For all the Trek fans- casuall or hardcore, let's have one thread to share the news and speculation about the future of the franchise, shall we? With the new series on the horison, and the movies in something of a tight spot, I'm sure there will be plenty of both in the coming months.

First of all- Star Trek Beyond, despite good reviews and positive audience reaction is pretty much a flop, standing at 194 million worldwide gross on a 185 million budget after the third weekend. This makes the already announced fourth movie (of the Kelvin timeline) a questionable affair. Will it happen, or will it be quitely fazed out? Here's what might happen, in my opinion

1) The safe bet option- the fourth "kelvin" movie happens, but on a much smaller budget (100 million max). Also, the studio will do all in their power to get Abrams back to direct if at all possible. His movies did much better at the box office, and after Force Awakens success his name is an even bigger deal to put on the posters.

2) The "cut our losses" option- quitely kill the fourth movie. Wait to see how the Discovery series works out. If it's popular, make a movie with the Discovery crew after a few seasons, probably a much cheaper opne than the kelvin films (something around 70 million?)

3) The "panic button" option- for the sake of publicity try a reboot within a reboot, and make the next movie a kelvin timeline The Next Generation film. As an added bonus, it opens up the possibility of making the fifth movie a full on crossover between the TOS crew and the TNG crew, Days of Future Past style.

Any other ideas? Also, I know many of you hate the new movies with a passion, and I don't want to "censor" anyone, but I would ask you to try and make this thread a friendly discussion, rather than just post a few sentences of vitriol :)

I haven't yet seen Beyond, and didn't disliked the other alternate timeline movies, but they are more or less action movies with some Treky stuff in it. What I hope for the new series to bring back the strong sense of righteousness and morality of the Federation. I don't mind shades of grey stuff like in Deep Space Nine, but I want to see stories with consequences. Not just generic action stuff...

I hope that they end up doing the fourth "Kelvin"-movie, because I REALLY want Chris Hemsworth to return as George Kirk, no matter how they end up doing that. I really like him as an actor, and I'd love to see him act opposite Chris Pine (another actor who IMO is under-appreciated! Looking forward to seeing him in Wonder Woman).

I wouldn't mind a smaller budget, tbh, as long as they end up making the movie. I honestly don't know how Beyond ended up being so expensive. In terms of the scope of the story, Beyond is decidedly more intimate and smaller-scale than the previous two installments, even if the production itself apparently wasn't. >_>

On the series front, I hope that "Discovery" ends up being good AND (most importantly) that the new show doesn't just repeat established Trek tropes. I want something that feels up to the standards of contemporary TV series, especially in terms of storytelling.

While I'm not a big fan of the dumped down to mass appeal JJ Star Trek I was entertained from the first two and will look the third down the line at some point.

But since the smackdown of the fan film community from the big studios all things Trek currently have this sour taste in my mouth so I'm not really in the mood for either movie or series. Not calling boycott or anything silly like that. Its just that these studios make me feel bad for being a fan... yeah, sounds weird... :/

It's time for a new series. I'm looking forward to them. I hope it will still convey the old utopian view on the human race like in the earlier Star Trek series but with lots of conflicts, but not with an overwhelming action part but focus on the characters and their stories...

Regarding movies: Currently I don't need more movies.

What I don't like so much is the "We own the Star Trek universe" mentality of the publishing studios. I think by now it should be a common good for everyone to do with it whatever they may please.

Yeah, it seem like both of them are constantly trying hard to break through to the A list of movie stars, but outside of the big franchises (Star Trek for Pine and Marvel Universe for Hemsworth) they keep falling short. I was dissappointed that Pine's Jack Ryan movie didn't do better and get a sequel. It wasn't perfect, but I liked it well enough, and the series had potential to improve.

Star Trek is mediocre, it's an unfair universe where good sci-fi like Farscape gets cancelled but ST gets a billion episodes, movies and spinoffs.

They should go nuts in the next movie and let some "alien" in a diving suit kill the whole Federation with styrofoam rocks (CGI styrofoam rocks, of course). After that, they should take a step back and think about a couple of things. Maybe they'll manage to figure out what Star Trek even is about. Protip: It's not about "Yippe ki yay, motherfucker" action movies with explosions and shit -.-

I still don't get why people think it's a good idea to take an existing franchise and to mess it up until it's something completely new. What did they expect when they were doing this? Star Trek fans don't like it because it's not Star Trek anymore. And people who didn't like the old Star Trek won't watch it because it's Star Trek (just that it's not). If you want to do Sci Fi action movies, create a new franchise. But don't call it Star Trek and hope that people will love it.

My guess (and hope) is, that they'll do the fourth Kelvin movie in which they kill off the timeline entirely. The rumor that George Kirk will return would fit that. His son time-travels to prevent the Kelvin incident, kills off Nero before he can do any damage and voila, the original timeline is restored.


Or they get JJ Abrams back and make a Star Trek / Star Wars crossover, just to annoy the hardcore fans of both franchises. :-D
Plot:
Rey slashes through thousands of Klingons while somewhere else Captain Picard talks endlessly, moralizing and philosophical to Kylo Ren until his ears bleed and he voluntarily becomes a good guy again, just so that Picard stops talking.

Not even that really. I saw it last week and it doesn't have the pacing of an action movie. It's just a bad film. It feels like it was pieced together from bits and pieces they felt cool with no thought on whether the story it was telling made any sense. Yeah, copyright is too long and needs to be reduced to 40 years or so. Go and lobby your MP or corresponding political representative.

I don't think Star Wars fans are much annoyed. The latest Star Wars was a good Star Wars. The problem IMO with the first 2 new Star Trek is that they where good Star Wars too.

I don't think I agree with that. For one thing, I don't think a dozen different versions of Star Trek flying around would do much good for the franchise. For another, if I created something, a popular franchise or character, I would not like seeing it taken from me in my old age and given freely to every schmuck who wants to leech of my work.

I like the new movies too. I like the new actors very much (a real shame about Yelchin!). I just don't like the 'oh we are so gloomy and gritty' new timeline. That's why I would like them to return to the old one. Or, if you want, to switch over to the 'regular' parallel universe. And I didn't like the 'historical' inconsistencies in the third movie. But still the actors did a good job.

I thought it was pretty obvious that I'm not speaking in the name of every single Star Trek fan of the past, present and future -.- But it should be pretty obvious too, that most "Trekkies" don't really like "JJ Trek". You just can't take A, turn it into B and expect people (who love A for not being just another B!) to love the B in the A dress. And of course people who like B won't watch the B in an A dress, because it's dressed like an A and they don't know that A isn't A anymore, but a real B with the name of A.

There's nothing wrong with liking the new Star Trek. It's just a stupid idea to call it Star Trek. A dude with pointy ears and a guy called Kirk don't turn an action sci fi movie into Star Trek. And action sci fi fans won't suddenly start to watch "nerdy and lame crap" like Star Trek. Turning an existing franchise into something completely different never works out. Look at Stargate Universe. It was a great series, but it failed horribly because Stargate fans didn't want to watch Battlestar Galactica. And BSG fans didn't want to watch Stargate. Sadly, SG:U was BSG. The show got canceled because Stargate fans didn't like it and BSG fans never watched it. btw: I'm a Stargate fan and I'm sad that SG:U got cancelled. But that's because I liked BSG, too.

Star Trek is going the same route. Star Trek fans (yes, I'm talking about every single Star Trek fan that ever existed!) are abandoning the ship. Their Star Trek doesn't exist anymore. And the new Star Trek doesn't manage to get enough new fans.