usernamefactory

If they saw it before they were 14, it’s nuanced, insightful, even challenging. If they saw it after they were 14, it’s shallow insincere pandering.

I’m with you. 2016 may not compare to the original, but it was a solid comedy with a good heart. The bloody meltdown parts of the internet had over it was insane.

Nah, he’s a good Canadian.

Okay, he’s rich, out of touch, and a total dick to his coworkers. But I’ve never seen him express any particularly bad political views.

I’d agree the franchise has generally been best on the small screen, but there’s no denying that the Abrams films made good money.

The new film isn’t very far along yet, but it’s notable because it’s now the only Trek in any kind I’d development: https://trekmovie.com/2025/11/14/breaking-paramount-developing-new-take-star-trek-film-from-spider-man-homecoming-duo/

I think the answer is that the franchise has new owners, who have a different idea of what it should be. Ideologically, they probably want something a lot less progressive. But also strategically, given that the first thing they announced was plans for a new film, they’re probably thinking there’s more money to be found in theatrical releases if the brand is focused there.

I suspect that the next Trek show we see will be spun out from the films and made specifically to support them, similar to what Marvel Studios does.

I agree about shows not overstaying their welcome, but for me the natural length of an Academy show would be 4 years (or however long we agree a cadet stays at the academy). After that, we could have a new Trek show with a new mission statement, but allow it to carry over a select few characters from Academy in the same way that Academy adopted a few of Discovery's characters. That would strike me as a nice natural rhythm.

It probably doesn’t help that clear public fascists were just allowed to purchase Paramount. And Trek’s ideas are directly counter to how they want the world to work.

I personally believe this is the only factor at play. They’re clearing house so they can produce a fascist friendly Trek franchise. It’s the trajectory they’d go in no matter what reception Academy got. The online hubbub is just convenient cover.

Enterprise is the one Trek show I haven't managed to finish, so I'll have to take your word for it. I always assumed "food" was getting glossed over with that bashful "you name it".

Didn't catch that either. I guess we'll see if those talks actually go anywhere.

This is depressing, if accurate, in that it may also be a signal that the new owner is looking for a new production company to manage the franchise just when things had finally and consistently stabilized with Secret Hideout.

I'm sure they are, and suspect that this would be the trajectory regardless of Academy's viewership. The new ownership will be looking to develop a new, more fascism-friendly flavour of Star Trek in the next few years. Tremendous shame, but not a surprise.

I love episodes with no neat resolution, like DS9's In The Pale Moonlight or TNG's Journey's End. But episodes like that are about the struggle with the unresolvable problem. We watch the show's respective captains grapple with and debate the problem for the whole episode.

This episode is mostly a mystery about what the situation with the planet might be. It poses it's dilemma at the end and then immediately throws up its hands.

And honestly, my recollection is that the "unresolvability" is less than there's no conceivable way this society could carry on without child torture, and more that the prime directive means this is all outside of Federation jurisdiction. Which feels more like moral abdication than a real ethical dilemma.

I think there's lots of reasons Le Guin's story works for me when this doesn't, but a big one is that there's no heroic "captain" figure. It's about making the reader face their own complicity in unethical societal structures. I don't feel pushed to do that with SNW because I'm busy yelling at Pike about what he should do, not looking inward.

Modern starship floors are glossy as fuck, they're clearly getting auto-scrubbed and polished by some future tech. You could eat off 'em.