Star Trek

[Geo]

The whistled song at the end of the trailer was good. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Y'know, the IDEA "Starfleet Academy" for a movie has been mooching around for about 45 years, which is pretty lame. 

-However, I can spot nothing objectionable, even The Doctor - and I didn't spot, but commentors said something about Admiral Kim --- he finally got promoted above Ensign, apparently...

I anticipate significant backlash over the new show, led by people who mostly enjoy the attention they can farm by claiming to be offended, and to a lesser extent by people who take special delight in complaining whenever anything isn't explicitly designed to cater to their interests.

Do I love the premise of a show about Starfleet Academy? No. Do I think Star Trek is at its most interesting when it tells the story of a starship and its crew? Yes. Do I think it's a mortal sin to innovate and build on a beloved intellectual property to try something new? No. Is social commentary bad? No. In fact, that's what Star Trek has always been--even if it sometimes fell short.

As for the Khan show, I'm excited about the possibility. I do hope it isn't a fan production, which can be very hit or miss. I love two of the fan-casted audio dramas but haven't enjoyed the cast-made materials of which Russ, Picardo, and Ryan have all been a big part. I find a lot of the acting for those shows to be extremely wooden. I was excited to buy a copy of Star Trek: Renegades, only to be put off what I felt were terrible, un-expressive performances. Ironically, I think a lot of fan efforts fail because their amateur actors don't look the part, whereas Renegades failed because the characters didn't sound the part.

I think as long as Khan stays away from trying to delve too deeply into a story about the alternate 1990s, it will be okay. Much as I'm a fan of alternate history, I really like that Star Trek pulls me far, far away from anything too approachable.

The unexplored segments of the Star Trek timeline between TOS and TNG are really prime material because there's so much that can be done before we get a much more definitive set of boundaries about what has happened in the universe.

I agree with every single thing you say, except about Renegades which was made of bad ideas and limp execution, but sorta worked, taken as a pilot for a series -which is what they explicitly intended, and few fans reacting accounted for- and also the best Chekov story ever put to film.  I talked about this at length years ago when it came out, if you want to dig it up or ask me to.

As I've also said before, a real pity nobody ever pulled together a Captain Sulu show animated after he got too old for live.  -See also a Riker and Troi Starship Titan show, Walter Koenig and Will Wheaton both being eternally available for the respective efforts.  Possibly too late for even that much, now.