https://io9.gizmodo.com/report-star-trek-4-might-be-shelved-1831580791

Well, this sucks. I really liked Beyond and was hoping for the series to continue. Say what you will about the kelvin movies, but whatever replaces them (if anything at all) is likely to be worse.

>shudders at the very thought of a Discovery film<

Honestly, having been a fan of the original timeline, I don't really think it was necessary to even make a new timeline, especially when the whole idea just puts everything into a whole new universe. Like, honestly, look at the older games: they had no trouble coming up with scenarios as long as you didn't have to be Kirk, Picard, Janeway, etc. If you were your own ship with your own crew with your own problems, it was easy. Unfortunately, everything had to revolve around established major events, which was cool, but for some reason developers, despite how large half the galaxy is (which takes up the majority of the franchise's working space), we can't just create our own new catastrophes, incidents, major battles, etc. So, now we think a reboot solves this issue? Oh look, you alienated the fans by changing the cool events and/or retconning, then also try to deal with the lack of any originality. In other words, they replaced the engine instead of taking the banana (shitty writers) out of the tailpipe. Hell, even enterprise (yes, the prequel) established a future conflict (major war), enemy, etc that went entirely untouched, despite it's infinite potential. The whole alternate universe is in direct conflict with the entirety of the enterprise narrative (despite that, ultimately, being untouched, technically). Let's face it: they're killing startrek themselves by not attacking the actual potential of the series and instead trying to tap into the old by modifying it with a new lens and hoping to magically have more success than the original. In the end, they got a cheap win with a bunch of special effects, but no one even cares anymore.

EDIT: To be clear, the idea is to cash in on lore while retconning it. If you make a long winded case, it sounds good, but when you reduce it to simple terms, you realize how inane it really is. Younger people i've seen seem more interested in the older lore rather than the new lore, largely because the old lore/timeline is actually somewhat reliable. Just work around the lore, make references to the lore, but don't touch the lore, and you don't even need a reboot. And if you're smart, you can use that to cash in on the original without reconning it, and also get your new stuff in, too. You don't need the bridge crew love affairs with the original cast if you have a whole new bridge crew.

The problem is that people who own the franchise now are not smart. They are stupid, unimaginative and unlimately don't even understand core Star Trek tenets. Otherwise they wouldn't need reboot, heck they wouldn't even need the franchise - Orville proved that just recreating some atmosphere would attract target audience and compelling writing would do the rest.

Instead we have people, who don't know first thing about making good (in terms of the story at least) movie/tv-show who just happen to get their hands of lucrative franchise. So they do the only thing they can - milking in for money and killing in the process.

I have a hard time seeing the new movies as canon, but I enjoy them as alternate timeline stories (technically they are both, but still). And I like the cast, particularly Simon Pegg and Karl Urban. I hope they can figure it out eventually.

Oh yes. Please don't waste resources on a Discovery film! I hope that Discovery was doing bad enough to discourage a filmization!

I did like the reboot, though. The casting was awesome! But I didn't really like 'Beyond'. I had hoped that they would finally return to the regular timeline. You know, time-travelling, stop Nemo before he can destroy Vulcan and so on. Just let the three Kelvin films be an excursion into an alternate timeline and continue in the regular universe.

It always was and excurions into an alternate timeline. They can continue in the regular universe is still there. The Kelvin timeline is a parallel universe, it didn't replace the original. They'd have to travel to not just the future, but the parallel future from which Nero came to stop him, and if they do then they don't exist and it's all way to convoluted to really bother with as a movie, and there's really no point.

I may be wrong, but from what I know it was actually necessary for legal reasons. Remember, the rights to making movies and tv shows got split, and apparently whatever contract Paramount has (or had at that point, again I'm not sure about the details) about the films described how they have to be distinct and separate from the tv show Treks and the kelvin timeline was about as good a way of making a movie around that as anyone could come up with.

It would be fun if there was a movie where the Enterprise crew travels to an alternate universe, only to realize it is the original timeline. But from their point of view, they are the original* and that is a different universe where Nero didn't destroy Vulcan. Maybe it relies too much on viewers having previous knowledge of the series, but that is the target audience anyway.

There wouldn't be too many changes though, other than a lot of Vulcans running around. Someone who knows TOS better than me could enlighten me.

* I can't remember if in the first new movie old Spock tells young Spock about the time-travelling that caused a different timeline. I believed he just left things vague.

It's been that way for a while, which is what i'm saying. They tried to cash in on video games, but lacked inspiration. The closest they've ever gotten was with Star Trek: Starfleet Command III (which is where my name comes from), but the problem was it just wasn't accessible. Everyone could mod everything, except the missions, which required programming knowledge, and even those who had it had trouble compiling the sources (all the missions were DLL files renamed to .scr). People make unofficial startrek games that have alot of potential but they either get taken down, or they just hold some things back. So now, rather than accepting the real problem (the lack of inspiration) they're trying to reboot to magically make inspiration happen, which isn't. This is why we're seeing all the superhero movies right now: it's a cash in on them. Same thing with Transformers.

And yes, you're right, you can create your own franchise, but having something to build off of allows you easy access to success if you have successful elements, since the name is free advertising, where as original ideas that are good have no problem getting buried (either rejected for "curation," or buried underneath junk, to use the GOG vs Steam parallel). Some can make it, some just don't get the lucky break. What we're seeing here, though, is that some people want to do their story but want to ride off everything else available to them, for free publicity. Kind of like what happened to the Super Mario Bros Movie: the people who did it had already built a set and story for a movie that got rejected so they just took advantage of their permission to use the mario brothers.
That's a stretch. On one hand i want to say you're wrong, but i could see that being the case, but that ends up reinforcing my argument: they rewrote the timeline because they had to do so so they could use Kirk, Spock, etc. If they created a whole new crew, which would have made a hell of alot more sense, even using the same time line would have been even more different.

You hit the crux of the issue: they essentially alienated the target audience. You can't pay respect to something by simply changing it. You pay respects to it by doing your own thing and taking elements, even if you have to be so blunt as to do a crossover, you don't pay respects to someone's work (and the fans of that work) by taking all the symbols and redefining them. This is why people appreciated the other series of star trek like TNG, Enterprise, etc, 'cause the symbols of TOS were left alone. The female vulcan (the name escapes me for the moment, for some reason) was the biggest complaint, 'cause she messed with the lore of the vulcans a bit by her utter lack of self-control at certain points of the show. I haven't watched the new series, but i'd bet there'd be more vulcans running around in it. TOS vulcans usually kept to themselves for the most part, other than the half-vulcans like spock.

Well, I would have argue that it's not quite. Depends on what you consider "free". You don't need money, sure. But by taking a name of an established franchise you implicitly make an obligation to go along with it's tenets. If you fail to do so, franchise fans, that were supposed to become your audience, will become your enemies.

One of the recent examples of that - Jagged Alliance: Rage. It's a turn-based tactics and not a bad game in it's own way, but it has nothing to do with JA series, so it got all possible flak from JA fanbase.

The same thing is with JJ movies. They are good sci-fi action, but a crappy Trek.

Well, it's obviously not free for us, but it is for them. Killing that creepy spider isn't a bad thing to you, but it is to the spider and the spider lovers out there. These people want to push their own stories, not preserve the franchise's popular elements, which is why they aren't making their own ship, crew, etc.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/michelle-yeohs-star-trek-spinoff-is-official-and-will-1831738308

You know, when even the comment section on fucking io9, where any mention of not liking stuff like Discovery or Last Jedi usually leads to a lynch mob forming, thinks you have no idea what Star Trek is supposed to be... I don't even know how to describe the level of fail you have achieved.

Of all the possible ideas for a new Trek series this is by far the worst, dubest one possible. But you know what? I'm actually kinda glad that's what they're going with. Because with the Picard series, I will actually somewhat regret not watching it (I decided not to, because I really don't want to see Picard dragged through the mud by people who do not understand the character and the franchise). But with this? This will be the easiest thing ever to just ignore. I just wish this wasn't tied to streaming platforms, because I would just love to see actuall viewing numbers for this.

In fact, I'm pretty sure this whole "let's make an animated Trek comedy, let's make a dark Trek about cannibals, let's make a The Last Jedi-like sequel series" plan of making a shitload of shows when they couldn't even get the first one right will result in everyone getting sick of Trek, and the franchise will be left dead and considered toxic for years, like Batman after Batman & Robin. I should be angry, but I'm way past that. Now it's just fascinating, this pants-on-head insanity that I'm seeing.

I love Michelle Yeoh in Discovery, so I will be watching this for sure. And although I usually find Section 31 storylines hit-or-miss, the dark side of the Federation is something that I've always wanted to see explored (my head canon is that the Federation is actually a military dictatorship with very good PR).

My concern is that, with Discovery, the Picard show and now this, we're getting again dangerously close to overexposure. Are they planning to turn CBS All Access into a Star Trek theme channel?

That's exactly what half of DS9 and the entirety of Discovery so far were about. I'd say something not about being dark and grim would be more welcome. Plus, I wouldn't trust the people who decided that Section 31, the top secret illegal rogue organisation is weraing distinct, easily identifiable badges, with writing a show all about them. I don't think they're up to the challenge.

Pretty much. Remember they also announced two animated shows, and there was that young-adult targeted Academy thing, though it sort of dropped off the radar for now.

Also a good chunk of Enterprise. But whenever someone at the Federation does something bad, usually they just blame Section 31 and never look back. The main exception I can think of was the DS9 episode where Sisko used fake evidence to make the Romulans join the war. Nobody else to blame, they just decided to make something bad and will have to live with it.

I now realize, with the show being centered in Section 31, the scapegoat thing will probably happen all the time. Oh well, maybe we'll get to see how the Federation is truly ruled anyway.

I think, more than deciding to make a Section 31 show, they wanted to give a show to Michelle Yeoh (she's obviously having a blast with Star Trek and I am having a blast whenever she's on screen), but with a character like the Emperor it's not like you can make it hopeful and shiny. My first pick would have been a prequel miniseries with Captain Georgiou (she is briefly in one of the Trek shorts), though. I think the "not dark and edgy" stuff will be covered by the Picard show.