Comments on: Business Brief: Viacom Chief Talks Abrams, Trek, Transformers and Franchises

By: Leonel

Leonel — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 15:09:56 +0000

PS – on the “reconcieved” comment

Do we passionate Star Trek fans have to be so closed-minded when we hear any language remotely close to the word, “reboot”? I for one take it as an indication of the amount of freedom they’re giving the writers, etc. Anthony is right in reminding us that they are far too up the food chain.

Yes, the phrase concerned me as well. But not for long: after giving it a quick second thought it right away occurred to me that they understand enough and they’re saying what they need to say. The suits seem to understand that people are in place to bring life back into one of their brands.

By: Leonel

Leonel — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 14:49:15 +0000

#37 Enterprise tangent.. yes, I liked the show as well except for that Xindi arc. And the Temporal Cold War. Then again, I’m fond of anything Trek as long as the merchandising side doesn’t come out with silliness like Mr. Potato Head versions of the characters..

Back to the original topic at hand: thanks, Anthony, for the “boring” article. Keep them coming. Great to see this little insight on the other side (backbone?) of the Trek world. As has been pointed out, it is, after all, business.

As long as the suits don’t step too much on the fans and on their staff’s creativity, they’re alright. In other words they’re handling the fan productions quite well by leaving them alone. And, it seems like the people behind the new movie has a lot of creative freedom. Besides: we wouldn’t have ST New Voyages if the suits were overly greedy controlling jerks. ;-)

By: Sid

Sid — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:03:52 +0000

Oo, and some decent videogames would be nice too. The dross that’s been churned out for us since Interplay went down has just been horrifying.

Let’s hope that gets worked into the reimagined franchise.

By: Dennis Bailey

Dennis Bailey — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:47:53 +0000

#37:”As long as we’re off on the Enterprise tangent, I’ll weigh in.

Frankly, I think it was a fine show from beginning to end, with the exception of the final episode, which was unbelievably bad. I actually enjoy season one and two quite a bit, and has been pointed out, it only got better in seasons three and four.”

I like “Enterprise” quite a lot.

By: Trevok

Trevok — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 23:27:01 +0000

Hmm Transformers made over $700 Mil World Wide, Trek XI could be a potential cash cow!
LLAP.

By: NZorak

NZorak — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:37:50 +0000

As long as we’re off on the Enterprise tangent, I’ll weigh in.

I’ve come to this conclusion from watching the HD syndication of the show on HDNet, not because I was watching it at the time. The reason I wasn’t watching it at the time was for the following reasons: 1. Trek burnout. 2. I didn’t think that the concept of a prequel series was particularly appealing, and 3. Voyager was so awfully bad that I gave up on Trek around season 3 and didn’t come back until about a year ago. Part of the reason I didn’t come back sooner was because my writing career was taking off at the time and I was having a hard time squeezing in the TV I did want to see. I’ve since rearranged my schedule and moved, so I have more time to watch the stuff I want to see.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 22:02:19 +0000

Every series gets better the longer it goes. The first couple of seasons shake things out, but for the really good stuff, the 5th, 6th, and 7th seasons were the best. If UPN hadn’t shoved it down the drain, I think Enterprise would have kicked butt on the other spin-offs.

By: Sid

Sid — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:58:31 +0000

Let’s not confuse a franchise, a business term, with the IP — a “reimagining” of the franchise may just mean switching Trek to a movie franchise for a decade or so. The franchise so far’s been primarily a TV property with occasional movies, and it’s not making the sort of money it used to — and no wonder, with 5 Trek series, many of them virtually identical in look, theme, etc, running simultaneously in syndication. The viewing public is pretty Trek fatigued.

Now Trek as a movie franchise, releasing a summer blockbuster every few years? That sounds like something that executives can start to get excited about. And THEN we can start thinking about a new show.

Also, I want to go on record as being shocked at how much ENT improved in seasons 3 and 4, having now watched the DVDs. Wish I’d bothered to watch it while it was on the air, but, like I said, Trek fatigue. Gotta love the Mirror Universe 2-part!

By: Dennis Bailey

Dennis Bailey — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:36:51 +0000

Interesting article. Thanks.

“Completely reconceived” sounds good to me. :)

By: Anthony Pascale

Anthony Pascale — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 19:28:39 +0000

dont read too much into Dauman’s comment about Trek….he is waaaay up the food chain. From his point of view and his message to the street is ‘this product used to make lots of money and we got one of our top men on it to bring it back as a big earner’ And it appears that it worked based on analyst comments. In biz speak this means that a good performance for Trek (and the other tentpoles) is being ‘priced in’ to the stock. Bear in mind that currently Paramount is riding high due to Transformers and other films, so the natural tendency would be to actually assume that 2008 would be a dip for the division after such a good year. But with Trek, Iron Man and Indy 4 they are banking on another good year