appropriate for a lot of Star Trek settings.

I'm excited and, admittedly, a little anxious about what Fuller plans to do with Star Trek in terms of edginess.  A new Trek series on the horizon promises a great deal in terms of science fiction television.

The Trek and the Furious

You should never start a blog by complaining.

Actually, most of the blogs I've read in the past that have done well did so.  Maybe that'll kick this one off well?

Today's subject is near and dear to my heart: Star Trek.

On Star Trek Movies:

There was only ever one "cerebral" Star Trek movie, and it was Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  It's slow and painful and just an all around not great movie.  Every other Star Trek movie has tried to be Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in terms of popularity, but I don't think any of the people who've had the opportunity really understood what made TWOK so popular (note I say popular and not good).  I don't care what Paramount does with Star Trek, because they don't make products that interest me beyond bland summer action movies.

Where has all the color gone?

CBS, on the other hand, is releasing a new Star Trek show with boundless potential.

That could be interesting.

If Paramount wanted my attention they'd have made a Voyager movie, a DS9 movie, and/or an Enterprise movie years ago.  They had their chance.  So they can cash in on the franchise and make BS excuses about what they think audiences want when their claims don't match the market research (Americans have consistently demanded more complex entertainment from studios since the inception of motion picture; keeping pace is admittedly difficult, but if you don't believe this go compare an episode of The Andy Griffith Show to an episode of Friends and tell me that you don't see a difference in the level of complexity that the characters express).

Gee whiz, you want deep characters?

The real shame is that good actors are getting their start in Star Trek in a part of the franchise that's disingenuous to the spirit of the show.

In 2009, for the first time, we were introduced to characters that are essentially all-new in Star Trek, and in a movie.  I love Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, and the whole new crew.  I don't disapprove of them taking their characters in a new direction (though I am kind of sad they were forced to take on the names of established characters).  It would have been amazing for them to take over these roles on the small screen.  They would have had time to fully investigate their roles and more fully and comfortably join the existing crews of Star Trek.

RIP Mr. Yelchin

But these fine actors have been robbed of that chance - they belong to Paramount now.  They will never get their own show, they will be confined to their action-based franchise movies.  I have other gripes about what became of their characters, but those can be saved for another blog post.

Producer J.J. Abrams blamed Insurrection, Nemesis, and Enterprise for why new Star Trek movies can't be cerebral.  I'll grant that Insurrection and Nemesis weren't a high point in Sir Patrick Stewart's stellar career, but they're hardly cerebral movies.  Cerebral movies don't usually employ dune buggies when the technology consistent with the era allows characters to do things like fly around in space ships or even just teleport from place to place.

Literally flying a spaceship right above the dune buggy

But Enterprise, which was admittedly more action-packed than some of the other series, shouldn't be blamed for taking anything away from the franchise regardless of its popularity.  The episode Dear Doctor speaks for itself in this regard, in two important respects.

Before the Prime Directive

First, it's entirely a non-combat mission.  They're talking about the ethics of establishing the non-interference policy.  Pretty thought-provoking stuff.

Second, because they're discussing the idea of the non-interference policy you get a very good grasp that this show is way more of a fresh final frontier than the Star Trek we're used to.  Humans aren't yet as developed socially as they are a century later, and Scott Bakula does an excellent job of playing a captain who's on the brink of fully realizing what it means to be civilized.

There are a host of other episodes of Enterprise that are just as cerebral as Dear Doctor with the added fan service of having a two-part Mirror Universe story that doesn't center around any prime universe characters (not mentioning the sweet tie-in with the TOS episode The Tholian Web).

The movies have been their own demise, but in their weird way they always seem to fail upwards.  The great thing about the most recent movies is that they convinced CBS that there was a market for Star Trek again (although I'm sure Netflix's statistical data on how much and how often people are watching it helped, too).  I'm grateful for the talented cast and crews that made those beautiful movies.

What do you mean my movie sucked?  Look at my sex appeal!

But I do believe J.J. Abrams can't see the forest for the trees in this regard.  I only hope his attitude doesn't spill over to the CBS television series.  I will admit that I have high hopes for the show, and the funny thing about it is that I won't be able to judge its worth until it has been cancelled (like all the others).