When there was 1st word of a new Trek series I was hoping for a some kind of Voyager, DS9 combo thing that might have involved Captain Riker and the USS Titan eventually.
Not to be technical, but when there was first word of a new series (whist I was at Texas visiting my dad and at the same time occasionally playing SFC2 Dynaverse back around summer 2001), word of Nemesis and its storyline rarely spreaded out, if anything at all. We never heard of any U.S.S. Titan and Riker's promotion to Captain. But that's me being nitpicky.
I miss those days though, Summer 2001 and backwards (in time). Back when you can still speculate about Remus being a twin Romulan homeworld rather than have some strange species and make it desert-like and warm, etc. Remus could've been another star system in TOS canon back in those days, however. *shrug* But I digress.
4 "the one with the whales" for those of us that are true trek fans, hated... 5, well, what can be said about "the final frontier", and then the Undiscovered Country - a valiant effort, and a good film, finally.... still, not enough fighting. Our culture went through a strange period where killing on tv or film was taboo. Even Arnold Schwartzenegger, nearly an action film god, wasn't killing anyone in the Terminator films.... blah blah blah.... thank someone we've grown out of that.
While I agree with the last part there for a bit, I kind-of disagree with statements on the Voyage (Well, sort-of) Home and wonder about the last TOS/TMP Trek film. We have nitpicks, but overall TVH was a fantastic movie that meant to place the Trek crew to "today" (which back then is 1986, when I was born) as a "fish-out-of-water" story (although it would've been nice had Gene got that idea too in "Assignment: Earth" [TOS]). They wanted something bigger than a plauge and have to travel back in time for a flower or two. And overall, aside from all the hard-core Trek fans with their ears and ridges, TVH was really successful due to the non-Trek fan audience coming around and laughing at some moments too.
I won't go on Star Trek V. It was an interesting concept overall yet poorly-done.
Star Trek VI wasn't about fighting and ratings like DS9 desperately was (which was
exactly why it's popular around here, the action. While action and fighting is nice, especially in games, it was sadly overused in DS9 to become what I truely wouldn't call Trek. It still had its nice moments, but wasn't enough in my view to be good). It was about achieving peace with the Klingons, not petty wars. Maybe it's an SFB thing around here... *sigh* Keep in mind I didn't play SFB at all, only heard of it.
I have been generally disappointed with the TNG films. Their series finale was a better epic than what has been done since.
I don't know. I guess you're right on this one, save First Contact. Besides choosing a ship design that seemed a little fan boy-ish in my opinion (at least nowadays), it was a great movie that gave it a little dark aspect without abandoning the optimism of Trek. That's what connects me with Trek nowadays: It's optimism. Optimism that we're going to be A-OK in the future. I think that's what first connected with the audience around Trek's "birth" too, while providing great adventures. That is, aside from the other reasons, reasons being space battles (again, DS9).
DS9, well, didn't have the Enterprise did it... so I had a hard time getting into it.
Well, it proved it didn't need the Enterprise to be successful, and aside from TOS, Enterprise proved you could have the Enterprise (of some kind) and fail miserably.
Voyager did end up being a good show.
Well, it was at first. I think up until Season 3 it had its moments to be well worth watching it. But I think without a "babe" on the show it would've been canceled. Enterprise copied Voyager that way and it didn't help, even if at a moment or two some of these fans attracted by lust would've been celebrating during an episode or two that really turned me off of today's Trek.
I believe that they have not yet harnessed the full potential of the TNG series. The stage is set, but I fear that they will shy away from what is an obvious storyline. What Trek needs is a good "war journal." There are certainly enough hostiles out there now, rogue Romulans, Remans, Cardies, 8472, Borg Rogue Drones, Lore (Data's other brother).... and yet I see them trying to copy a Search for Spock....
I think we've been in TNG for too long. Some books would've done that just as well for you. But I find a bit of trouble in successfully making a TV, let alone a
movie in the Pre-TOS timeline, at least if we expected the kind-of "assumed canon" everyone thought about (even I), something like
Masao Okazaki's Starfleet Museum for example.
I've seen better story lines in the RPG's of other Trek based fan sites than what the Paramount staff writers are able to conjure.
I think books are what make Trek today, ever since a decade ago. I belive they potentially have better stories than TV episodes of Trek or about half of those RPG websites (if not most or all)... No offense of course since they can conjure out great stories themselves. But my point is, there are
great books out there both old and new, such as an alternate view into the TNG timeline's "Mirror Universe" that mirror's TOS's episode in a great way, or Greg Cox's stories involving Gary Seven, or the Eugenics Wars.