Part of the problem is as a franchise ages the fans are willing to forgive more sins. Truth be told Trek was NEVER really good. Half the episodes of TOS, including most of season 3, stink. They’re hackneyed, cliche (even at the time) with actually very bad acting from most of the cast. But we love it, so we forgive it it’s occasional “brain, brain and brain, what is brain” because there’s Space Seed and Tribbles.
And of course the tradition continues after that, the first 3 season of TNG are atrocious, first half of season 4 is pretty good, but then for the second half they did a bunch of single character episodes and we quickly found out that Picard and Data were the only characters that could actually carry a story. 5, 6 and 7 are mostly pretty good, but of course it was during TNG we learned that all holodeck episodes are horrid.
DS9 comparatively started off pretty strong, and got better every season, probably the closest Trek ever got to an actually good show from beginning to end. they even pulled off a couple of god holodeck eps. Then there’s Voyager. Worst show ever. Then Enterprise which, in spite of the whining of continuity worshipers, was actually pretty good, until the temporal cold war started, then it went to crap.
And in this world, where probably 70% of the content was crap, crap many of us love but still crap. People boldly declare that JJ ruined Trek. Is it different? Sure. Not as smart as Trek’s higher ideals? Yes. But is it as dumb as Gamesters of Triskelion? No. And it’s a damn sight better than Voyager. And like a lot of the best Trek it’s a fun ride.
You bring in Star Wars. We can see the same thing. Everybody now claims Jar Jar destroyed the series, to which I say one word: Ewoks. Really if you look at the original trilogy the first movie is OK, kind of fun, kind of dorky, but when the legend of Lucas’ grand plan comes up always remeber Luke hitting on Leia. Then we get Empire, great movie all the way up until “I am your father Luke” which in and of itself wasn’t bad but it put the series on a bad path. Then comes Return, which just stinks. That’s where we get the repercussions of Darth Daddy, made worse with sister Leia; Han gets reduced to comic sidekick... and Ewoks. And yet somehow people boldly declare Jar Jar killed it.
The lesson being, objects in the rear view mirror ain’t nearly as good as they appear.
Compared to what was out there at the time, it was genius plus it was hopeful, in that humanity had a future.
People didn't expect to watch Shakespeare. They wanted some entertainment and Star Trek gave them that.
TNG are atrocious,
That's because Gene Roddenberry tried to make the future too much of a utopia.
People boldly declare that JJ ruined Trek.
Yes, because he's incestuous when it comes to story telling. ( He's not alone in this and not the worst offender but it gets annoying. ) Try something different, outside of what has already been written. Don't destroy what was good in the process of making something new. I think people who reboot must have limited imagination and want a quick buck. In a universe of infinite possibilities, why are they stuck playing with the same old stuff?
What was good about the old series was how the characters developed, especially in the movies of 2, 3 and 4. Today's movies suck because they are so quick to tell the story, too much action and not enough good dialog. Movies today don't want to build up the characters or their relationships. They only want explosion after explosion then a sex scene.
“I am your father Luke” which in and of itself wasn’t bad but it put the series on a bad path
Here is where I agree with you on that. I was like, ok Darth is Luke's father but then Timothy Zahn went on to write more books on Star Wars series and he used Palpatine as the bad guy again, although it was his clone but still.. A whole galaxy of evil and he had to recycle palpatine?
Then Zahn used the Jedi "twins" of Han and Leia. It's like really? Are all the descendants of Anakin going to be twins? No triplets just to shake things up?
I dunno, I guess that's why I'm off science fiction... It's not as fun as it use to be.