TBH, there's far too many people in Hollywood at the moment that think they are important social influencers because they work on a TV show, and have forgotten that they are there to entertain and make money for their bosses. To say they have an inflated sense of ego and worth is an understatement.
Oh, Lord forbid that I use a little hyperbole to hang lampshades
It can come across as straw-manning, but apologies if that's not what you meant.
Yes, but now that Paramount/Viacom/CBS or whatever they are calling themselves this week are back together again, there's a strong argument that you can't separate the two, and one affects the other strongly. I think there's also a better argument that Trek on the whole works better as a TV show, rather than big movies every couple of years. I think having someone like Watts at the top pushing to reset Trek to something more Trek-like (and less Kurtzman-like) is a good thing as it will affect both the movies and the TV shows.
Yes, but unfortunately because JJ Abrams and his protege Kurtzman didn't want to do the work, they simply took all that Trek extended universe and dumped it. It was obviously too much trouble to actually learn about the franchise they were working on, and so the Kelvin timeline was born. That way they could steal the characters, some of the stories, even some of the dialogue without having to actually make a Trek product.
There have apparently been several well known writers who have offered their services, but Kurtzman has ignored them, either because they won't toe the line for the "Trek Platform", or because Kurtzman doesn't want to be made to look bad by more talented people.
Yeah, I'm really not about to defend Kurtzman at all. I'm not a fan of a lot of the decisions made in the new Trek movies (I outright despise Into Darkness), I think STD has had only one truly good episode in two seasons so far (ironically one which a lot of current Trek fandom doesn't like, go figure!) and think the Picard series could have been better. But I do think that a good portion of Trek fandom makes way too much of the "divisive identity politics being shoe-horned in" deal.
Take STD. What was a major gripe for a lot of people¹, was it the hamfisted telegraphing of plot twists? The lousy acting? The continuity issues, both with itself and with the rest of Trek? The deeply uninteresting characters who were being crowded out of the screen by the focus on Bonehead?
Nope. "Gay characters in a visible relationship, ugh, that's tokenism!!!111oneonetwo"
And I wouldn't mind (NARRATOR: yes, he would) but that relationship between Culber and Stamets was easily more believable and better realised on-screen than the one between TylerVoq and Bonehead
¹ - not necessarily talking about anyone on here with that, but it's certainly been a thing in many corners of fandom this last few years. They'll skip right on by serious structural issues with the show to focus on what they perceive to be pushing The Gay Agenda™ (dun dun DUUUNNNN!!!).
TBH, I don't think that's fair. Sure, maybe there were a few that were unhappy at the gays, but I think more people were unhappy at the terrible writing, characters, and all the relationship drama around Bonehead, and the way they Mary-sued her into messing with canon and making her the source of everything good that had gone before. It was just easy for Kurtzman and his pet access media to point at the few and claim every ex-fan was simply a homophobe or a misogynist. That way they failure was not Kurtzman's, it was all these unenlightened fans who just wanted entertainment. The way they went on to attack the fans was shocking, and simply drove away all the people that made Trek fandom what it was. Kutzman actively attacked the canon that the fans had grown to love over the last 50-odd years, and then when they complained, Kurtzman attacked the fans too! They set out to paint a picture using a narrative that wasn't true for the vast majority, just to get themselves off the hook and deny any blame for the poor reception of STD, Picard and now Lower Decks.
Trek has always had ups and downs, but if it's good, if it has that Trek flavour at it's heart, the fans don't care about the colour of a character's skin, who they prefer to sleep with, or what they keep in their trousers. Good story and characters trump all, but Kurtzman has not managed that with STD, Picard, or Lower Decks. He's just not capable of overseeing Trek, and seems to take delight in ******* on canon, and then ******* on the fans. For doing so he's been rewarded with failure after failure, which is as it should be, despite him blaming the fans instead of looking in the mirror. It's time Kurtzman goes, and Watts speaking out against current incarnations of Trek (and by extension Kurtzman) is a little glint of light at the end of the tunnel that many ex-fans are taking to heart in the absence of any other hope for the future.
