Watch: Wil Wheaton Gets Snarky Over JJ Abrams Commitment To Star Trek

On Tuesday night’s airing of The Wil Wheaton Project (only his 5th episode), the Star Trek: TNG actor turned sardonic geek culture commentator had a biting take on the recent news announcing the next Star Trek film was coming in 2016, but without JJ Abrams returning to the director’s chair. Watch the clip below.

Wheaton Jabs Next Star Trek as Abrams ‘Afterthought’

As it was recently reported, Paramount has set 2016 for the release of the next Star Trek film. Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness producer/director JJ Abrams remains a producer but due to his helming of the next Star Wars film, he will not be directing (that job goes to Star Trek and Into Darkness writer/producer Roberto Orci). On his weekly Syfy show commenting on all things geeky, Wil Wheaton discussed the Paramount Trek announcement, and then snarked…

Even though JJ is knee-deep in Tatooine, he promises that Trekkies have nothing to worry about… with ‘Star Trek 3: Into Afterthought.’

Watch the clip below.

The Wil Wheaton Project airs Tuesday’s at 9pm on Syfy

113 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Do we really want JJ back? He just broke his Han Solo action figure. Maybe when he learns to play nice he can come back to the Trek sand box.

I agree. JJ leaving for that other franchise felt like a massive stub in the back. Did he only do Star Trek to audition for the Star Wars chair ?
If so then maybe it’s for the best that an actual Trek fan is helping the next one.

My gess is that his Star Wars deal is 1 movie long and no further, so he jumped to the oportunity, and will resume previous projects when he is done.

The best thing that could happen is that the original three picture deal was not only for the actors (who I love BTW) but for the entire writing, producing, directing and general production team to leave also.
Get them all outta of there and we can finally move forward again.

Even if they have to re-image again.

JJ brought the corpse back to life and made it relevant again. The 10 people who went to see Nemesis and the 20 people that watched Enterprise couldn’t keep the franchise alive…so….JJ did what he was hired to do and he did it well. Disney didn’t court him because he did Trek poorly. Having said that, his job is done. There is no reason others can’t come in and build on his foundation. Harry Potter had many different directors as does the Bond franchise The new Trek universe has been established, there is no reason other directors can’t come into it.

Maybe Wil wants a shot at the director’s chair himself. Wouldn’t that be something?

The TNG crew as a whole would probably love to be re-associated with official Trek. I know it’s probably anathema to some, but what if Paramount asked Jonathan Frakes to direct ST4 (if any)? Mr. Frakes did do ST: First Contact, after all. (Let’s skip over ST: Insurrection for the moment.)

Everyone who continues to slag JJ Abrams is missing a very important point: He revived Trek when it was dead in the water. Insurrection and Voyager left Trek a bleeding, wounded creature, while Enterprise and Nemesis left it a corpse on the side of the road. Abrams’ films made Trek relevant again. That is not something debatable. Is his Trek perfect? Of course not. But is it better than Voyager, Enterprise, Insurrection and Nemesis? Absolutely.

“JJ brought the corpse back to life and made it relevant again. “

Yeah, just like the bereaved father did in Pet Sematary. Given the equally inspiring results, it’s difficult to say why I couldn’t care less about Abrams’ return one way or the other.

This JJ-bashing is really getting on my last f*****g nerve.

The tone of the Wheaton show is very sarcastic.
I wouldn’t take it to seriously .

I wouldn’t take it too seriously.
It is worth noting it is only 21 seconds out of the entire program .

The New York Times reporting of April 2009 makes it pretty clear Les Moonves was going to license another movie Trek with or without Paramount. I think it’s fair to claim JJ saved new Paramount’s license to Trek, but it is a complete falsehood to claim no Trek movie would have been made if JJ hadn’t been approached by Gail Berman and Paramount lost its lease.

After STID my confidence in Abrams and the hacks that wrote the script has reached a very low point. These guys turned Trek into mindless action movies. Oh, if only Fontana, Meyers, Coon, and Roddenberry were able to participate once again. New Trek has been weak Trek. Weak Trek is disappointing.

several (many) scenes and sound effects from STID looked like nothing more than JJs Star Wars test reel.

Yeah, I’m not going to criticize JJ Abrams. Contrary to the rabid hatred from some fans, he did a good job with Star Trek. And got a lot of people interested. I never thought that Star Trek would be a formidable box office presence again….well, should I say “again?”

And as far as him jumping ship, I don’t think Wil Wheaton has any problems with JJ. He’s just making a joke, that’s obviously there to make, and he made it. I don’t blame JJ for making that decision. Because if the shoe was on the other foot, and you were hired to make Star Wars movies when your real love was Star Trek, and an opportunity came up for you to make a Star Trek movie with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Deforest Kelley for the first time in YEARS, you’d pass on making Return of the Jedi too. *LOL*

15.
Good Points All.

Jonboc , you really need to check out your facts. Trek was far from dead, the CBS/Paramount restructuring did a good job of killing off any Trek projects for a long time since it is both tv and film so they needed to get the rights figures out. If Disney loves JJ so much, why only let him do one film? They went for him because he is a poor man’s Lucas – he can do a film that looks like something Lucas would do but as we saw in Trek, he isn’t nearly as imaginative. Look at the numbrers adjusted for inflation and you will see JJ’s films are not the runaway hits they promote them to be, far from it.

Ok, so the guy wanted to take a break from Star Trek (directing) and work on Star Wars? What’s the problem? I think it’s better to have different directors on Star Trek anyway. JJ is still producing. If I recall correctly, the actors contracts expire after this one anyway, so this may be the last film with this cast.

#15 — Agreed!! You’re never going to please all Star Trek fans…never! There’s always going to be a faction that bitches about this or that not being what they wanted…wah, wah….babies!

The main criticism I hate about the JJ films is the one where they complain about them being action movies. Well, hell…what’s wrong with having some action in Star Trek? My favorite episodes were action episodes! Doomsday Machine…Balance of Terror…Immunity Syndrome.

Nothing JJ has done has sunk to the level of Star Trek V, Insurrection or Nemesis…lol!

Yeah, but Star Trek: First Contact was pretty damn good. If Bob Orci can combine the sophistication of STFC’s storyline with JJ’s more “modern” sensibilities, I think we’d have a bona fide mega-hit of the century on our hands, so to exaggerate.

In any event, there is plenty of material that remains unexplored for Bob to mine. There are very serious people, such as Dr. Stephen Hawking, who are very seriously concerned about the ability of mankind to compete against his own creation. This is, perhaps, just as compelling today as the SW’s central mythos of the hero against an adverse, but human, enemy: It is the question of humanity against itself. If I were Bob, I’d ask what humanity is up against that really freaks it out. It’s against the future, to be frank. People are becoming afraid of the future.

It’s sort of similar to the theme of ST VI: TUC — people are indeed afraid of the unknown; and similar to the threat faced in ST:FC. The disappearance of humanity and its total extinction. Neither STID nor, even, ST(2009), was exactly about that. (ST(2009) was about the destruction of Earth, not quite the entirety of humanity.)

There needs to be an existential threat in order to get people in the theaters when it comes to science fiction. STID didn’t present enough of that — Khan was not powerful enough to kill humanity. If we want spectacular box office, we will want a spectacular movie threat to end all threats.

That’s also part of what made TNG’s “All Good Things….” so compelling. It was never just about Picard; it was about humanity as a whole, and therefore, about us.

I don’t criticize JJ for making Trek popular again; I do, however, look forward to bold new frontiers in making Trek truly meaningful, truly relevant, truly trail-blazing, as well as gut-wrenching, jaw-dropping, spill-your-popcorn fun.

Chills, thrills, and Trek. That’s all that I for for in a movie. Is that really such much to ask for?

Will Wheaton actually enjoyed both Abram’s Trek films, so I’d chalk up that segment as merely sarcasm.

JJ made Trek fun again over that lifeless low point in the franchise, Star Trek Nemesis– I remember almost falling asleep watching that film while fresh out of boot camp. I walked out of the theater thinking “what the hell just happened here?” lol I’m all for great dialogue, but Nemesis just went on and on and on, and on w the whole Shinzon/Picard segments.

Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness made Trek “exciting” and fun as compared to what we got with the last two Next Gen films.

16. Gary 8.5 – June 25, 2014

Good Points All.

***********************

Thanks!

***********************

18. Trekbilly – June 25, 2014
#15 — Agreed!! You’re never going to please all Star Trek fans…never! There’s always going to be a faction that bitches about this or that not being what they wanted…wah, wah….babies!

**********************

True! Bottom line, you can never make a movie to please everyone. And not everything about a pleasing movie will please you. I loved both of the movies, but there were some cringeworthy parts. But really, one could say that about any great movie.

**********************
The main criticism I hate about the JJ films is the one where they complain about them being action movies. Well, hell…what’s wrong with having some action in Star Trek? My favorite episodes were action episodes! Doomsday Machine…Balance of Terror…Immunity Syndrome.

************************************

That is one of the worst complaints. Aren’t just about ALL of the Trek movies, with the exception of maybe I and VI, action movies? And four is a movie that relies on a gimmick – future people in present times. They’re MOVIES, you can show action and high adventure in a way that you just don’t have the budget for in a regular show. So people tend to go all out. You can get the slower, more psychological adventures on the television shows.

*********************************

Nothing JJ has done has sunk to the level of Star Trek V, Insurrection or Nemesis…lol!

************************************

Hahahaha! You’re ri–HEY! I liked STV! *LOL*

I think you can have a good balance of action, message and not having a vengeance seeking villain on the big screen. I’ve enjoyed the last two films, but I’d like the stories themselves to get back to what Trek is all about. I think that can still be done with a good degree of action…

Ultimately, I’d like to see Trek back on TV though. Something with the same sense of fun and thought as TOS…

Exactly, Leopard!! I’ll forgive you for liking Star Trek V…lol!!

The JJ bashing is completely unfair he brought Trek back to life, but his timing with the move to SW proceeded to knock the wind out of ITD, as he started every press junket for that movie by telling everyone how much he didn’t “get” Classic Trek and preferred SW and then wouldn’t you know it he jumps ship. Its just such a shame as for someone who didn’t get classic Trek he sure knew how to inject the essence of 60s trek with the medium of modern cinema. Okay, some of the story telling might have got lost in the mix, but pretty much all Trek films after WOK have had a bad guy looking for some kind of revenge, the TNG movies are particularly generic in that regard
which is completely counter to most STTNG episodes.

You call yourselves fans?

You should be aware that the bylaws of The International Brotherhood of Star Trek Enthusiasts, Local 1701-1/2, requires that all members make at least six (6) hacky lens flare jokes per ten (10) mentions of JJ Abrams, on penulty of expulsion. We’re 26 comments in and… nothing. Nada. Zip.

Get on it, people! These comment boards don’t write themselves!

Bring JJ back, he is the only one who can make ST 13!

20. Hat Rick – June 25, 2014

Yeah, but Star Trek: First Contact was pretty damn good. If Bob Orci can combine the sophistication of STFC’s storyline with JJ’s more “modern” sensibilities, I think we’d have a bona fide mega-hit of the century on our hands, so to exaggerate.

***********************************

Well, I liked ST:FC well enough, but what was sophisticated about ST:FC’s storyline? They’re attacking a Borg cube, which spits out a sphere that decides, “Oh wow, we lost this fight, like many others….what are we going to do….I got it! Go back in time!”

Why didn’t they do that before?

Why didn’t they do that after they failed the first time around, and have the sense to do it where there weren’t any Starfleet Borg experts around?

Why would they do it in the first place, seeing that assimilating Earth prior to First Contact would prevent all the technological advancements made by Terrans and all of the technological advancements made by the cooperative efforts of the Federation?

Why is the Borg Queen on a SINGLE CUBE near the heart of the Federation?

There is also the issue of Picard as “Ahab.” He really doesn’t strike me as the kind of person who would get all personal over that, even if he was assimilated. Not enough to do weird things like insult Worf.

But here’s the heart of it….you probably didn’t ask yourself those questions above when you saw STFC in the theatre. I didn’t either. Because I went in already invested in the characters and the movie, settled in, and enjoyed the ride. That’s what’s necessary to enjoy a movie, because mostly all movies have wild contrivances, illogical plot holes, etc. A movie is only truly bad when you come in already invested in it, and the movie seems to work against you at every turn. That’s why the whole topic is subjective, too, because some people can suspend disbelief better than others at different times. Sometimes it can be a matter of the day you see something. Oftentimes it’s the matter of WHEN in your life you see something. I grew up watching TOS reruns as a small child, then the TOS movies and TNG through my late adolescence and teen years. I’ll always have a fondness for those series and movies. I have said previously that ST09 impressed me very much, partly because I had been through some of those situations before – deaths of parents, birth of children, etc. It’s not always a question of the movie, but where you stand when you watch it.

@ 25. Jed – June 25, 2014

“Okay, some of the story telling might have got lost in the mix, but pretty much all Trek films after WOK have had a bad guy looking for some kind of revenge”

Not really.

TOS movies:

TMP = No Revenge
WOK = Revenge
SFS = Revenge
TVH = No Revenge
TFF = No Revenge
TUC = No Revenge

2 out of 6 about revenge

TNG movies:

GEN = No Revenge
FC = Revenge
INS = No Revenge
NEM = Revenge

2 out of 4 about revenge

Nu-Trek movies

ST09 = Revenge
STID = Revenge

2 out of 2 about revenge

Nu-Trek, a supposedly fresh take on Trek, went back to the same overused cliches of someone out for revenge, TWICE!

Abrams did his job in making the movies looks great & fun, but his writing team failed him with their poor scripts.

Even Karl Urban acknowledges that they need to be original next time

===========================
Karl Urban: ‘Star Trek 3’ should take a more ‘original’ approach than ‘Into Darkness’

“I really think that what we should do from here, in my personal opinion, is strive to be original. Strive to be something different and new. You know, let’s not forget that ‘Star Trek’ as envisioned was about space exploration. And it would be really wonderful to harness the spirit of that and apply it to the next film, so that we do something different than a revenge-based picture.”

http://www.hitfix.com/news/karl-urban-star-trek-3-should-strive-to-be-original

I think JJ went to film Star Wars as a childhood dream job he couldn’t refuse even though he did at first. While I would much have preferred he’d have stayed With Star Trek 3 to complete his trilogy this wasn’t even set in stone remember he didn’t officially agree to do into darkness until only a few months away from shooting. My worry is Bob Orci directing part 3 while he is a fan he’s not directed anything before so hopefully there will be support from JJ behind the scenes.

Anthony Pascale needs to come back. The current guy is too biased and has been pretty unprofessional lately.

It’s clearly just a joke in a monologue and they try to make it into a news story.

…yeah, HF is out. kinda’ screws up the whole thing… REWRITE!!! =P

JJ doesn’t scramble very well… looks like another STID FUBAR / SNAFU

TC can be white Lando! =P …or Leia’s “other brother” LOL! =P

Lately every time I come here there’s a new article. Thanks Trekmovie.com staff, I’m loving this!

As to JJ, I really believe he would’ve stayed with Wars for more than one film if he could’ve had the control he’s grown used to having at this point in his career. For example JJ wanted to shoot Ep. VII in California but Disney said “No! WE decide these things!”. I think that took Abrams out of his comfort zone (figuratively AND possibly literally). Yay Disney!

And being “out of his comfort zone”, if that is indeed the case, could could wind up being a great thing for all concerned, us included. Star Wars could possibly turn out to be Abrams’ best work ever. I’d like that to be the case.

12. Disinvited – June 25, 2014

Please explain?

I think JJ’s “Revival” of Trek is blown out of proportion, anyone who made an Original era Trek with a big budget & new young cast would have had a hit- It was good in style only- many people could have done it better.

^^ For that matter, Star Trek was very close to having another movie greenlit in 2006, barely a year after ENT was cancelled, but a change in studio leadership wiped the slate clean and opened to door for Mr. Abrams.

Clearly it took very little time for CBS Paramount to realize that Star Trek was still an effective property, and respond accordingly.

Just MHO, of course, but I’d sure have loved to see that other movie come to fruition, rather than a TOS reboot. But such is life…

23. Trekbilly – June 25, 2014
I think you can have a good balance of action, message and not having a vengeance seeking villain on the big screen. I’ve enjoyed the last two films, but I’d like the stories themselves to get back to what Trek is all about. I think that can still be done with a good degree of action…

********************************************

I think you can go in an interesting new way, but you have to measure that with reception. Would a story like TMP wow audiences today? Or would it go the way of Prometheus, which I haven’t seen, but understand to have some sort of sophisticated twist to it. Can you go the way of STV (haha, thanks for forgiving me) and introduce a higher concept? I kind of think the idea of a concept that unites disparate, neglected, forgotten people and organizes them into a formidable force is kind of interesting. But obviously, we all know what people thought about STV *LOL* I think Khan was sort of a more complex villain, who would have benefitted from having more time onscreen. It’s not just a flat out revenge story, Khan appeared to be only doing the things he was doing to get his “family” back, revenge was sort of incidental. He’d walk over whoevers’ corpse he needed to to get what he wanted. And there was an interesting ambiguity to it – what is this guy’s angle? Is he really aggrieved, or is he making things up? Is he working with us, or against us? I love Kirk’s “I’m pretty sure we’re working for him.” line. I would have liked to see more manipulation before Marcus’s reveal as who was arguably the Big Bad of the movie. Maybe that’s why I like Sybok so much, he was not your normal villain, but presented not only a challenge, but a situation in which you say, “Wait….what if he’s right? Cause he certainly sounds right….”

Ultimately, I’d like to see Trek back on TV though. Something with the same sense of fun and thought as TOS…

5. Jonboc… “The 10 people who went to see Nemesis and the 20 people that watched Enterprise couldn’t keep the franchise alive”

I really don’t understand where the idea that no one watched “Enterprise” comes from. Week by week, “Enterprise” had more viewers than “Battlestar Galactica” or “Stargate SG-1”, yet those shows weren’t canceled, they both concluded peacefully.

And the movie franchise came back from “Star Trek 5”, which was a critical and commercial flop, but Paramount pulled the plug on TNG after “Nemesis”, which was actually a better (though still not very good) movie, but did worse at the box office.

31. Ahmed … How was ST3:TSFS about revenge?

Or you could do it this way: Isolate the movies by bad guy

TOS movies:

TMP = Alien Probe
WOK = Vengeful Bad Guy
SFS = Starfleet Advesary (Klingons)
TVH = Alien Probe
TFF = Man on a Mission
TUC = Starfleet Adversary (Romulans/Klingons)

2 out of 6 about revenge

TNG movies:

GEN = Man on a Mission
FC = Starfleet Advesary (Borgs)
INS = Vengeful Bad Guy & Starfleet Bad Guy
NEM = Vengeful Bad Guy

2 out of 4 about revenge

Nu-Trek movies

ST09 = Vengeful Bad Guy
STID = Starfleet Bad Guy and Vengeful Bad Guy hurt by Starfleet

This way, you get a better look at the patterns. Overall, we’ve seen 5 Vengful bad Guys, 3 Starfleet Adversary races, 2 Starfleet Bad Guys (I don’t count Kim Cattrall, she was a Romulan Agent more than SF), and 2 Probes, and 2 Men on a Mission. Although Khan could conceivably fall into Man on a Mission status as well.

If you’re going to reuse anything, Man on a Mission seems to be good, because Sybok and Dr. Soran are miles away from each other, but are both interesting villains.

@ 41. Thorny – June 25, 2014

“How was ST3:TSFS about revenge?”

My mistake, should have add “No” before the word revenge.

@42. LogicalLeopard

“If you’re going to reuse anything, Man on a Mission seems to be good, because Sybok and Dr. Soran are miles away from each other, but are both interesting villains.”

Agreed! Seriously, it is boring to watch movie after a movie about some random guy looking for revenge. I would take a world domination plot over revenge plot anytime .

——————————–POINT OF ORDER———————————-

(Actually, this is a point of fact.)

Let it be known, especially to those who tend to regard JJ Abrams as The Grand Savior of Trek, that it was just ONE YEAR after the end of ENTERPRISE Season 4 that JJ signed the deal to make ST09.

ONE YEAR.

It was not Trek languishing in the wilderness for 5 years like it did from the end of TOS to the beginning of TAS (which was no substitute for TOS, and isn’t even regarded as canon), nor even for the additional 2 years as it did from the end of TAS to pre-production on TMP (so, really, it was 7 years between TOS and TMP).

ONE YEAR.

And how long was it between ST09 and STID?

FOUR YEARS. With no franchise Trek going on during that period.

So, please, let’s dispense with the notion that JJ Abrams “saved” Trek. If it hadn’t been him, I’ve no doubt that Paramount would have offered it to someone else the following week. JJ just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and took the Trek opportunity to break into feature films. And it got him Star Wars, his true love, so good for him. I hope he devotes himself to Disney’s Star Wars permanently and lets some other production company have a crack at Trek. Hopefully run by someone who actually understands and appreciates Trek for what it is.

I’ll never get used to the sight of Ensign Wesley Crusher with a goatee / mustache / beard.

Wait a minute — goatee? Of course! It all makes sense now. This isn’t Ensign Crusher! It’s the Evil Wesley Crusher from the Mirror Universe! (Also appearing in Big Bang Theory.)

If Star Wars gets pushed back, will Star Trek 3 get pushed forward?

43. Ahmed – June 25, 2014

Agreed! Seriously, it is boring to watch movie after a movie about some random guy looking for revenge. I would take a world domination plot over revenge plot anytime .

******************************************

Yeah, I think it might be interesting to take the Man on a Mission concept and use it. Maybe even expand it to “People on a Mission” A group of alien travelers seem peaceful, then appear malevolent, then by the end of the movie, you end up sympathizing with them. That was the plot of more than a few Trek episodes, so maybe people will criticize it for being unoriginal. Or people will rely on the old standard, “Oh, this seems too much like an episode. When I go to a movie, I want to see something bigger!”

A good exploration story would help to cement the Kirk maturity angle. Put it a few years into the 5 year mission, with a more humble and measured Kirk. Have them encounter an alien race with some twists and turns like I mentioned above, insert some flashy space and hand to hand fighting, a major catastrophe or two, a few last minute saves, and bam, you’ve got a movie in line with TOS. Maybe their working opposite of each other, and at the end they’re working together. Maybe there’s a huge difference of opinion on how to proceed, like they did in this movie, only they have learned to trust each other’s opinions and rely on each other to make the right decisions. Hopefully the crew can act like a well-oiled machine as well.

@ 46. NuFan – June 25, 2014

“If Star Wars gets pushed back, will Star Trek 3 get pushed forward?”

Are you talking about releasing it late 2015/early 2016 ?

We don’t have any new information about ST 13, so there is no way to tell if they could pushed it forward or not.

45. Hat Rick – June 25, 2014
I’ll never get used to the sight of Ensign Wesley Crusher with a goatee / mustache / beard.

Wait a minute — goatee? Of course! It all makes sense now. This isn’t Ensign Crusher! It’s the Evil Wesley Crusher from the Mirror Universe! (Also appearing in Big Bang Theory.)

********************************

*LOL* I haven’t gotten around to this idea on Tumblr yet (nerdtasticavenue, if anyone is interested), but I wanted to play Recast TNG with TNG actors. *LOL*

Riker = Wil Wheaton
Picard = Michael Dorn (who is bald now, I believe)
Crusher = Nikki Cox (played that little alien kid on the planet that was going to explode…Sarjenka, was it?)
Data = The guy who played Hugh the Borg

Eh, I haven’t been able to cast everyone. Troi was hard, so is Laforge, and Wesley is the hardest because it’s difficult to find someone who was in a TNG movie/series as a small child. It’s kind of exhausting to look through IMDB to find suitable actors *L*

#37 – Well said.

The “hit” aspect of the reboot, particularly the 1st one (’09), may well have had more to do with the timing. The core Trek fan base was good and ready for something new (no matter what that might be) after a pretty long hiatus, and the marketing folks very expertly sold it to the non- and/or casual-Trek crowd.

Looking back now and in retrospect, while “09 Trek certainly had its problems, it was still overall pretty decent and satisfied both the older and newer audiences, but STID failed pretty badly with the former and only retained a certain portion of the latter.

Mind you, the latter was enough to make STID a moderate money-maker for the powers-that-be, but they were clearly disappointed from industry postings that have come out, and hence the trimmed budget and now lowered expectations for the next movie.

And sorry folks, you can quote Rotten Tomatoes or any other source you want, but STID was most definitely not a success with a significant portion of the ST core fan-base. I literally know of almost no one who I consider to be a “real” ST fan who thought STID was good and/or anything but ST in name only. My recent visit to a Convention only confirmed my suspicions here…the buzz was definitely NOT good and whenever nu-Trek was brought up, there was either silence or outright booing. And the merchandise for nu-Trek was not selling at all, and the autographed pictures for the new crew went for next-to-nothing.

To continue to claim otherwise and cite these supposed statistics reminds me of how the government keeps saying that inflation remains low based on their own statistical analyses, but then how come every time I go to the grocery store and fill up my tank, the price seems to go up some more? :(

Just my humble opinion of course :) …