Sunday, December 16, 2007

I've wiped the files? I've wiped all the files? I've wiped the INTERNET?!

That Eddie Izzard quote seemed appropriate in light of recent events in CBS's online world.

This comes via LiveJournal's WGA_supporters and to there via StarTrek.com:

Sadly, we must report that CBS Interactive organization is being restructured, and the production team that brings you the STARTREK.COM site has been eliminated. Effective immediately.

We don't know the ultimate fate of this site, which has served millions of Star Trek fans for the last thirteen years.


If you have comments, please send them to editor @ startrek.com - we hope someone at CBS will read them.

Thank you for your loyal fandom over the years. It has been a pleasure to serve you.

I'm no Trekkie...or Trekker...or even a casual fan, but it seems to me that the timing of this "restructuring" is suspect, especially with the new movie in production. It also seems to me that it's studio retaliation against the fans who support the Writer's Guild strike.

There is no greater, more powerful fanbase in ANY fandom than the Trekkies (sorry Star Wars, but you have to give it to them...) They've been going strong for a bazillion years. And CBS / Paramount has swept them aside like so much garbage...all because they support the people who have given them the worlds they love so dearly.

The AMPTP would kill to be able to control the internet and weed out the undesireables -- the fans, who are the ones who make them rich in the first place. It's that pesky internet that's allowed millions of dollar signs, I mean people, to band together with the writers, to give them strength and encouragement in their most desperate hour. I mean, if people could band together like this for writers...what would happen if everyone banded together for other such positive things, like stopping wars and impeaching those who weren't really elected in the first place? The people in Louisiana who are still homeless and suffering might actually get a place to live if the rest of the United States felt as though they COULD play David to the corporate Goliath and THEN where would the 10% be, eh?

1 comment:

Marvin said...

Sigh. Paramount/CBS have the collective brainpower of a Timex Sinclair 1000. They deserve whatever horrible fate awaits them at the end of their inevitably-sinking revenue curve. Pfui.

However, Memory Alpha (www.memory-alpha.org) is a fantastic Trekkie site. And it's fan-run, so it will never die. I must admit, I never even looked at Startrek.com until now. It's nice to see what the cast members from each show are doing, and what movies might be coming up, but you can find that stuff out from imdb too.

I wish someone would make a movie of "Rendevous with Rama" (Arthur C. Clarke). They keep passing the movie rights around but never do anything with it. Morgan Freeman is supposed to star in it but I don't think they've even finished a script yet. Sigh.