More On Save Enterprise Donations 636
Malfourmed writes "TrekUnited.com today announced that three anonymous contributors from the commercial spaceflight industry have stepped forward with a $3 million pledge toward the campaign to ensure a fifth season for the recently cancelled Star Trek: Enterprise.
The benefactors explained why they believe this campaign deserves such a substantial contribution: 'We think Star Trek and especially its latest incarnation, Enterprise is the kind of TV that should be aired more often. The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not. We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek; and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi , we are also good at writing checks, big checks. The people airing this kind of TV have a responsibility; inspiration.' " We reported on this a few days ago, but this is more info about the largest donors.
Wha? (Score:2, Insightful)
What's a doner?
Trying to herd cats (Score:5, Insightful)
Rb
They really got it together last season... (Score:5, Insightful)
Um... no. (Score:5, Insightful)
Have they watched it? If so, have they ever seen things like ST:TNG, Babylon 5, Firefly, or even Battlestar Galactica?
If they had, they'd realise there's better things to do with their money, no matter how much "better" this last season was.
So.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Just goes to show... (Score:2, Insightful)
News to You (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:1, Insightful)
Tell you what, next time you think about upgrading or buying a new computer/TV/ Microwave or anything, just give that money to charity instead. After all, you don't need a new one, you can get by fine with what you have. Also, you don't need that new game or book, so give the money to charity.
These guys are paying for something they think is worthwhile. Quit complaining that the money would be "better spent elsewhere"(tm).
The NoAd probe (Score:2, Insightful)
They are also responsible for QUALITY. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Enterprise is horrible... Voyager was bad... but Enterprise is REALLY bad. I know im really drawing straws between determining which one is worse... but that really is non releveant to the point.
The show was and is very terribly made and is even contradictory to what the intentions of gene rodenberys universe were. It's lost it's multi-culturalism, the founding principle and indeed the trademark difference star trek brought from it's very first iteration throughout the rest of it's tenure. "Enterprise" is nearly an all-white western crew with the exception of a black driver and a vulcan.
This is NOT the vision of our future Gene painted, and it is NOT star trek.
I understand the fans love this show for some strange reason, or maybe they simply love the Star Trek universe and will bear the burden of this worst incarnation just to keep it going... but i believe their efforts... and money.... would much better spent on getting paramount to create a new quality star trek true to its roots.
Abandon the scot bacula, the country western intro, the nearly all-white and all-western crap of a show theyve created, and return to what star trek was supposed to be.
If you havent forgotten, Trek was supposed to be about a HOPE for humanities united front against "the final frontier". At last mankinds differences werent as great as the difficulties in facing a diverse and strange universe beyond our little backwater pond of a planet.
This money should be spent creating a show with better writers, a better cast and crew, and something far more canon than they have been. I would much rather see the rise of anything at least on the level of deep space nine, than any continuance of this voyager "enterprise" drivel.
3 million could at least hire better writers, and change the cast.
Lastly, these guys hit it on the head when they said that star trek's important role in our society is inspiration, there is no doubt it's had a cultural impact of untold magnitude by instilling the grandest dreams in our children of decades ago to even now with the belief that we could at least try to make this great society of our future. An earth united, and the stars at our footsteps... let us not let it be so easily trampled upon by cheap writers and bad marketers.
--Vision
Just my 2c.
Where does the money go if they fail? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
actually...
it's not the production costs that really matter in the end.. it's the money they think they can make with it - that's the reason to butcher up a show in the end anyways. a noisy minority that wants the show to continue doesn't bring in that much advertising revenue. and seriously speaking, if they brought out a new better show most of the enterprise fans would jump right in.
as for responsibility.. bah. grow up. i don't think anybodys going to run out of inspiration anymore and it certainly isn't coming from enterprise.
Re:They really got it together last season... (Score:3, Insightful)
Pablum (Score:1, Insightful)
We can't do water?!
They can't find hydrogen and oxygen and combine? They can't find a comet and distill?
At that point I switched channels. Voyager suffered the same fate when they pulled a similar bit of nonsense Any program that is so blatantly ignorant of even high school science and so utterly disrespectful of it's audience as to exhibit such disregard is not deserving of my time or my support. It is also most emphatically also not deserving of the term 'science fiction'. It is space fantasy, nothing more.
I generally don't pick on people... (Score:1, Insightful)
Derivative and insipid? I couldn't get through the first half of season one, and I'm someone who thought season five of Babylon 5 was OK. The new Trek has far too many annoying characters. Captain Archer isn't fit to shine the shoes of Jack Bauer over on 24. Invader Zim would easily make a monkey of his filthy human ass.
The people responsible at Paramount think this is just a show and we want to tell them, it is not.
Yes it is, and not a very good one. If it's more than a show to you, you might want to look up the term "obsessive compulsive" or start watching Monk.
We are in the commercial space flight industry and would like to testify
Testify, brother, testify! :)
that at least one out of two of all the actual entrepreneurs involved in this industry has been inspired by Star Trek;
Well, speaking as someone in the military space industry, we kick your ass. :-) We just can't publish papers about our kung fu. Nothing do do with Trek. Just a little professional rivalry. ;-)
And anyway, if you really look at those people, they probably had plenty of other inspirations, or someone else would have done the same thing. History doesn't work that way. There's no point to point connections. All things must be considered. Didn't you people see The Butterfly Effect? Sheesh!
and we are not only good at watching TV sci-fi
Arrrh! And a hard earned skill that be, matey. Oops. Sorry. Lapsed into pirate mode there. Personally I think the five fingered exploding heart technique might be more useful in a tight spot, but, well, that's me.
, we are also good at writing checks, big checks.
Really big check! HUGE checks! We're talking lottery winner public relations kinds of checks! Hey, I've tried that one for years, pal. I'm single with a six figure income, but I can't get a media outlet to pander to me to save my life.
The people airing this kind of TV have a responsibility; inspiration.
No, they have a responsibility to pay their employess and investors (with big checks!). You want better television, appeal to the audience. If the audience demands better television, the industry will do it.
How come you folks don't just come over to the Stargate shows? There you have contemporary humans doing valiant battle with technological forces far superior to Earth. It's very Campbellian and even Heinleinian to an extent. Galactic war has just started on SG-1. It's really quite smashing! :)
Dr. Svetlana Markov: If you're insinuating that everything Russian-made is of poor quality, the sub is Swiss.
Daniel Jackson: So it occasionally catches fire but keeps perfect time?
Re:Your point might be valid (Score:3, Insightful)
To quote Milo Bloom in response to Opus the Penguin spending $79 on shoes for walking in a mall: You realize this is why the Roman Empire fell
Re:They are also responsible for QUALITY. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then again, Star Trek TNG in season 1 was a nearly an all-white crew with the exception of a black driver and an andriod, and look what they managed to do.
But you do have good points... especially about the cost per episode and the type of writing it's buying. If I had spent 3 million of my own money to produce a star trek show, I'd be pretty pissed off if I got almost any of the episodes in seasons 1-3. The problem with these large organizations, like any large company...is that large amounts of money get thrown around at problems without anyone really being accountable or using the money wisely... because it's not directly impacting their paycheck. B & B probably have contracts and options such that even if they drive the show to the ground, they'll still do alright, just like a lot of CEOs today.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
NO! There is no better use for THEIR money!
I am soooo sick of all of the holier than thou posters who feel that any time money is spent that it should be spent to feed the homeless, fight AIDS, fund anti-terrorism, or cure halitosis.
As long as they earned it/raised it legally there is absolutely no reason that they shouldn't spend it however they want. If donating to the above causes is how you want to spend the fruits of your labor then so be it. On the other hand, if sticking the money in a stripper's g-string makes you happy it's just as legitimate a usage.
The last freedom you have is your choice of spending the fruits of your labor the way you want to.
Re:They are also responsible for QUALITY. (Score:2, Insightful)
Captain Jonathan Archer (a San Francisco native?)
Dr. Phlox (a Denobulan)
Subcommander/Commander T'Pol (a Vulcan)
Lt. Malcolm Reed (a Brit)
Ensign Travis Mayweather (a Space Boomer)
Ensign Hoshi Sato (? previously working in Brazil?)
Commander Charles "Trip" Tucker III (a Southerner)
That's what? Three 'white' people? Out of a senior staff of seven. That's hardly 'all-white'. If you've seen the show, you'd know it is about mankind facing the harshness of the unknown without resorting to any sort of stereotypes.
Re:Brings up a good question (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I checked, amazon.com [amazon.com] was selling the
first season of Deep Space 9 for $103.99!! Compare that to the price for the
first season of Stargate SG-1 at $52.47,... Now, we all know the, "true cost" of producing DVDs these days, and given that, even the Stargate guys are making a buttload of profit off of their DVD sets
Granted, I like Enterprise and all, especially now that the show is actually getting good this season (and not to forget about T'Pol's boobies
Re:They really got it together last season... (Score:2, Insightful)
The opening credits are a pathetic US-centristic horror, that must have been made by people who did not have the slightest clue of Roddenberry's universe.
Re:Um... no. (Score:2, Insightful)
"We think Star Trek and especially its latest incarnation, Enterprise is the kind of TV that should be aired more often."
Have they watched it? If so, have they ever seen things like ST:TNG, Babylon 5, Firefly, or even Battlestar Galactica?
If they had, they'd realise there's better things to do with their money, no matter how much "better" this last season was.
Think how close to home the theme of the show hits this kind of people. It's about space exploration at its beginings, that's why it's especiallyEnterprise.
Re:Wha? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hear hear! Bring back Futurama. Now there's a series genuinally in need of resurrection.
Re:They really got it together last season... (Score:1, Insightful)
Go, serve yourself.
In the future all foreigners will also be Americans.
Because you have brought us freedom and democracy like in Afghanistan or Iraq? No, thanks, I prefer the real things (as far as I still have them here).
Aliens will all speak English.
Why, TV shows me that they know German already?
As to the opening one shouldnt forget that most of the space stuff has been done by Russians and Americans. No moonshots from France!
Think a little bit about the visions Roddenberry based his Star Trek universe on, and you'll know that showing conquerors and all this US-only-gloryfing stuff in the opening do not match with them at all.
Re:They really got it together last season... (Score:3, Insightful)
Where to begin?
It's a break from the traditional themes
There's that. Star Trek had a tradition of grand orchestral "space opera" music. This breaks it.
The song is "faith of the heart". Lesse...
Nope, doesn't do it for me.
And as you can see from my
Random complaint. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd just like to point out that time in Enterprise's first season when they landed on a "rogue" planet that had escaped it's sun and therefore was in permanent darkness.
They landed in a JUNGLE full of PLANTS with LARGE LEAVES.
These people should have had a tad more scientific curiosity in highschool biology when the teacher explained what leaves are for.
I mean, nitpicking is one thing, but damn, people, follow through on the logical conclusions of "no sun"!
"not just a TV show" (Score:5, Insightful)
Does it have to be?
Does it have to be just a television program? Can't it grow into something more? Can't it be a movement? Can't it be a means to spreading a message of hope and logic and tolerance?
Star Trek was all these things, once. Paramount has been letting Rick Berman kill all of that, they want it to be a cash cow, not a symbol.
I thought they'd suceeded in killing it, but those campaining fans seem to still feel "it".
Re:So.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe Star Trek.
It predicted the exact day of the lauch of the first manned moon mission!
(a wednesday!)
Yes, manned moon landings were science fiction when Star Trek first aired... boggles the mind a bit, don't it?
A nicer sentiment (Score:1, Insightful)
Disclaimer:
I've never seen the show.
I haven't seen any trek since TNG, when it was showing in first run, regular TV. I found it a pretty decent show. Likable, but I can't say I got too upset when it ended.
Three million dollars raised to save a television show?
Jesus Christ.
It's only television, folks, a show that would seem to be unviable, not some kid who needs a kidney operation and can't afford it or a village whose hospital got wiped out by a tsunami. The people on the show are actors. They'll get other jobs. The writers will write other stories. Life will go on.
I know this will look like a troll to a lot of you, but I'm really being sincere. I'm really, honestly horrified. That's why I have to write this.
Step back a minute and ask yourself why this show matters to you. Why would you take a chunk of cash and use it to try and keep some program, a program that you've already paid for, on the air? Isn't there *something* better that you could be doing with your life.
How deep in debt are you at the moment?
There is so much going on in the world right now. So many things you are missing.
(I'll assume you're missing them, otherwise I couldn't imagine how you'd give a fuck about some television program that most of you'll admit isn't really that good.)
While you sit in front of the television, your country is changing, and you've given it your tacit approval. The rest of the world is watching as America spreads a wave of horror upon everything it touches. You watch your television for 3 hours a day, but somehow come away knowing less than you did before you started.
Please, unplug your television. Sell it. Cancel your cable. That $30 a month or whatever you pay will buy you a cheap plane ticket once a year. Go somewhere. Do something. See something. Form your opinions of people in foreign countries by meeting those people and talking to them, rather than by parroting something you heard on The Simpsons.
Your life is way too short to waste it watching *any* television.
Re:A nicer sentiment (Score:1, Insightful)
Follow your own damn advice, bud. Turn off the computer as well as the TV.
Oh wait...I'll bet you ENJOY doing this. Guess what, so do Trek fans. And it inspires some of us to dream. And many to ACT on those dreams.
There's ALWAYS another charity or problem or whatever to throw money at. Some are needed, but methinks all of them are not.
But who spends money on INSPIRATION? Trek fans, I'm glad to say.
Also...why should we even listen to your opinon when you haven't seen the show, etc. Your opinion is thereby worthless, by your own admission.
Re:They are also responsible for QUALITY. (Score:3, Insightful)
That's totally a matter of taste. You don't care for the show. Obviously the donors do. No one is putting a gun to your head and telling you to donate to help save a show you don't like. You have the right to spend your money how you choose, and so do they.
Abandon the scot bacula, the country western intro, the nearly all-white and all-western crap of a show theyve created, and return to what star trek was supposed to be.
Who decides what Star Trek is supposed to be? Gene Roddenberry created it back in the 60's, but he's been dead for over ten years now. It is no longer his, and the rotting hunk of flesh in the graveyard doesn't care about Trek in the least. The people who decide are the viewers and the fans. They vote with their remote controls and their dollars. I agree with the losing the theme, but it's only what, 60 seconds? Mute your TV, the visuals still look good. As for the all-white, all-western, I take it you didn't see Malcolm (white but not Western), Travis (not white at all, although I can understand why you might have missed him), Hoshi (also not white), and several speaking roles by Hispanic and Asian MACOs in season 3 (Daniel Dae Kim was one, in 'The Xindi'). There's also the Denobulan doctor and the Vulcan woman, who, while played by white actors, are not realy white chracters. Racial integration and acceptance doesn't mean every company should have a member of every type and colour and race of humanity involved, it means a world where colour is no longer a consideration. I think Enterprise and Star Trek have done a wonderful job in portraying this kind of future. No one in the show ever said a thing about Tuvok being a black Vulcan, and there's never been (to my knowledge) any distinction between racialness portaryed on Enterprise. They are all just humans (except the aliens, of course).
Anyways, your opinion on the quality of the show is immaterial. These people like it enough to pay big dollars to see it. They have the right to do that, just as you have the right not to.
Re:Brings up a good question (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree regarding CBS. Alternatively, syndicate it, and accept that UPN is a disaster.
Primetime seems destined to fail, though, in my mind - there are a lot of shows you'd be up against, and Trek still has somewhat of a "stigma" associated with it.
Run it where TNG and DS9 did so well - Saturdays at 6 or 7 PM. To me, that seems very safe - a lot of people are just lounging around then, and if you flip through the channels and see that, you might just leave it on. Shift it around if you've got to have the "Will Lesbianism Destroy Your Family?" news shows. Geck.
Nothing "elitist" about knowing where donations go (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm choosing to do that for a good reason: I'd get nothing for my donation. When I donate money to my local community radio station, a far more cash-poor outfit than Viacom, I get a t-shirt or a CD. Gifts like these are small but nice (this is a common way for the organization to say thanks to their donors). Even though my community radio station is incorporated, I get something far more valuable for my contribution: I become a member of the station. I volunteer there and I can rise as far in the station's hierarchy as I wish to go. I can make important station decisions as I dedicate more of my time and effort there. Anyone in the public can come to periodic meetings where everyone (who isn't on-air) goes to meet and discuss station issues. This is unusual--corporations are built to deny democratic access.
Quite the contrary is true of donating to a multinational corporation like Viacom. You'll get nothing in return for your donation (not even a DVD copy of the episodes you helped to make possible--considering how few people are donating, this would cost virtually nothing to supply). As a producer, you'll have to see the shows you funded with ads as they run on TV the first time. In exchange for paying the production costs, you won't control the copyright to the episodes (even jointly with all the other donors).
So when the revenue from DVDs and syndication dries up, you will have no power to relicense the shows you paid for. This means you can't relicense the shows under, say, a Creative Commons license where others can non-commercially share and enjoy the show, or build on it so long as they share their work under the same terms you shared your sponsored work with them ("ShareAlike").
This donation effort is apparently run by people who don't seem to understand the wisdom behind not treating a corporation like a charity. They also don't seem to get that when you pay for something to be produced you get more control over the result. Considering all the additional revenue Viacom makes from Star Trek (merchandising, for instance), which apparently Viacom would be allowed to keep, it becomes clear that these donors aren't so much donating to keep Enterprise going as they are donating to keep Viacom going.
Re:They really got it together last season... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only thing stopping Afghanistan and Iraq from having democracy and freedom is themselves. It's nice to blame everything on Americans, but if the Americans all one day got up and left Iraq, do you honestly think that it'd become a nice and peaceful country, with the Shites and the Sunnis and the Kurds all getting along with each other, and not bombing and shooting each other?
If America hadn't invaded Afghanistan, do you honestly think that it'd be a land of freedom and democracy? Under the Taleban it was an arrestable offence to not have a beard.
You might not agree with the methods America has used to overthrow the tyrannical governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, but I don't see other countries lining up to do a better job. What exactly would anyone else have done? Do the French have an idea to get the Iraqis to stop shooting and conquering each other?
Re:Brings up a good question (Score:1, Insightful)
Can you really apply the rules of supply and demand to a product that is so easily reproduced and has such a high profit margin? Granted, there are some initial start up costs, but even after you've added in distribution and marketing, they're making a ton of money on these DVDs. Additionally, the supply is completely artificial. There is very little cost in scaling production up or down to meet demand. This is more of a case where the price is set according to what the market will bear. It's the art of sqeezing as much out of the market/demand as possible.
Re:To answer the parent and grandparent (Score:3, Insightful)
Better yet, do that, but get Barry Diller to buy the property. God knows there's enough money in NBCUniversalUSASciFi to buy it off Paramount and Sci-Fi sure as hell is doing a better job of producing shows worth watching than Paramount ever has...