'Star Trek' showrunner Alex Kurtzman talks about toxic fandom

I'm an ancient fan from back in the early 70's - I was among the group that essentially saved Star Trek by watching endless reruns of TNG to the point where I now drive my wife insane by saying the dialogue before scenes play in the orginal series while enjoying NETFLIX. I was one of those kids who spent endless hours ingesting gallons of soda and high salt snack foods while others were actually having teen age years they could look back on with fondness at having dated the opposite sex and having wacky adventures that are now fodder for retro TV series. That said, it now gives me the "bones" to comment on the new iterations on CBS All-Access. I was quite excited when Discovery was announced, and then gut-punched when all it turned out to be was some War/CrazySpore/Non-retro Retro mess with a dollop of tortuous Klingon thrown in for add'l pain - I still have not watched the latter half of the first year, and frankly don't want to even start the second - B/T/W, no slam on the actors - they are really superior - weighed down with confusing garbage. PICARD was better, and seeing the other TNG actors was awesome - ( I want me a "7of9" space cowboy/bounty hunter series really bad - pretty, pretty please ! - and "7" occasionally calling on her "Fed" buddy Will Riker to occasionally get her out of a jam ) - hey, maybe even have a "7" ongoing LGBT non-binary partner character. But please don't make me endure any more A. Kurtzman writing forays - he and whoever else is creating this stuff needs to have a real knowledgable Star Trek fan or team thereof help out with canon questions, oh, and maybe, just maybe with some real science input - no more Red Angel time travel horrifically complicated overblown nonsense. Oy Vey ! ......oh, and I want some prequel Romulan Warrior Nun stuff too.....those gals looked bada**
 
Apr 7, 2020
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“During that time, Disney bought Lucasfilm and breathed life back into "Star Wars," plus fans of that franchise at least had a couple of animated series to keep them going until December 2015, when "The Force Awakens" arrived on cinema screens. And "Star Wars" fans are a demanding bunch too, as was seen when the polarizing final sequel "The Rise of Skywalker" was released at the end of last year.


The reaction resulted in the widespread adoption of a new term, "toxic fandom." It can be generally summarized as a state of possessiveness and entitlement that leads to a feeling of superiority among a fan community. Even though the concept had existed for a long time prior, this was the first time it had been seen on such a scale.”

I am sorry but that is self serving hokum.

They didn’t breathe life into it as rather they twisted it into their own feminist manifesto as the cost of a coherent story line and universe.

It’s not “toxic” fandom, it’s fans rebelling at what hot garbage they served up.

“Rogue One” was the only new film that didn’t have an agenda and kept the spirit of the original movies. It’s easily the best of the new films.

Basically the film makers should know that if they pass gas the viewers will notice. The only thing toxic was what made it to the screen!
 
“During that time, Disney bought Lucasfilm and breathed life back into "Star Wars," plus fans of that franchise at least had a couple of animated series to keep them going until December 2015, when "The Force Awakens" arrived on cinema screens. And "Star Wars" fans are a demanding bunch too, as was seen when the polarizing final sequel "The Rise of Skywalker" was released at the end of last year.


The reaction resulted in the widespread adoption of a new term, "toxic fandom." It can be generally summarized as a state of possessiveness and entitlement that leads to a feeling of superiority among a fan community. Even though the concept had existed for a long time prior, this was the first time it had been seen on such a scale.”

I am sorry but that is self serving hokum.

They didn’t breathe life into it as rather they twisted it into their own feminist manifesto as the cost of a coherent story line and universe.

It’s not “toxic” fandom, it’s fans rebelling at what hot garbage they served up.

“Rogue One” was the only new film that didn’t have an agenda and kept the spirit of the original movies. It’s easily the best of the new films.

Basically the film makers should know that if they pass gas the viewers will notice. The only thing toxic was what made it to the screen!


I have ABSOLUTELY no issues with women coming front and center in these franchises - I'm married to a proud feminist and make no bones that women have gotten the shaft for a long time, along with folks of color. That said, putting forward a female as the main protagnist means that the character needs to be well written - loading that person up with the need to be soft and squishy and a hard as nails fighter seems disrespectful ( an example in the new Discovery being all that emoting over Michael Birnham's half brother "I love you, SPOCK...".?!? ) - But, well written female LEAD roles can be done, and we have seen it in Star Trek before - KIRA from DS9, Captain Janeway, even Uhura ( with the teeny, tiny amount of screen time she was given - smart, capable, sexy - when she wasn't forced to say crap like "I'm scared captain " Ughh ! ) Actually, Star Wars has/had a main leading lady in Princess Leia way back in 77' .....til' they sexed her up in that slave costume ? Same with folks of color.....I really enjoy watching Dr. Daystrom's unraveling in "The Ultimate Computer" or the younger african-american doctor that was shown in a couple of the TNG episodes ( probably the only human character who got to beat the tar out of Spock without ending up knocked across the room - to wake him out of his self-healing stupor ...."hit me harder" ) wonderful stuff and a WAY underutilized actor.
In fact, that would have been a great spin-off from the original seies - McCoy and Dr. ( Umbenga ?) assigned to some remote Federation outpost running a clinic on the edge of nowhere - the curmedgeonly old doctor with a heart of gold, and the young, brash doctor of color working together and encountering the challenges of alien cultures, frontier medicine, Federation red tape, and generational and cultural differences - sort of a space Marcus Welby, MD. Now all I need to do is go back in time to 1969, and convince Gene R. to NOT make "Pretty Maids All In a Row " and to pitch that Oh-So-Hip gritty medical outer space drama with white/black,old/young, human/alien conflicts and adventures....that would have perfectly fit the "Mod Squad"/"Young Rebels" / "Streets of San Francisco" vibe.....
 
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Jul 29, 2020
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Alex Kurtzman is just really bad at Star Trek. They need to remove him and everyone else running is right now and let them create a new, original scifi series. Star Trek isn't one of those properties, you call a "platform" so that you can ignore it's foundation and do the opposite of what it represents.
 
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P W

Aug 8, 2020
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Alex Kurtzman is just really bad at Star Trek. They need to remove him and everyone else running is right now and let them create a new, original scifi series. Star Trek isn't one of those properties, you call a "platform" so that you can ignore it's foundation and do the opposite of what it represents.

Nod, kurtzman isn't good for star trek. His brand of star trek really has very little to do with core star trek. It's not TOS. It's not TNG. It's not DS9. It's not even Voyager or Enterprise.
 
Mar 19, 2021
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Oh come on.

Instead of getting competent good writers, they instead put in a bunch of tokens as main characters (which is perfectly fine!) and when "toxic fans" expressed their dislike over the insipid writing, the producers just started screaming people were racist, misogynistic, whatever.

Nobody in Star Trek certainly, or probably Star Wars, cares about the gender or race of the characters. They NEVER did. There's been black captains in Star Trek, the Federation's genius was Dr. Daystrom, a black computer engineer that designed all the computers for all the modern Star Fleet ships, Janeway was a woman, Sisko was black. In the original pilot for Star Trek the 2nd is command was a woman.

The whole idea of Star Trek is that race and gender simply didn't matter, except for that AWFUL episode Turnabout Intruder. That's an episode best forgotten! What an awful episode! Wouldn't mind that one being forgotten, and perhaps burned.

In any case, I don't think there's many "toxic" fans of Star Wars or Star Trek anymore - people have just abandoned it. They are so poorly written today, they aren't even worth the time to view much less pay for. People are constantly insulted and slandered for objecting to nonsensical horrific writing. Of course people are going to give up on it. The eye candy isn't any better than you see on an XBox ONE or PS5. Special effects aren't that special anymore.
 

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