Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Star Trek Stimulus, Part I


With all the talk of economic stimulus package in the US during the first 100 days of the Obama Administration, it is only fitting to call Star Trek XI/Zero/New Beginning/Abramsprise a stimulus for this long-running science-fiction franchise. For the sake of this blog, all references to this movie in particular will be henceforth abbreviated to Star Trek Zero (STZ). Thanks to Memory Alpha, Box Office Mojo the official Star Trek site and a few reviews from Australia and Internet Movie Database for material. Since this is going to get a tad lengthy, this will be a multi-part piece for perusal. Critiques of this movie and pointed criticism in this piece were based upon initial concerns over J.J. Abrams’ crew, casting, plot, designs, and musical score. Yet, there is ample cause to mention things that did work well for the start of a new/old movie series.


Setting the Scene for STZ



By 2005, the whole Star Trek franchise was in sad shape and faced serious competition from elsewhere in the science-fiction cosmos. Star Trek TV series had a decent run during 1987-2005, but Enterprise was canceled in its 4th season while its three predecessors concluded in season 7. Box office gold eluded Star Trek during this time when its four Next Generation-era films grossed a combined US domestic take of approximately $280 million. Star Trek seemed to enter into a twilight period…
However, The Original Series (TOS) would be part of CBS/Paramount entity's initial low-cost plan to refit the ship before getting underway with a grand film project. As part of its attempt to reignite fan interest, plus revervse flagging sales of its DVDs, any related merchandise and viewership, Paramount released TOS back into a limited-run syndication of its Re-Mastered episodes in mid-September 2006. TOS Re-Mastered shows had improvements with digital stereo, high-definition format for DVD and computer-generated images than those 1960s-era model shots which were state of the art on color broadcast TV.

Popularity for TOS was also boosted thanks to James Cawley’s independent Internet video productions of Star Trek: Phase II (STP2). Cawley, an Elvis Impersonator who also worked on Star Trek sets during the Next Generation period, found a way to defy Paramount Studios with his incredible re-productions of TOS episodes. He even landed some Star Trek actors to do guest parts in episodes that were shot in a warehouse early in the morning at low cost out in rural New York. According to a STP2 panel presentation from Dragon-con 2007, one of their webisodes had more requests and hits for downloads than a single episode of 4th season Enterprise. Paramount even had to borrow STP2’s quality bridge set to make the two-part episode about the Mirror, Mirror TOS universe in Enterprise's final season.

Paramount execs painfully saw the theatrical and TV series prominence of Star Wars and believed they had to do something soon to remain relevant. They also must have heard from someone about the critically acclaimed Battlestar: Galactica which had its expanded, younger audience. Paramount’s top leadership also had to be concerned with Stargate continuous churning out of entertaining shows on Sci-Fi Channel. What really sold them on this latest Star Trek film project was the low-risk, high yield project headed by JJ Abrams and his crew...

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