What ever happened to Brannon Braga?

You know, the fans no longer have Berman/Braga to blame for Trek being shit. What's gonna happen when J.J.'s new Trek 90210 stocked with nothing but underwear models bombs?

What're you gonna do if it doesn't?

I'll celebrate Trek's triumphant return along with the rest of fandom. But I'm not counting on it. Trek's fanbase is far too splintered, angry, bitter, venemous and vindictive to ever give another Trek project a "mandate," as they say in politics. No matter how good the movie may be on it's own merits, it's potential for winning over the fanbase is limited by the very nature of what the fanbase has become over the past 15 years.

...which is why they'd be stupid to make a movie aimed at catering to Trekkies. They should instead focus on making a good movie that non-Trekkies can enjoy that uses Trek as a backdrop.

After all, given ENT's final numbers, just how many die-hard Trekkies ARE there still? 2 million? 4? It makes no sense to make a sci-fi movie that you can expect to gross $20-40 million on.

They need to do what they did with TWoK--a story everyone can related to with characters we all know in a familiar setting.

Do you all think that Brannon understands why he is disliked?

Do you even think he knows that he's disliked?

^Yes, but judging by what was being said in the last days of Enterprise, he blames us for it...

I think he does. But, I'm not sure that he is aware of the reason.

I get the feeling that he thinks he did a wonderful job with Enterprise. He brought a lot of "cool" things to it.

Ah yes, the Holy Grail of Trek marketing, the "mainstream" non-Trekkie. It's been the battle cry of Trek producers for over a decade. Make a version of Trek that non-Trekkies will watch.

Fools gold. Trek reached it's peak of pop culture credibility with TNG circa 1991-1993. When Deep Space Nine premiered, it was an "Event." But ever since then it's been downhill.

Star Trek, and science fiction in general, appeals to a certain narrow cultural niche. Beyond that, sci-fi is still perceived, as it's always been perceived, as the realm of nerds, geeks, societal washouts and that old standby, the 35 y/o virgin living in his parent's basement.

Explain the success of "The Wrath of Khan" then. There were probably maybe a million Trekkies the world over when that came out. If it wasn't big with the "mainstream audience", then who went to see it?

Don't forget "the one with the whales".

True dat. I suspect if you axed around, IV isn't one of the most popular 'Trek films with Trekkies, but for years it was the most profitable and loved overall.

Indeed. If you make a product that you think others should like (mostly because you do) rather than making something they really want, don't be surprised when you don't make any money

Now that Berman is gone, I'd love a belated DS9 film with Brooks and Company...whether XI succeeds or fails.

Pick things up ten years later...let TNG actors make small cameos rather than star. Voyager ones too if it fits what's going on.

No doubt Shatner will want to play a Prophet or something...or maybe reprise the Big Giant Head, the role he was born to play

IV is one of my favorites (despite my nitpick of needing the EARTH IS DOOMED plot device), because it had some good sci-fi elements, possibly the best use of all the characters and their personalities, and most of all, good humor about it all. You could really tell that just about everyone was having a good time in the film.

Wasn't at all like I, where nobody was used to it being a movie, or V where everyone just felt obligated to do it.

Having just rewatched the Original Series films, I kind of changed my opinion on III - it's better than I remembered, though only for Christopher Lloyd.

For me, III is a bit like Empire Strikes Back. I didn't particularly enjoy it as a kid but now I really like it. I think this is because I'm more mature and understand some of the themes in it. And because I am able to see it as the important bridge between two other movies rather than as a free-standing offering.

That said, my favorite bits in it? The whole "Stealing the Enterprise" sequence--from the scene in the lift: "The word, Admiral?" "The word is 'No.' I am therefore going anyway." up to...I dunno. "That's what you get for missing staff meetings." ? And the two scenes with Kirk and Sarek; where Sarek confronts him in the beginning and at the end: "...but the cost; your ship, your career..." "If I hadn't gone, the cost would've been my soul."

I saw a Brannon Braga interactive interview online a few months ago where he acted pretty graciously about his missteps with the franchise. He finally acknowledged that he failed big time with TATV and didn't do much blaming of other folks. It's more than what anyone can say for Rick "We are very pleased" Berman.

You wouldn't happen to have a link to that interview would you? I'd love to see Braga actually do anything other than tow the Berman line of we are very pleased, or even worse he did things because they sounded, looked, or felt "cool" to him.

Watch the commentary track on Generations.

He acknowledges his hackery rather plainly in that.

Is that something he said in the audio commentary that he does with Ron Moore?

I hope he was cast into a lake of fire, with great cursing and gnashing of teeth.

Yeah.
He slags himself for the bland death of Kirk, notes that they were writing Generations and "All good things...", at the same time, and AGT came out better for some reason, slags the gratuitous technobabble in the engineering scenes, etc.

I'll take a watch and see about what point of the movie does he say it in?

It is probably the closest we'll ever come to any type of an apology for his poor writing and producing talents.

Eh, spread through the whole thing kinda.
Just watch it.

Rewatched and listened to. It's funny when I listen to Braga talk about Star Trek I remember exactly why I dislike the guy. He really is clueless in my opinion regarding Star Trek itself and again in my opinion what people like about Star Trek. It is also obvious that he is not interested in much of anything that took place on Star Trek prior to his being hired or pretty much anything portion of Trek that doesn't have his name on it.