Themightytom wrote:RedImperator wrote:
Where were these fans when Enterprise was drawing test pattern ratings? What makes you believe there's a market for a miniseries or a TV movie about the backstory of a damn prequel? Even webisodes have non-trivial production costs when you're talking about bringing in the actors and creating the effects you'd need to pull this off. It's not like nBSG where you had the sets already built and the actors under contract anyway.
What are you referring to as "Enterprise test pattern ratings? Enterprise Viewership was UP at the end, specifically when they started to make reference to issues that arose from the original series.
You are, as usual, full of shit.
Hollywood reporter link.
You'll have to scroll for a while to get to
Enterprise--it's at #142, behind other quality UPN programming like
Girlfriends,
Half and Half, and
Britney and Kevin: Chaotic. It was down
fifteen percent in 2004-2005.
I specifically mentioned convention goers however. Show me taht convvention attendance is down, don't substitute my point with your own doomed one, we know Enterprise wasn't popular, the show sucked but that was precisely because it spent three years being something other than what it was proposed to be.
I have a better idea. Why don't you show the class that the convention-goers are enough to support a television production. Where would you even get this idea? Presumably the convention-goers are a subset of the hardcore fans--not every one can afford to go to conventions, or has the time, or particularly wants to, after all--and if anyone is going to watch
Enterprise, the hardcore fans will. Your argument seems to be that 1) the convention-goers represent a large enough potential audience to justify a television or webisode production, and 2) most convention-goers
weren't watching
Enterprise.
The Mirror universe episode with the Defiant for example, even the Romulan war arc, before people realized it was going nowhere. the fans were alienated because they were INTERESTED in the backstory and Enterprise didn't tell it.
Which is why
Enterprise was down 15% in season 4. Because it got back to its roots and attracted the fanbase back, *I'm a smarmy asshole*?
Now the backstory described in the comics, portrayed as a prequel wouldn't just attract TNG followers, it heavily features spock, and would draw in the traditional convention goers as well. The same fans who came to see the reboot. you are making a case that there is no market based on a subset and refusing tto consider the entire population of Star Trek fans as a potential market.
I can't even follow what the hell you're talking about anymore. You're just pulling shit out of your ass and expecting everyone else to accept it--why don't you show me the data you're using to draw these conclusions, rather than just stating them as fact? And Jesus Christ, proper nouns and the first word in a sentence are capitalized. That's not just for decoration; when you don't capitalize the first word in each sentence, it makes it harder to read the paragraph.
You raise valid points about the production costs being prohibitive, I acknowedged that from the get-go with the statement "It probably won't happen." my point is there is a market for it, but probably not enough to support a profit on the individual movie. On the other hand if you inclue profit targets in terms of new fans attracted to the old franchise, a more solid connection with the old franchise leading additional old fans to the new franchise etc, there is some value in the exchange.
You acknowledged that it probably won't happen, but you obviously don't understand why. You think there's a market for a prequel to the prequel, tying in the new continuity to the old, based on...the huge audience in waiting at Trek conventions, I guess. You haven't lifted a finger to prove any of this, let alone explained why it's necessary. For the pedants who really honestly and truly need 2009-Trek wedged into the old continuity, there's the comic book.
As for the actors, leonard nimoy is probably the most expensive of them all. Flash the enterprise by with a Brent Spiner voice over shouting "Hey i'm the captain!", have a cameo by Geordie giving spock his new ship and what other high value actors do you need?
You're fucking kidding me, right? A universe which has had video telecommunications in-universe forever is going to establish verisimilitude by having Brent Spiner's
voice over the radio. And what makes you think this half-assed production could even afford Leonard Nimoy, or that Nimoy would want to act in a miniseries?
Tell me levar burton's luccrative career is running at high gear, he peaked with fricking reading rainbow. You can hire no name actors to play no name characters dressed in contemporary Starfleet uniforms and if its either TV movie or webisode you don't need to have high definition CGI.
So let's summarize: you think, on the heels of a successful movie, that Trek should throw together a cheap TV movie or miniseries or webisode or what-have-you, featuring second-rate CGI and D-list actors, for some hypothetical mass audience of fans who give a shit how the old continuity connects to the new one. This is how you protect the brand you just spent four years and $150 million dollars rebuilding: throwing together a cheapie piece of shit to cash in. Rick Berman, is that you?
Probably nothing officially licensed, though 