StillPaisleyCat

/ Film is continuing to report and opine on key points in the oral history book "The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years: From The Next Generation to J. J. Abrams," edited by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross.

For those of us who haven’t (yet) invested in the book, these extracts and reflections can prompt some interesting discussion.

In this case, it sounds like Nimoy’s hesitation led to a much less action-oriented integration of Spock’s presence. An interesting thought experiment.

Also, it sounds like tapping nostalgia and interlinking shows has been a constant pressure from senior executives at the IP holder. It’s well known that Roddenberry resisted close callbacks to TOS, and was determined for TNG to stand on its own in its own era. Even five seasons into TNG, Paramount senior executives though still weren’t convinced it didn’t need a TOS-connection boost.

Considering the amount of callback mining and IP nostalgia mining in the current era shows, it seems as though Kurtzman’s got a hard road to convince Paramount to give new characters and eras a chance to stand on their own.

This was included in the Star Trek Day content, but released separately a couple of days ago.

It’s nice to see Discovery getting a lot of love in this. It also really shows how great so many of Discovery’s vfx heavy scenes have been.

Leaving aside bias towards the American market and critics, this latest criticism of Rotten Tomatoes influence comes from this September 6th piece from Vulture. The report provides new evidence of PR firms paying critics and persuading them to keep negative reviews off of Rotten Tomatoes tracking.

The Bunker 15 employee replied that of course journalists are free to write whatever they like but that “super nice ones (and there are more critics like this than I expected)” often agreed not to publish bad reviews on their usual websites but to instead quarantine them on “a smaller blog that RT never sees. I think it’s a very cool thing to do.” If done right, the trick would help ensure that Rotten Tomatoes logged positive reviews but not negative ones.

Collider has its own overview and retrospective on previous examples of corruption in reviewing, headlined “Rotten Tomatoes has always been mouldy at its core.’ It notes the inherent vulnerability of RT as it is owned by NBC Universal and Warner Brothers. Collider summarizes the recent criticism and analysis of RT as follows.

THE BIG PICTURE

Rotten Tomatoes' binary system oversimplifies complex works of art and diminishes the role of nuanced film critics.

The recent controversy surrounding Rotten Tomatoes reveals the site's susceptibility to manipulation by PR companies.

The dominance of Rotten Tomatoes in film discourse has led to a diminished appreciation for the human element and individuality in film criticism.

Because it’s the weekend and Star Trek’s new Moopsy is possibly the most frighteningly inspired adaptation/extrapolation of Pokémons to hit the screen.

It appears that this is a promotional feature in Smithsonian Magazine for a a new book Reality Ahead of Schedule: how science fiction inspires science fact.

This seems a good fit for Daystrom Institute, but happy to relocate if it’s a better fit for another community.

Earlier this week Disney announced (whinged) that it expected a $ 300 million revenue loss attributable to the strike.

Today, The Hollywood Reporter says sources are reporting cost-cutting at Warner Brothers Television Group.

the studio has suspended a number of overall deals for its top creatives including J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot (Duster), Greg Berlanti (Superman & Lois), Chuck Lorre (Bob Hearts Abishola), Bill Lawrence (Shrinking), John Wells (Maid), Mindy Kaling (Sex Lives of College Girls). Sources say Lorre’s multiyear pact with his decades-long studio was quietly suspended in May, a week into the strike, with Wells’ deal a month later.

Deadline has a similar report but interprets the news as more likely ‘suspend and extend’ arrangements.

One has to wonder why the major content producers are continuing side with Netflix, Amazon and Apple which are primarily streamers.

I was initially delighted to see BBC amplifying the celebration of TAS’ 50th anniversary. Then I read this piece.

Half a day later I’m still annoyed at the number of easily verifiable errors and that with the BBC’s trusted source credibility, the power that this piece can have to create uncertainty on settled issues.

First there are 22 episodes of TAS not the 20 claimed in the article.

Second, it’s established that Gene Roddenberry’s rejection of TAS as canon was overstated or at least inconsistent (and that Richard Arnold’s own view was a factor in magnifying this question in early TNG production). The BBC article overstates this as fact.

Third, it ignores the fact that Paramount as the rights holder has decided to treat TAS as canon. The article concludes with a statement that this continues as an open question. While it might have been fair to say that for a number of fans, this remains a question, it’s not accurate to portray this as an official position even just implicitly.

Anyone else irritated by this?

As previously advertised.

The rebranded Star Trek magazine Explorer, published by Titan, is including original fiction.

For those who are fans of @DavidMack@davidmack@wandering.shop, this month’s issue may be one to add to your purchases if you’re not planning to already.

Labour Day statement from guild/union leadership as cited in article …

Keyser called out these contentions on Monday, emphasizing that, “These things must be resolved. And not with contract language that has a one-to-one ratio of promises to loopholes. Truly resolved.”

“Of course, that’s not the AMPTP way. And it’s a hard thing to give up on something that has served them so well for 40 years,” he continued. “They are in the process of wrestling amongst themselves, ramping up their public relations, and coming to terms with the fact that – with writers on strike – and actors on strike behind them – this negotiation is different. And they are going to have to do more – offer more – than they usually do. Much of our frustration with how long this is taking stems from that – from their internal bargaining. But they will get there.”

In honour of Star Trek day, this month Simon & Schuster is offering 23 ebooks at discount prices.

Books from every era are represented. (A special shout out from me for the Diane Duane one.)

As usual, look for the discounts in the US, Canada and UK through the major ebook platforms.

Enjoy!

An interesting, deliberately thought provoking 🤔 question for a lazy long weekend Sunday morning…

Setting aside whether specific fans like specific ‘gimmicks’ (crossovers, musicals, bringing back Kirk or Khan) or tropes (transporter malfunctions), Space.com is posing the hypothesis that the proportion was too high in Strange New Worlds second season.

There’s no arguing that the season was successful in drawing in large audiences week after week. Taking a look back though, was there too much trippy-Trek(TM) dessert and not enough of a meaty main course? YMMV surely.

For my part, I can both agree that trippy Trek is something I’ve been wanting more of, and that I would have welcomed 2 or 3 more episodes were more grounded or gave the opportunity to see more of Una as a leader and dug into Ortegas backstory.

The 90s shows seemed to be bit embarrassed by trippyness, although Voyager found its pretext allowed even stern Janeway to pronounce ‘Weird is our business.’ One can argue that the high proportion in SNW is a feature, not a bug.

I’d still prefer a 12-15 episode season though.