Trek optimisim!
Or, put more simply, as I alluded to before, I can criticise the 1990s phase of Trek because it's there for the witnessing, and I was there when it was happening. I can look back and see it laid out.
(Back in the early days of that era of Trek, I wouldn't have been able to predict the problems that would ultimately surface in the franchise. In 1994 I still loved TNG, enjoyed GEN, was getting into DS9 and even VOY appealed to me then. Oh, for the days of innocence when everything that was to follow in the years after that great 1994-1996 period was still unknown!
)
However, we're in a moving forward phase now and until some concrete information about the story direction for the sequel comes around I'm keeping a kind of holding pattern on starting to form an opinion. Being another 'shallow blockbuster' (presummably as opposed to the 'genuis' of the last few Trek films) is a possibility. Of course, that just takes us into the yawnfest of what 'it' was or wasn't in the eyes of different people. Which is very old hat.
We'll see.
Well, there was hardly a swinging door of people in the TOS and TNG films either. Once you have Roddenberry shown the door, you have
cast members of Trek responsible for directing five out of the ten Prime Universe's ten feature films, folks like Harve Bennet involved in writing/producing four out of the six TOS films, Meyer involved in three of them in various capacities as well.................
Looking back, it's somewhat true that in the past the Trek films have been somewhat of a cabal of the same faces in the main roles in their TOS/TNG incarnations (what with Harve Bennett, Nick Meyer, Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner dominating the writing/directing/producing of all the films after TMP, and Berman & Co dominating the TNG films from GEN onwards. Sure they brought in some new faces for NEM.......................but look how well
that turned out) so it does actually appear that historically the films tend to come under the yolk of a distinct group in blocks.
Which might actually bring things round to the merits of having a regular change vs keeping the same people. Since the results of the latter can definitely vary.
Keeping the people the same worked a lot better for the TOS films (until TFF) than it did for the TNG films (IMO, your mileage may vary, whatever) so perhaps you've raised an interesting point about having a team in place working as 'overseers' on more than a single film.
The current major team is still 'fresh' in terms of Trek...............and we saw how some of their ideasn were recieved in the film (some took certain things fine, some didn't at all) but of course if they stay too long the ideas well may dry up. It depends on how you want to view it though...........TMP kicked off the film franchise anyway by remaking a TOS episode, so there's a certain amusement to be had at the 'upset' over further episode remakes being possible.
This is, after all, what happened in the 1990s as well. Keeping the same folks so heavily involved in Trek from 1994 onwards ultimately did not do the franchise any huge favours in that case, because they eventually burned out on creativity, but maybe if they had been more selective and employed a steady rotation of players over the years then things might have been kept more on an even keel instead of getting to the point where all anyone can talk about is how Manny Coto turned ENT around when it was already too late for anyone to care since the damage had already been done by other factors..........................but, keeping several key people in the TOS films was
generally more successful (again, forgetting the Shat-ego's TFF outing)..............soooooooo, where in the results spectrum
might the Abrams team ultimately fall when we look back in ten or so years?
Hmmmmmmmmmm....................I'm kinda rambling on the page here but in my head I'm having a little mental tennis game now of the merits of keeping vs constantly changing key behind the scenes folks over multiple movies................hmmmmmmmmmmm................ ......
I think I'll go have breakfast and have some more tennis.