Star Trek Social Club

I think the sensibilities of the audience has shifted since the new millennia. Multicam feels claustrophobic to the modern audience and that’s one of the main aesthetics of retro trek.

The other thing is that every Trek series, aside from DS9, depicts a pretty rigid, hierarchical, militaristic environment. Maybe not as much as Klingons or Cardassians but I think this setting, the nomenclature, the general vibe is becoming alienating to a modern audience. Keep in mind, people have become highly cynical toward predominately white and Westernized institutions, and the Federation is very much that. It feels like America with Aliens on board. English is the only language ever really spoken aside from some alien languages.

In my opinion, there needs to be a show that pulls heavily from DS9 while maintaining some of that optimism and sincerity we love from retro Trek. It needs to oscillate between these juxtaposed tones. The show should be told from the perspective of multiple equals that make consensus based decisions instead of a primary Captain like Picard, Sisko, or Janeway who supersedes all decisions. Everyone has specific roles but there is no hierarchy.

Also, remove the white savior element that retro Trek holds over many of the beings they come across in the franchise. The group, whomever they are, would be far more interesting as some kind of nomadic space commune that is extremely removed from federation involvement. If anything, I’d say at most there is one person with ties to the federation but perhaps they left for unknown reasons providing rich backstory and future storylines if they do come across the federation.

This perspective is more akin to the actual lens the average viewer sees the world. We are not making cosmic decisions, we’re just trying to survive. And, when we see the government, we see a dark looming presence hovering over us, trying to tell us the best way to live our lives, and it’s fucking annoying, right?

That should be the New Trek.

Either reboot it or let it die. If I wanted to make the effort to dive into such an convoluted world, I'd get into LotR. I will never understand everybody's fascination with decades old franchises with impenetrable lore. Nothing against Star Trek specifically, I'm just tired of seeing media and thinking "Oh, that looks interesting, I'd like to get into that" just to find out there's a backlog of 47 years of world building I have to catch up on before I get to enjoy it. This is why I never got into Dr. Who, Star Trek, LotR, Warhammer, WoW or One Piece.

They really need to find ways to get Star Trek to an audience beyond Paramount+

Hell, why not put the new shows on normal TV a couple of years after they air online? I know fewer people watch traditional TV these days, but it's still a way to get the show out to a more general audience

Make it episodic again, focus on the story instead of the action, and basically just do TNG, but with even better sets, costumes and make-up. Stop trying to be dark, gritty and edgy. If there is an over-arcing narrative, make it the B or C plot in most episodes, to keep it episodic by nature.

We just need more star trek memes to take over and we'll save star trek

Star Trek was never a show for kids, so it's not surprising kids don't know about it. Star Wars and Harry Potter were for kids

Star Trek has always been more about solving things without violence when possible, which means action sequences don't happen often, so a significant portion of people won't find any interest in it.

To me, personally, Trek fails at simply not having "anything really going on". I don't know about more recent Trek shows, but there's never anything that feels like a real threat, or any threat that goes beyond 2 episodes. Some of the exploration feels like "Oh, we're just fucking bored, I guess, let's see what we can find over that star system", everything feels unbelievably safe. Sure, Kardassian assholes might capture you and torture you for shits and giggles, you never know when something with literal godlike powers might decide to show up and challenge the crew out of boredom, but that's not a risk you're at while exploring a weird world or solving a Sherlock mystery in the holodeck. For comparison: Battlestar Galactica had a permanent worry about (lack of) resources, being a fleet on the run with a single military ship to protect it against an overwhelming enemy and an "anyone could be a sleeping agent of the enemy" conflict. Not everything BSG did was good, but that overall setting and premise permeated everything.

Put another way, what would be the most common answer to "What is Star Trek about?"

They had the good idea with the Kelvinverse as a more approachable, mainstream friendly variant to classic Star Trek. Then they made Discovery and killed all momentum, alienating both old and new fans.

There are plenty of good responses here already, but to me the main thing in marketing Trek to new audiences would be stop the frigging nostalgia fest.

• don't circle back to the TOS characters at the tip of a hat. Yes, JJ Abrams, I'm looking at you, but also every other recent attempt at new Star trek movies.
• All the stories around those characters have been told already. Make something new and current within the same universe.
• Don't shoehorn canon and continuity onto every new show. Having Bones make a cameo in the TNG pilot was cute. Making Burnham a previously unmentioned lynchpin in Spock's character was... unnecessary. Don't get me started on SNW.
• The wealth of continuity from previous shows shouldn't be a namecheck scorecard, but a backdrop that curious current viewers can track down and explore on their own.

Twenty years ago when the BBC relaunched Doctor Who, they played down all the background stuff for most of the first season, only drip feeding lore to the audience.

• The stories, the characters had to be appealing on their own
• The 26 seasons worth of classic Who wasn't required watching to keep up, but it gave resonance to the new show.

Star trek needs to learn from that approach to focus on good stories and engaging characters — and to aim outside of the established but dwindling fan group by allowing the almost 60 years of canon to play second violin.

Un-cancel Lower Decks. 😉

Honestly, though, I feel like most media groups in general forget why the streaming model worked in the first place. They want Office-level hits, but forget that The Office wasn’t immediately successful. Not immediately killing it just because of that gave it time to find a fandom.

Most shows should automatically get 2-3 seasons, and they often aren’t getting that.

As for the whole “none of them knew what Star Trek was” anecdote - I find that a bit exaggerated. I’m a college student, and I wore a Boimler costume for Halloween- most could identify that I was something Star Trek. Around other people my age, they can at least think of Spock or Patrick Stewart.

How I got into Trek as a kid was my mom would be watching it, and she’d let us join even though we were supposed to be doing homework. TNG was the one I saw the most during that.

P.S: As I’ve floated around this forum several times, I think an animated anthology series of strange new crews would be awesome.

Give them Andor instead of Ahsoka; they need to make more content that speaks to the universal human condition and less about the cool worlds and characters they've got. The people want Squid Game and Severance, not another cinematic universe.

Stop trying to be ‘cool’ (or whatever you think is cool). Star Trek was never cool. Just do Star Trek and the right people will find it.

Reminds me of what I heard from a comedian a while back, about how restaurants slowly lose what made them great in the first place, until they become a poor imitation of Applebees, or similar restaurants, because “that’s what people want”. They then eventually fail, because if you want Applebees, you go to Applebees.

But how is Star Trek not doing so hot if I just read this:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/star-trek-franchise-made-2-202843856.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALfICqIPVLbKoRwsReQJxRCI-TT82SDIYzfpW-2AtJJIFkUDte6RYqje2cLjYdUSMHv8aIZAChVfJbG67Oc0gMeMq8JnQOsJL7BFn3bOVq88vqS2d91nJ_zezWnxi7NkvgDlCTj3o39JuAUUdGPT0Tq8fUHsiw7PWaskoR9cbDRb

Sorry, I don't care what Kurtzman says about this (or an actor that is obliged to defend a project he was in) when it's justifying putting out schlock for mind share. If that's the best we can do, let it die - it doesn't make anything that exists any worse.

Trek needs a good show that stands alone and isn't aimed at us but a fresh audience. That means no cameos, limited references, not animated (that is a stigma as much as I love LD), and actually taking the time to get people invested.

Basically, they needed Discovery to not be garbage. I know non-Trekkies that were actually excited for a new sci-fi romp and got turned off almost immediately by the nonsense writing. Not the cast, or stupid out of universe concerns about being "woke" or some shit, just plain out "this makes no sense and isn't fun to watch" and it was hard to disagree.

Everything since then has lived in Discovery's shadow in terms of new audience and has mostly dealt with that by being aimed at fans of 90s Trek and nobody else. Prodigy may be an exception here, but that suffers from being oriented at kids.

Re runs and free yet uploads of TNG with advertising like "here's a future we can have, with quality leadership. Keep fighting for decency"

My personal experience is that one should be ready to watch star trek.

When I was 20 I simply wasn't ready and didn't try watching any of it despite a friend insisting it was worth it.

Two years ago, instead, I was so ready that I could enjoy TOS too

I'm still not at discovery, so I need to see the nuTrek to say more. But I really just think you can't advertise trek too much.

@concrete_baby

Could there be a reboot that decides to go back to the optimistic world view of the original?

It's not just Trek. Who decided that all SciFi has to be dystopian, brooding, militaristic, or horror?

It's ironic that if you want Trek with the vibe of the original you have to watch "The Orville".

I would lecture the little weaklings on how life was like in my day, and tell them to get off my lawn.

What is the age range they are classifying as young? Are they talking like teenagers or mid-20s to 30s? The thing with Star Trek that I think attributes to the non-fans not watching would be the stylization. Going back to the comparison of MCU, HP, and Star Wars: they all have something unique (be it the directing, photography, acting, writing, music, special effects, etc.) that if you pay attention for a significant period will find. Star Trek is no different. When you watch a MCU movie or TV show you probably see the sleek costumes and fast paced fight choreography. With HP, it was probably all the special effects, makeup and set design. For Star Wars it might be the writing, special effects and music.

I’m being non-specific here of course. Star Trek like I said is no different. There are visual and non-visual language being utilized that we find enjoyment in. For anyone not currently into these properties, it could be difficult to enjoy. Especially if you haven’t been someone who watched these properties from a young age or from the early years. For example, if you had someone exposed to only the Kelvin Timeline try to watch TOS or TNG with no context for how it relates, a disconnect might form. Visually those series are not as sleek or modernized as those movies.

As for the comparison to video games… that is simply a different medium. What appeals to one person to the next will be hard to gage. That doesn’t preclude the likes of Fortnite players from enjoying Trek, but culturally that kind of entertainment is very different from what a kid who grow up with TNG was exposed to.

section 31 was pretty cringe. There were some pretty cool concepts and ideas but, overall not executed well at all. It seems section 31 is made up of a bunch of dumbass rejects? Georgiou character was way over hammed compared to how she was in Discovery. Driving the movie like it was a video game was an interesting idea that could have been done better. The couple twists with the whole "whos the traitor?" was interesting if not rushed, seemed like an afterthought.

its one of those movies you watch once.