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Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
You won't appreciate it until you come back for a 2nd viewing from scratch
I watched this the first time around and probably spent around 2 hours in total playing with different choices at the end, hoping to see the alternatives. I enjoyed it, but wasn't exactly sold on the format, it felt a little gimmicky. I shut down my PC and felt a little meh.
The next day I started again from scratch, this time I watched for perhaps 3 or 4 hours and found a whole new bunch of plots in the middle, which made me rethink my "true" ending. I had found a few different endings the night before, but this time round I felt satisfied.
The "Netflix" choice was fun and jokey, yet even that added a whole new layer to the onion, breaking the 4th wall within a 4th wall.
Black Mirror has always been about a possible future in which new technology doesn't always turn out for the best. This story has done something ground breaking, it's actually introducing us to an entirely new technology format where control is handed over to the viewer, which admittedly has been attempted before with low budget crap, but in this case the entire thing is seamless, high production values, excellent acting, terrific editing. You can't help but feel after watching that you're a little bit closer to living in a dark Black Mirror future because of it.
I think the real key to this story and format is that the entire adventure is about choice, for the characters, and for the viewers, so we're all along for the ride. If this story were about any other plot I don't think it would work anywhere near as well, so it might be that this is peak CYOA (choose your own adventure), and that's a good thing.
If I could rate 11, I would.
Star Trek: Short Treks: Calypso (2018)
Just more of the same train wreck then.
Is anyone else sick to the back teeth with Alex Kurtzman's generic Hero's Journey?
The fan base will never, ever forgive Moonves and CBS.
They wanted to make a new star trek, they ended up killing the franchise.
It endured for 50 years. Look at what you've done.
Star Trek: Short Treks (2018)
Teenage sitcom? Shut up Wesley
You kinda get the impression that this is designed to be watched by teens on a Saturday morning, aside from the swearing that is.
Once again STD has no idea who it's target audience is supposed to be. It's gone from failing to be dark and gritty, to failing to be light hearted and charming. Weird.
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
Catastrophic to Star Trek, cheap thrills for Marvel fans.
Star Trek for people who don't like Star Trek, yet paradoxically are supposed to be prepared to pay for it up front?
I've yet to encounter a single Star Trek fan over the age of 25 who has given this the thumbs up. Recent years have had their fair share of terrible reboots like Ghostbusters, Knight Rider, hell even the first round of Star Wars prequels, and unfortunately STD is no different. It's a classic example of putting highly sought after intellectual property in the hands of generic entertainers and waving goodbye to a treasure held in high regard across generations of viewers. Put a franchise in the hands of a fan and you get JJ Abrams's Star Wars. Put it in the hands of a generic director and you get his Trek reboots, ultimately costing Paramount over $150m in net losses and cancelation. This disaster is no different, it has all of the hallmarks of everything that was wrong with the reboot movies, but they don't care, don't listen, and plow it into the mud anyway.
There's only so much a fandom will take being kicked in the balls before there is no turning back and never trust the studio again, even if they come up with something half decent in future they will automatically be shot down by default for trying to fool people once.
STD has roped in some people like Frakes purely for PR reasons, but there are no Star Trek fans at the helm. They even claimed to have people in the writing room who are Trek fans to tell them what can and can't be done. Utter targ manure.
You have to be in a pretty poor place in a production of Star Trek when you have to recruit Star Trek advisers due to a lack of any fans working on it. Trek needs a fan as show runner, It had one, but then CBS fired Fuller before production began. It's astonishing how so many idiots who know nothing of Star Trek ultimately came together to botch STD when they had everything on the table for the taking. This is particularly poignant example due to CBS shutting down all Star Trek fan fiction longer than 30 minutes in duration in the years during STD's development. It was a tough pill to swallow for CBS to do that when we had a new show on the horizon, but now that it's evident how utterly irredeemable STD is it becomes all the more painful. Like I said, there's no coming back for a franchise with this degree of viterol from the fanbase due to having been held in utter contempt by inexperienced producers and writers who know nothing of the source material.
Now there will be no more Star Trek. Fan fiction has been destroyed under threat of immediate legal action, no fan is going to touch CBS with a barge pole, the movies are now just generic Marvel super hero trash and duly cancelled, and TV trek has been murdered too, and put behind a paywall.
Anything they have missed torching to the ground yet? Oh yes, they shut down an 8 year fan project to make a VR USS Enterprise, and they are in Court over stealing the tardigrades idea from an indie game developer.
I don't know of any franchise that can continue through such catastrophic damage from every possible angle. Now it's just a matter of time while we are all forced to watch CBS kill Picard as the final insult.
No Star Trek is far, far better than bad Star Trek.