GRIM RUMOURS ABOUT NEW STAR TREK:DISCOVERY SERIES

[Professor Bear]

I don't know what Isaacs' character will look like, but his action figure looks good in that pic.

[Mardroid]

I have high hopes for this series, but I'm not keen on the look of the klingons. If they're not going to look human like the original series (which is fair enough. I have my doubts they all succumbed to the augment virus thingummy from an in-world explanation ) just stick with the look from the films and spin-off series or possibly something in between, like Chang from The Undiscovered Country. The new look, while very interesting  from an alien POV, is too different, I think. Or maybe it's just something I'll get used to.

[Michael Knight]

agree with you regarding the Klingons. I quite liked their armour design etc in Star Trek Into Darkness. Wish we had seen more of that. Incidently ive yet to see Star Trek Beyond although I'm pretty sure they didn't appear anymore in that?

[Dreddzilla]

It's not looking good for STD behind the scenes. Word is CBS will know after the second episode airs if they will continue with it or not. So far 6 episodes are in the can, but test screenings have not been positive at all.

The big issue STD is facing at the moment is licensees are not interested in it at all.

Also Jason Isaacs, and a few other cast members aren't thrilled about being in this, they thought this was going to be a "Love letter" to TOS stylistically and in writing, but it comes off as a cross between Starship Troopers and Battlestar Galactica. 

[Tjm86]

Well that would pretty much kill it dead then wouldn't it.  If there still planning on airing it on their own proprietary channel that no one subscribes to ...

It's up there with screening it on BT tv.

[Dreddzilla]

Here's the first in a 3 video series that explains what the hell is going on with this dumpster fire.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Km5qVwZvjm8

[zombemybabynow]

It's been a long time, getting from there to here......

[Professor Bear]

I didn't realise that the last two Trek movies had been major bombs to the point they'd wiped out Trek's licensing profits, nor that JJ Abrams had tried to stop CBS reissuing the old shows - I'll have to remember that the next time someone deploys the whole "the old shows still exist on dvds and streaming services" defence of NuTrek.

[Tjm86]

Really? I'd have thought that the better argument was; "you had several releases on VHS, then you went with a couple of DVD releases.  You tried HD DVD but that went the same way as betamax.  Now you have a blu ray release.   How about you just breathe for a minute before you actually manage to piss off anyone who might pay for the original series?"

Granted they haven't made the same mistake with anything after next generation.

[Dreddzilla]

The latest video in the series if no one here saw it. It dose bring up info from the previous ep, but there is new info in regards to the very complicated rites issue.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3I3y3_QmBsQ

[Professor Bear]

Really? I'd have thought that the better argument was; "you had several releases on VHS, then you went with a couple of DVD releases.  You tried HD DVD but that went the same way as betamax.  Now you have a blu ray release.   How about you just breathe for a minute before you actually manage to piss off anyone who might pay for the original series?"

Granted they haven't made the same mistake with anything after next generation.

TOS (and now TNG) Trek is an evergreen, though, as no matter how bad later iterations may be, there's always nostalgia value in the shows that people grew up with, even (especially?) for non-Trekkies who just want something with a bit of pop-cultural kitsch value and will see that little engineer dwarf from the last three films and not have a clue what they're even looking at - but slap a bobblehead of Spock doing the Live Long And Prosper sign in front of them and even non-Trekkies will probably know what that is.

As for the DVDs and stuff, in a nutshell: TOS is covered under different licensing terms than TNG-era Trek and the movies, and JJA wanted a multimedia strategy that discarded old canon and extended universe material and made the rebooted version of Trek the only show in town - much as Disney did with the Star Wars EU.  The problem was that he didn't just want them to stop printing dvds, he wanted them to stop licensing the old Trek altogether - no novels, no comics, no games, no t-shirts, no toys, no streaming via Netflix - and basically wanted all other versions of Trek wiped out of popular culture, Uncle Joe-style, so that his production company wouldn't be competing against other Trek merchandise or paying licensing fees to a third party.
It sounds extreme (especially if you're in deep financial shit like CBS is, and Trek is one of your only reliable revenue streams), but if you think about it, it would have created a vacuum that could be filled with games, books and tv shows produced by Abrams' own company - in theory, it could have been highly profitable.

[Dreddzilla]

Thank Roddenbery's ghost, JJTrek crashed and burned. And now it looks like the abomination that is STD is dead before it even launches.

[Professor Bear]

I'm not sure if you're a Trek fan that you should be happy at STD crashing and burning: there's zero chance of the producer who seems to have seized control of the show falling on his sword for a failure with this pricetag attached (not that it would make much difference if he did), so the blame will be laid at the feet of the franchise itself ("fans were burned out on Trek" ©Brannon Braga) and almost certainly guarantee CBS won't make another Trek show under the current management.
The movies are now too expensive to make, the licenses for spin-off media like comic books and video games are affixed to NuTrek, and there won't even be any fan movies of note anymore.  Apart from reissues now and then, and maybe a remaster/SFX update for the ropier-looking TNG-era stuff, this is probably the end of the road for Star Trek for a while.

[Dreddzilla]

I wouldn't count Trek out yet. IF what's leaking from insiders is true, Nicholas Meyer the director of Trek's 2 and 6 has been given the creative duties for a "Plan B" Star Trek series for the CW.

[Professor Bear]

If you think Discovery sounds bad, you have no idea what awaits any show coming out of the CW, which is a network run by fiftysomethings producing programmes written by fortysomethings and acted by thirtysomethings pretending they're 16 in tv shows aimed at 8 year olds.
The best example of this is probably the recent Riverdale adaptation of the old Archie comics, which everyone said was a reinvention of the source material without ever seeming to notice that it was actually identical to every other CW teen drama: the CW simply doesn't know how to make anything else.

Having said that, I did enjoy The 100 for one whole season before it turned into a really bad Shannara Chronicles rip-off featuring all the bits of sci-fi shows you hated from the last 20 years - a robot lady in a red dress that only the treacherous lead scientist can see, you say?  That's too awful an idea to only use in one place!