Kurtzman was writer and producer on the highest grossing Star Trek film of all time. Popularity is a shitty proxy for quality, but if that’s what we’re going with, I think Kurtzman comes out looking pretty okay.
Not with inflation and I would argue Trek was never a movie brand. Trek movies range from passable to awful, and they only made the first Trek movie because Star Wars made all the idiot executives chase that as the “real money.” There was supposed to be a 70’s Trek series, but the movie led to it being picked apart and divided up between the movie and eventually TNG (fun fact, the bald lady from the first movie and Troy are based on the same character from the 70’s series that the movie killed). Nobody who is a trekkie is a trekkie because they just LOVED The Undiscovered Country, they’re in it for the series, even Kurtztrekkies.
But sure, you might be able to find a list that places it in second place instead, depending on their method. That hardly defeats my point. Are you really trying to argue that Into Darkness performed badly?
Nothing else you said is relevant if we’re judging Trek installments based on viewership, which is the metric you chose.
I believe I initially also chose merch sales, which have cratered via zero interest, because nobody likes this, but it terms of net views, a pre-Kurtzman series is going to beat any movie into the ground. I would wager most Kurtzman series have net underperformed Into Darkness (which was a SHIT movie and SHIT adaptation of Wrath of Khan, the best Star Trek movie)
It’s not a reflection of if it’s great art, I doubt too many people have Do The Right Thing action figures (although that would be awesome) but a collapse in merch sales from real Trek to Kurtzman Trek is a direct reflection of a loss of audience and the failure to replace that audience with an adequately large new one to replace those sales numbers.
Then why care so much? Obviously I’d like Trek to maintain a sufficient audience to keep getting produced, but beyond that I really don’t care. I want it to be good, not popular. I’ve loved plenty of shows that stayed pretty niche.
So to actually speak to quality: Kurtzman Trek has absolutely been a mixed bag, but I appreciate that he tries a lot of different approaches to the franchise and seems to be pretty hands off on most of them. It means we occasionally get some dreck like Section 31, but also some great stuff like SNW and, so far at least, Academy.
Kurtzman was writer and producer on the highest grossing Star Trek film of all time. Popularity is a shitty proxy for quality, but if that’s what we’re going with, I think Kurtzman comes out looking pretty okay.
Not with inflation and I would argue Trek was never a movie brand. Trek movies range from passable to awful, and they only made the first Trek movie because Star Wars made all the idiot executives chase that as the “real money.” There was supposed to be a 70’s Trek series, but the movie led to it being picked apart and divided up between the movie and eventually TNG (fun fact, the bald lady from the first movie and Troy are based on the same character from the 70’s series that the movie killed). Nobody who is a trekkie is a trekkie because they just LOVED The Undiscovered Country, they’re in it for the series, even Kurtztrekkies.
Yes with inflation.
But sure, you might be able to find a list that places it in second place instead, depending on their method. That hardly defeats my point. Are you really trying to argue that Into Darkness performed badly?
Nothing else you said is relevant if we’re judging Trek installments based on viewership, which is the metric you chose.
I believe I initially also chose merch sales, which have cratered via zero interest, because nobody likes this, but it terms of net views, a pre-Kurtzman series is going to beat any movie into the ground. I would wager most Kurtzman series have net underperformed Into Darkness (which was a SHIT movie and SHIT adaptation of Wrath of Khan, the best Star Trek movie)
Ah yes, the true worth of a piece art lies in how many action figures it sells. Silly silly me.
It’s not a reflection of if it’s great art, I doubt too many people have Do The Right Thing action figures (although that would be awesome) but a collapse in merch sales from real Trek to Kurtzman Trek is a direct reflection of a loss of audience and the failure to replace that audience with an adequately large new one to replace those sales numbers.
Then why care so much? Obviously I’d like Trek to maintain a sufficient audience to keep getting produced, but beyond that I really don’t care. I want it to be good, not popular. I’ve loved plenty of shows that stayed pretty niche.
So to actually speak to quality: Kurtzman Trek has absolutely been a mixed bag, but I appreciate that he tries a lot of different approaches to the franchise and seems to be pretty hands off on most of them. It means we occasionally get some dreck like Section 31, but also some great stuff like SNW and, so far at least, Academy.