Star Trek RIP?

Some of Y'all Really Gonna Say Star Trek Is Dead NOW?!

Seems Film Threat on YouTube wants to host a “funeral” for Star Trek, considering Netflix won the bidding war for Warner Brothers/Paramount.

Well, I don’t know about you guys but I thought for sure the Ellisons would have won that with some Saudi backing but doesn’t look like that’s gonna be a thing. Elizabeth “Sitting Bullshit” Warren is clutching pearls over Antitrust law which makes me kinda hopeful they don’t approve of the sale and eventually it winds up with the Ellisons. I really want to see this backfire spectacularly and it still can. Let’s face a fact; No Company Who Buys This Entity Will Escape That Scrutiny. Every company is too damned big to buy it. Letting them merge would make it even bigger and, to Warren’s credit where it’s due, yes, it would create a very highly-dangerous means of controlling what one watches or even if they do. It’s a point and a good one even if the Senator in question should have been fired out of that office like a Human Cannonball.

To be fair, I think every one of them should. I don’t care about the letter next to their name. They’re all pretty much shit in my book.

But we need to have a talk here.

Look, I’m not eulogizing or mourning a fuckin’ thing here and I’ll happily tell you why. Better, let me show you.

When I tell people I’m a Trekkie, this is what I mean. These are the series I’ll watch and the movies. Yes, I even have the Kelvin Timeline movies that were just movies, I don’t consider them canon but I did have some fun watching them. I like what I like and for different reasons.

Now, how would I eulogize Star Trek when I can take a disc and pop it in or fire it up from my plex server?

Look, I get it, you’re gonna lose The Wrath of Khan on every cable channel for the umpteenth time but I have to ask why you haven’t gotten a copy on DVD or Blu-Ray yet.

Here’s the thing, even when I was a complete digital stan, I was still buying physical media. Why? Backups. If my file got corrupted, lost or the company lost the license to it, I still had the music, movies or games I wanted to play. I know streaming is far more cost-effective each month, however, there is something you should know.

Currently, a Spotify subscription will run you about $13 per month. Kind of a long way from the $10 I started with.

$13/month X 12 months = $156 per year.

If you’ve ever been to a secondhand record store (those still exist) you can find really great music for much lower. I found a Lindsey Stirling CD at my local shop for three bucks and I wanted it super bad. If you’re wondering what I traded Sinners for, it was that. I would rather listen to Lindsey Stirling’s album (which is pretty difficult for me as Brave Enough was Lindsey’s tribute album to a friend of hers who passed from cancer and I don’t think going through those emotions is a great thing at the moment but The Arena is still a banger) the entire thing over and over again than watch Sinners one more time and it’s not even close.

Now that was a three-dollar find. I’ve found stuff by The Sisters of Mercy, Megadeth, The Cure, Christian Death, DGeneration, so on and so forth. I’ve spent far less in one year getting more music out of the two shops within reach of me.

So why am I still on Spotify? Well, for that stuff I don’t have. Still don’t have any Siouxsie And The Banshees yet. So assuming that CDs will cost anything from $2 - $13 (This is at the high end of things), a $20 (if that) external optical drive and a decent program to rip your music and store it, you’ll end up saving more now if you went back to physical and slapped it to your phone or the re-emerging MP3/FLAC Player.

The fact of the matter and what we were warned about a long time ago was going all digital to de-clutter our lives and make them more convenient, but what do you do when Netflix decides to vault Star Trek.

Unless you have copies yourself, nothing at all. I doubt Netflix will leave Star Trek in syndication.

Same secondhand shop had these (except for the movies and Animated Series) for $75

I’d had the movies for awhile but now I had the OG series and Enterprise. Here’s the kicker. Deep Space Nine and Voyager, the owner threw those in because they were the full series but had no cases. They were in CD books. I walked out of there seventy-five dollars poorer but I had TOS, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. I hunted down the TNG series and grabbed that as I could and eventually, the Animated Series and the TNG movies and stopped there. I won’t lie, this took awhile. It wasn’t easy in the least but it was done. Also, I have binged every single series I have in order plus movies.

Mourning? Nah. Not happening. Guess what? Netflix will still have to pay Shatner, Takei and anyone else in any crew that might still be alive because residuals are still a thing.

Plus, I don’t think it’s right that Netflix keeps raising prices, causing us to pay for their product while still being the product. Eat a buffet of dicks on that one, Netflix.

If you want to know why I’m not going to Netflix at all, this is only one of many reasons why.

I won’t be mourning because nothing is dead to me. Maybe the brand is dead but that doesn’t mean I won’t be watching. I just won’t be paying Netflix to do it.

The only thing Netflix can do is kick down my door to get my discs.

I do hope they’re that stupid.