The real reason I'm ticked off at Star Trek XI

Think about things for a second. About reality, not trek. For all the actual in-universe reasons this movie is bad, and even for all the horrible storytelling... Divorce yourself entirely from these issues and think about Star Trek as it simply exists in the real world.

The reason they can even market a star trek movie is because of star trek fans.

Were it not for us, trek would've been yanked off the air 40 years ago and never heard from again.

That's an indisputable fact. That's reality. That's history.

Why then, would you make a star trek movie, aware of the existence of millions of fans who've made this franchise possible, and then ignore us completely?

The movie was made for mindless drones, it was made to sell Nokia, it was made to appeal to people who have no idea what Star Trek is. It's made to appeal only to people who've heard of Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy...

The movie is filled with nothing but plot contrivances and hollywood cliche. Many blockbusters are.

But, there was no reason to make a Star Trek movie like this.

A non-trekkie wouldn't have heard of Kirk, Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Sulu, Uhura or Chekov... because were there no trekkies; there'd have been only one series that lasted only three seasons.

Again; star trek only exists because of fans. Without us, what would trek have been?

No reruns.
No movies.
No TNG.
No DS9.
No Voyager.
No Enterprise.

No star trek buzzing about in the background of non-trekkies lives. No trekkies to poke fun at. No conventions.

No knowledge of trek at all, because it would've only been a single series that was yanked after three seasons; too few for syndication.

Why would you make a new star trek movie and ignore that fact?

If indeed, our reality was different, then the movie could be made, and honestly, no one would really care. Trek would've been like the brady bunch, or any other number of old TV shows that died out and got a stupid movie made. It wouldn't have even have that much appeal; because these movies were always made of shows that lasted more than 3 seasons, of shows that had fans of one sort or another.

But that isn't what happened with trek is it?

The last movie bombed. Why?

Trekkies watched it and didn't like the story. It was weak, it was full of holes.

Paramount's response?

Remake Trek entirely. Why?

Because apparently, trekkies aren't buying garbage.

But, if you remake the franchise, if you keep it mindless; you can churn out mindless film after mindless film. If you market it right, if you make sure it's released at the right time; you can always make money off of people. You can gain new fans who aren't such critical thinkers and you can hire anyone at all to write, produce and direct, because no one watching will be paying attention.

So why does this tick me off? Because I'm a trekkie.

Because I'm part of the reason Star Trek existed up until now.

But, even if I wasn't this movie would bother me. Gene Roddenberry was extremely protective of Star Trek. He had integrity, and he wanted his show to maintain a certain degree of integrity. Star Trek was his baby. Now, maybe I only know this because I'm a trekkie. Maybe it isn't common knowledge, but I think it is, and if not it should be.

What if they remade Citizen Kane and turned it into a mindless action flick and ignored the entire original plotline?

That is just a single film, but it represents the same thing; one persons masterpiece.

Star Trek as a whole may not be a masterpiece. It has it's share of bad episodes and bad movies, even before this abomination. But overall, Star Trek is Gene's masterwork. And, even the worst movies that came before were as true as they could be to his overall vision.

Even Deep Space Nine, doubtlessly the darkest of the Star Trek series, would have garnered the approval of Gene, due to the excellent story-telling, well developed characters, and it's examination of rather complex human issues. It stayed true to trek because of it's darkness. It was the only way to boldly go where no one had gone before at that time. It touched on issues trek had only implied before, and it showed them vividly.

This movie is quite the opposite. Not just because it's boldly going where we've been while ignoring the fact that we've been there (while telling us we haven't and that this is an origin story), it's mindless.

It's careless with it's characters, it tries to employ canon to effectively erase it (while telling us it's not) and it's story rests on believing one unbelievably convienient plot point after another.

Had it not been made specifically to appeal to uncritical audiences, it would've tanked worse than any other trek movie has.