STAR TREK: The Perpetual Thread
- Thread starter The Sam
- Start date
Processing this fanfic/analysis. A Strategic Analysis of Federation Defense Policy Immediately Prior to the Dominion War
Interesting, but I disagree with some of the assertions within. It also ignored other security issues at the time, notably the Romulans, and downplayed the diplomatic effects of a sudden Star Fleet, militaristic expansion. It also goes to flipflop between calling the Founders paranoid to the point of making war inevitable to pragmatically avoiding conflict in the face of Star Fleet military expansion in areas of their interest. It reads very much as a “hindsight being 20/20” piece with a agenda Admiral Marcus of the Abramsverse would appreciate.
Except here in Canada. No word about that. We used to have the Space Channel/CTV SCI-FI and Crave hold all the rights to Trek in Canada. Except last year Paramount bought them all back (except for broadcast rights for DISCO and SNW). Paramount then dropped all the classic movies, and PROD.
STAR TREK: PRODIGY Season 2 Beams to Netflix on July 1
It's about time — STAR TREK: PRODIGY Season 2 beams down to Netflix on July 1blog.trekcore.com
What happened to Paramount+ being the single go to for all Trek? Wasn’t that what they sold it as?
It was. And it became that for about a month before they dropped Prodigy.
Last edited:
I was literally about to setup a Paramount+ account through Prime because I wanted to watch Wrath of Khan, and only had the DVD when I found out they had done this but it does look like the classic movies are back on Paramount+ in Canada. Still won't encourage me to subscribe.
Like the rights to everything seem to bounce around so much here. One day it is Netflix, next it is Crave, over to Paramount+, parts are back to Crave, some are on Netflix, all are back on Paramount+. It is annoying.
The drama inside Paramount right now (paywall lifted for that link) is worth your attention if you're a Star Trek fan. Short version of the story: for the past few years, Paramount/CBS (like its fellow American media titans: Disney/ABC and Comcast/NBC) has had a rough ride as the economics of TV and movies shift rapidly. Cable and broadcast audiences are shrinking rapidly, leading to declines in advertising revenue. Movie tickets haven't sold well since 2020. And the streaming business has not been profitable. For example, Paramount+ cost Paramount/CBS $1.7 Billion in losses for 2023.
Because of these business challenges, it's been an open secret for the past two years that Paramount is up for sale. Paramount is an old-school company that has, in effect a single owner who can decide what to do when it comes to mergers and acquisitions: Sherri Redstone. There is a board of directors, and there are shareholders, but due to the structure of the company, Redstone has the authority to personally decide whether and how to move forward with a merger/sale of Paramount.
Paramount has valuable intellectual property (IP) assets, including Star Trek and all of the various Paramount-owned film and TV series (Mission Impossible, Top Gun, etc.). These are widely seen as desirable in a potential sale. However...
Suffice it to say, things are probably going to get messy for Paramount in the days and weeks ahead. Bottom line for Star Trek fans: major changes to the franchise--including cancellations of announced TV/movies projects along with a radical change in corporate ownership--may be coming soon.
Because of these business challenges, it's been an open secret for the past two years that Paramount is up for sale. Paramount is an old-school company that has, in effect a single owner who can decide what to do when it comes to mergers and acquisitions: Sherri Redstone. There is a board of directors, and there are shareholders, but due to the structure of the company, Redstone has the authority to personally decide whether and how to move forward with a merger/sale of Paramount.
Paramount has valuable intellectual property (IP) assets, including Star Trek and all of the various Paramount-owned film and TV series (Mission Impossible, Top Gun, etc.). These are widely seen as desirable in a potential sale. However...
Paramount also has a variety of "bad" assets, including old infrastructure (studios and broadcast TV stations) that are seen as declining in value.
The goal for Paramount and Redstone, it seems, is to insist that a buyer takes all of the bad with the good. Buyers, of course, would love to take the good parts and leave behind the bad parts. So... finding a solution to Paramount's troubles has been the talk of Hollywood for the past couple of years.
In 2022 and 2023, meetings were widely reported to have taken place between Paramount and tech firms like Apple and Amazon, with Paramount clearly hoping to be simply acquired--in its entirety--by one of these firms. Nothing came of these talks, as it seems that the tech guys said "no thank you." After these "best case scenario" kind of deals failed to materialize, chaos started to engulf Paramount. Several senior leaders resigned in rapid succession, including the CEO. Huge budget cuts were announced (to the tune of $500M in TV/movie production), and folks working at Paramount have been nervous about their futures.
In 2024, there was a plan moving forward for Skydance--another Hollywood studio with close ties to Paramount--to merge with Paramount. Seemed like a pretty good deal: Paramount would continue to exist as a film studio, and Skydance would get to own all of the Paramount IP. But, for reasons not entirely clear, at the 11th hour Redstone cancelled that deal earlier this week. That has led to wild speculation about possible very bad outcomes for Paramount.
Now, it seems very possible that Paramount will eventually be broken up and sold piece-by-piece to one or more financial services firms. Perhaps some other suitor will come along offering to keep the Paramount business mostly intact... but that seems unlikely after Skydance tried and failed so spectacularly.
The goal for Paramount and Redstone, it seems, is to insist that a buyer takes all of the bad with the good. Buyers, of course, would love to take the good parts and leave behind the bad parts. So... finding a solution to Paramount's troubles has been the talk of Hollywood for the past couple of years.
In 2022 and 2023, meetings were widely reported to have taken place between Paramount and tech firms like Apple and Amazon, with Paramount clearly hoping to be simply acquired--in its entirety--by one of these firms. Nothing came of these talks, as it seems that the tech guys said "no thank you." After these "best case scenario" kind of deals failed to materialize, chaos started to engulf Paramount. Several senior leaders resigned in rapid succession, including the CEO. Huge budget cuts were announced (to the tune of $500M in TV/movie production), and folks working at Paramount have been nervous about their futures.
In 2024, there was a plan moving forward for Skydance--another Hollywood studio with close ties to Paramount--to merge with Paramount. Seemed like a pretty good deal: Paramount would continue to exist as a film studio, and Skydance would get to own all of the Paramount IP. But, for reasons not entirely clear, at the 11th hour Redstone cancelled that deal earlier this week. That has led to wild speculation about possible very bad outcomes for Paramount.
Now, it seems very possible that Paramount will eventually be broken up and sold piece-by-piece to one or more financial services firms. Perhaps some other suitor will come along offering to keep the Paramount business mostly intact... but that seems unlikely after Skydance tried and failed so spectacularly.
Suffice it to say, things are probably going to get messy for Paramount in the days and weeks ahead. Bottom line for Star Trek fans: major changes to the franchise--including cancellations of announced TV/movies projects along with a radical change in corporate ownership--may be coming soon.
I can't say I'm surprised. Old Hollywood media seems to have completely failed adapting to the billionaire tech bro onslaught. We really should hope that whoever buys Star Trek or Paramount as a whole doesn't have a cultural axe to grind.
Yeah, but they're not the only ones. Disney, for all its massive IP library, still can't get profitability in Disney+ or back in theaters.
I never said they were-- but Paramount's mismanagement puts them in a worse place than the others. Hence the stuff under themantis's spoiler tag. They're also the only one of the big three that isn't diversified outside the TV and film markets (with Disney Experiences making up something like 60% of their operating income).
Also, Disney DTC (which is the segment composed of Disney+, Hulu, and other international offerings) finally reached profitability in Q2. Still to be seen if they can maintain that long-term, but it's a start.
Dan Murrell talks about the Skydance deal and what happened there. It begins at 13:28 if the link doesn't take you there
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2EujsoxmhQ&t=808s
Sony buying Alamo is an entirely different thread and depression...
Considering how horribad the Star Trek franchise fared during the split of CBS/Viacom/Paramount, I fail to see how new owners could possibly do worse.
Best case imo is Trek gets sold on its own to the highest bidder and it ends up in the hands of Netflix. They’re probably the only ones outside Disney (that won’t be interested since they own Star Wars) that can give it the budget and freedom it deserves.
Best case imo is Trek gets sold on its own to the highest bidder and it ends up in the hands of Netflix. They’re probably the only ones outside Disney (that won’t be interested since they own Star Wars) that can give it the budget and freedom it deserves.
Amazon would like to say hi after having saved The Expanse...or as SyFy called it, "The Expense".
The Expanse did well under Amazon-- TBH better than it did under SyFy.
I could also see Trek doing well under Apple-- their shows are all gorgeous and Trek's socially-conscious bent might be a good fit there. And they have a history with high-concept sci-fi (For All Mankind and Foundation being highlights).
I’m slowly buying everything Trek on bluray, because frak Paramount at this point.
EDIT: I really wish TNG, DS9, and VOY got the same loving restoration that TOS did.
Last edited:
SNW season 1 and 2 are on the CTV app. Not Crave, CTV; come on, Bell can you be at least a little more consistent than Paramount?
Remembering when I was a regular watcher of Supernatural on Space/CTV Sci-Fi and then one week mid season it was suddenly on MuchMusic 2 instead (which f course I didn't have). I think I finished the season via the high seas and then never really went back to the show even after it returned to Space.
I have all the TOS cast movies on DVD, have idly considered getting them on Bluray instead. Never really felt motivated to get any of the series on disc because they're perpetually on Space when I feel like watching an episode or two here & there.
I feel like Bluray has staying power for physical media. DVD was very quickly surpassed by it, it feels like.
DVD was out for 10 years when Blu-ray came out, and Blu-ray has been out for about 18 years, with the first year or so being a battle between it and HD-DVD. Physical media sales have declined greatly over the last 10 years, but the king of this declining market is still DVD - it continues to outsell Blu-ray. I couldn't find any stats older than 2018 so I don't know if Blu-ray was ever on top.
Hm, I see that the 2020 Stardate Collection (10 movies) is $60CAD. 1080p not 4K at that price. No director's cuts of the first two. I think those aren't in the box sets, just available individually? The 1-6 collection is under $25CAD though.
I'm so accustomed to the extended cuts of TWoK (from the extended TV broadcast cut which I recorded off the air on VHS & wore that tape out as a youth & later the DVD director's cut), that would feel odd. Those few seconds here & there in the first half were impactful (intro to Scotty's nephew etc).
I'm so accustomed to the extended cuts of TWoK (from the extended TV broadcast cut which I recorded off the air on VHS & wore that tape out as a youth & later the DVD director's cut), that would feel odd. Those few seconds here & there in the first half were impactful (intro to Scotty's nephew etc).
Wait, that isn't in the regular cut? Now I am curious if my DVD is extended because I swear I remember that scene!
If only they would dial the Blu ray DRM back a notch or two so that you could at least resume where you left off consistently
And maybe use a mouse to click on menus when watching on PC
No, in the theatrical cut, you don't know about that relationship, which made Scotty's distress after be out of place.
Interesting! I'm sort of shocked. DVD starts looking really rough on current TVs.
Per Wikipedia, they just wrapped shooting in May, but it won’t come out until 2025. Of course, with Paramount shenanigans, who really knows?
Full trailer for season 2 of prodigy dropped, looks like it's gonna be pretty good. Tank top Janeway makes an appearance so you know shit gets real at least once 
View: https://youtu.be/zXh5TLAeJqw?si=AtFc59NUlvISTI2j
View: https://youtu.be/zXh5TLAeJqw?si=AtFc59NUlvISTI2j
I read a funny AI generated article that claimed Janeway’s ship in Prodigy was armed with the warcrime weapon (Thaleron beam, or something?) from the Romulan Scimitar of Star Trek: Nemesis. I don’t believe it, but it fit with the meme of “Kill ‘em all Janeway.”
I have to wonder if at this point, the various media companies kind of regret the DRM and stuff. It has generally resulted in a negative experience for most legit users, a minor or negligible inconvenience for actual pirates, and a motivation to pirate media and a drive away from the media in general due to the bad experience. Not to be ignored, I think their copyright has a dependence on taking 'reasonable means' to prevent trivial redistribution (making it so easy to copy/rebroadcast/share that you can basically do it by accident) so once they take any specific effort at preventing copying (DRM) they have to keep doing it or face an argument that they are abandoning rights to that media/content. I don't think that is the actual legal precident but I think their lawyers probably tell them that they have to do it to help keep themselves and their consultants employed and raking in their share of the pie.
Which brings to mind: isn't it weird that you can stream a movie and have none of the old 'The FBI is coming to get you if you share this with anyone.' kind of stuff? It's like they spent the last 40 years doing everything they could to make the watching experience difficult, delayed, frustrating, and disappointing to try to keep people going to the movies, and then made that experience frustrating, expensive, noisy, dirty, and disappointing as well. Movies have largely abandoned the smart writing, charm, spectacle, emotion, and experience that made them special (and tried ever more to supplant it all with CGI), and TV shows have bifurcated ever more into dank misery-porn or mindless drivel with fewer and fewer options in the enjoyable middle spectrum. I guess they gave up on scaring people with FBI warnings and just figure that even if someone is sharing their account or whatever, they can inject enough ads and product placement and collect enough user data to more than offset it.
And now they're upset that people have reached a point where they would rather scroll facebook/twitch/xitter/tiktok than go to a movie or buy media and they are having such a hard time understanding that they've done it to themselves. Of course, we as a 'watching public' had a big hand in it too but I think the greater sin is on the ones who made money and choices that turned the great machine of the entertainment industry into a grinder that, more often than not, sucks in artists and spits out a gruel of mindless rubbish sprinkled generously with a crumble of soggy DRM and the hard raisins of advertising.
I think I should hit up ebay for some used bluerays of my favorite movies and watch the streaming wars piddle out.
Full trailer for season 2 of prodigy dropped, looks like it's gonna be pretty good. Tank top Janeway makes an appearance so you know shit gets real at least once
Sigh. And Paramount+ walked away from it.
I can't wait.
Would like to see a crossover between shows set after the end of Voyager, including Prodigy and/or Lower Decks.
Last edited: