Various and Sundry

Crisis of Infinite Star Treks: Of Paramount and Puppets

This is the 13th of the ongoing series about Star Trek’s future and its fandom. I’m as surprised as anyone it keeps going, but hey, that’s why tagging is so handy (or click on Crisis of Infinite Star Treks). So, a pair of links today. The first is an article by Marc Perton that appeared this afternoon in Newsweek. If you haven’t been following this story for months like some of us nuts, it does a…

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Various and Sundry

You can never escape the shadow of Star Trek V

This is the 12th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Trevor Law over at Nerd Union is worried about Star Trek and its future. There’s worries about how Paramount is handling the movie franchise and worries about whether fans will spring for the extra ducats required to sign up for CBS All Access. As I’m being reminded with all this “Saturday Morning…

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Various and Sundry Writing

Letting Go of the Canon

This is the 11th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Yes, we have gone to 11. Asher Elbein’s excellent piece in The Atlantic is worth reading just to consider the nature of pop culture –our modern mythology– and our ownership thereto. I’ve included it in the Crisis of Infinite Star Treks series because reading it helped distill two issues: If a ‘Star…

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek Fans: The Narrative Force Awakens

This is the 10th entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. I’m happy this entry is much less in the crisis column and more in the infinite Star Treks column Last last night, I caught this article on The Mary Sue being shared among social media: the new Star Trek show will be an anthology series akin to True Detective and others, where…

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Various and Sundry

Recommended Reading: Requiem for a Video Store

Reading a recent piece reflecting on the demise of video stores, specifically independent video stores, made me reflect on the demise of Video Vault, an indie film mainstay in Alexandria that supplied film fans for a generation. Mike Musgrove’s article in the Washington Post about the Vault’s closing gives one a good idea of the pressures that made it close. That article is probably a good warm-up for the aforementioned piece on indie video stores.…

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Various and Sundry

Alpha Centauri or Bust

In a world obsessed with “maximizing shareholder value,” it’s nice to know that money can mix with imagination and do great things. Enter Yuri Milner, tech billionaire who wants us to get a probe to Alpha Centauri, stat. Okay, it’s more of a generational thing, but let’s face it: we have to figure out how to become more than a one-planet civilization sooner rather than later. Interstellar scouting missions don’t accomplish that, but they do keep…

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek: Revenge of the Solicitors, er, IP lawyers, er, You get the idea…

This is the ninth entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Reece Watkins, over at Krypton Radio, has an editorial about the Axanar lawsuit. From this perspective, maybe things aren’t as dire as I was musing last month. I guess we’ll see. I’m much happier learning more about Beyond and the new TV series anyway.

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Various and Sundry

Star Trek goes full Gilgamesh… or at least Victorian?

This is the eighth entry in a surprisingly long series of posts about Star Trek’s future and its fandom called Crisis of Infinite Star Treks. Here’s an update on the Axanar lawsuit, in the form of an article by Eriq Gardner over at The Hollywood Reporter. As mentioned before, this case could be interesting for more than just Star Trek fans in terms of what it means for copyrights, IP, etc. I’m not so convinced Axanar…

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