That would be dismaying, certainly. But, thus far anyway, marvel has excelled at getting the mainstream to check out and enjoy their movies and they've done it by largely (and amazingly) respecting the source material, with some obvious and probably necessary deviations.

But I still don't feel like they're giving us what we want, but rather, what we happen to really enjoy. No one wanted an Ant-Man movie. No one wanted a GOTG movie. Hell, when they announced iron-man, I scoffed. I always thought he was a lame character. Somehow, marvel is able to call the shots, and people are going to see what they're putting out there. But that's marvel. They're doing things no one ever dreamed possible.

As for the ST formula, well, I'd argue it hasn't been working for all of those 50 years. I'd argue that there are more fair to middling Trek movies than good ones, some awful ones and one great one. And as far as television goes, I'd say the franchise was on life support after Enterprise. So while I agree that what makes up the greatest of Star Trek is the formula that we here all know and love, I have almost no confidence for Hollywood today to pull that off anymore. Same for television. Which is a shame since TV is in such a renaissance right now but the networks are getting their lunch eaten by the cable channels.

Paramount wants people to see Star Trek movies. But they know they need mass-market appeal. Trek has never really been that or had that. And we've never needed it be, it's been so great because it's so wonderfully niche. So we are never going to get a blockbuster movie that does things by the old formula. At least not while the franchise is in the hands it's in now. Maybe someday Trek will find its Kevin Feige and Joss Whedon and RJD and Jon Favreau, but that won't be for a while, if ever.

Unfortunately, for us here at the Institute, we are on the outside looking in. And that's an unusual place for Star Trek fans to be in.