As much as I love both Star trek and Star Wars, I think it has created a block on anything else which could be as creative. With re hashed Star Trek and a new Star Wars film coming out, it lead me to think where is our version of those types of Science Fiction and Science Fantasy? The closest I can think of is the Matrix, or Babylon 5. (I discount Battlestar Galactica because it’s a remake, and I didn’t see Firefly, although I do know it was cancelled)
A lot of it moved to video games, ass Effect for example.M
If your point is that ST and SW are sort of sucking up all the SciFi oxygen in the room, I don’t think that it’s so. ST:TMP only got made (as a movie) due to the success of Star Wars. If any big budget SF movie makes it, that’s an argument to do more of them.
“ass Effect”, heh, heh.
How the hell did my “M” get moved there, I definitely left it in front of the “ass”
Not sure I’m understanding the OP. Are you saying that there aren’t new science fiction movies coming out that aren’t Star Wars or Star Trek? Off the top of my head I can think of several, if that’s what you are saying. To name a few you have Avatar, Edge of Tomorrow, Oblivion and if you are into Marvel then Guardians of the Galaxy…none of which are either Star Wars or Star Trek, and there have been several other sci-fi type movies in the last few years.
I actually kind of like the Star Trek reboot…I thought it was pretty clever the way they spun off an entirely new universe in the many worlds theme yet tie it together. No idea how the new Star Wars will be, but I’ll be going to see it, at least the first one. I think there is a lot of potential there in continuing the story after the events in Return of the Jedi, and there is a pretty rich amount of content in the various books, stories and even RPGs made in that universe, assuming they figure out how to make a good movie with it all.
Not gonna happen.
Trek and Wars are cultural touchstones. They have been very successful. They’ve made a lot of money, and they’ve sold a buttload of merch. Hell, “Phantom Menace” broke even before it was even released, due to the sales of merch and a fat tie-in deal from Pepsico… and that’s a studio’s wet dream, to break even BEFORE you even release the movie; after that, it’s all pure profit, profit, profit, mm-mm, yummy licky drool money moolah $$$$$…
Best of all, both Trek and Wars are now in a position where their creators can no longer interfere with anything their current owners want to do with them. Roddenberry’s dead, and Lucas sold the rights. So if Disney wants to sell Darth Mickeys, or Paramount wants to put Vulcan ears on Eddie Murphy, there is not a thing to stop them.
So as long as the money fountains continue to be profitable, there will be new product. When the makers can no longer make viable product, they’ll license out the rights to those who can, like TV cartoons, novels, toys, tie-ins, and other things that just make the money flow in.
Forever.
But that was 30 years ago. Yes, SW paved the way for ST movies when everyone was scared to make a big Sci Fi movie. They are both kind of whales in the aquarium now is the point of the OP istm. Does anyone think a successful ST or SW movie nowadays paves the way for a new franchise?
Anyway, Marvel kind of backdoored a successful Space Opera with Guardians of the Galaxy, so I don’t agree that it’s totally killing other movies’ chances.
A good film is going to get noticed, particularly in the genre.
A bad film will be seen, and then ignored. I’ve noticed this with a lot of Peter Jackson’s stuff lately. And, for that matter, the most recent Star Trek film.
I would go so far as to say that the studios are more likely to fund “Peter Jackson’s Star Wars” than “Master Wang-Ka’s Hamlet On Mars With Robots,” despite the fact that my film may be the better of the two.
Or, for that matter, they may well prefer to go with “Peter Jackson’s Famous Guy Standing On A Stage Jingling His Car Keys For Two Hours,” as opposed to “Master Wang-Ka’s Serious New Star Trek Movie With A Script By Joss Whedon,” simply because it sounds like a better bet for the bank balance…
James Bond movies are still around after 50 years. Hollywood loves to put out familiar stuff.
“Never give up, never surrender!”
(post shortened)
NOOOOOOoooooooooooo!
SW and ST will die when they die. When the fans are no longer interested, or when something better comes along.
At one time, horse operas were all the rage (any Palomino is a Pal-Of-Mine-O ), followed by detective/police stories, monster movies (Dracula, Wolfman, etc.), horror, and science fiction. I believe Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier was the *Star Wars *of the late 50’s but it eventually ran it’s course, and lost viewers. Life goes on.
You’re asking Hollywood to stop making sequels? That’s an absurd notion on its own, regardless of what franchise we’re talking about. When was the last time you saw a major blockbuster without a number after it?
…Elysium, After Earth, Interstellar, Limitless, Source Code, Gravity, Her, Pacific Rim, Snow-piercer, World War Z, Automata, Big Hero 6, Lucy, Transcendence, Earth to Echo, Chappie, Jupiter Ascendant, Ex Machina, John Carter, Looper, Ender’s Game, Last Days on Mars etc, etc,
One can argue that there haven’t been many good sci-fil films lately, but its hardly been for lack of studio willingness to try and fund non-franchise sci-fi films.
See above. Non-franchise films don’t do as well, but there are still several big-budget non-franchise films a year, and a dozen or more not-so-big budget ones. Presumably because Hollywood realizes the public will get sick of Superheroes at some point, and they’ll need to have developed some new IP to take their place.
How many of those current films will still be making a cultural impact 40 years from now?
The fact that SW and ST are making a cultural impact is a pretty good indicator that the paying public not is willing to let them die.
But I’m not asking that, I already know they do, I was asking the previous poster how many current films they picked out would have the same sort of cultural impact 40 years later from now.
When both of those films/TV series first came out, there was a paradigm shift in terms of entertainment and they both opened up new avenues for people to look into, they’ve done their job, now it’s someone else’s turn. Again, I love them both, I’m a fan of both, but someday they’ve got to be put to rest and something else has to reinvent the sci-fi genre.
When Star Trek came out, the most sophisticated science fiction/interplanetary stories being told on TV were on Captain Video and Space Patrol*. The general idea was that spaceships were for kids. Some people would STILL have this idea if not for the fact that the same summer Trek was cancelled, Neil Armstrong and his posse done surprised everyone with his Giant Leap For Mankind. I personally think that between that and reruns, we can account for Trek’s postmortem popularity. Please note that it was around this time that the networks were realizing that there was gold in them thar reruns; I never saw Trek when it broadcast originally. Every episode I saw was in the early seventies, in reruns.
Trek was a BOMB.
When Star Wars came out, the most sophisticated science fiction films to have hit the mass market were… the Planet of the Apes movies. And the first one was supposed to be an allegory. And the second one kind of tried to do the same. And the other three were just monkey fests, guys in fancy makeup running around in the woods.** The message was plain: SF was just simpleminded crap.
Wars was a BOMB.
More importantly both franchises are money fountains. And as long as the money continues to spout, I can’t see their owners letting them lie fallow for all that long…
*Yes, I remember The Twilight Zone. I also know that it was an anthology show, and only reached the level of bein’ an iconic classic YEARS after it came out.
**Yes, there were others – Westworld did well, as did others – but now that I think about it, seems like most of the popular SF films of the seventies were invariably postapocalyptic. Star Wars and Star Trek were among the few to portray the future as being a place where people lived and worked and continued on a daily basis without having to fight mutants for cans of dog food.
Admittedly, the first Star Wars film sorta implied we left all the black folks back on Earth, but, hey, nobody’s perfect…
People still pay money to watch movies based on 2,000+ year old Greek myths and Bible stories.
Not to mention Thor!
How do you propose we overcome capitalism? Are we going to outlaw ST and SW?