Pop Culture Timelines Go-To Thread

Do you guys think the fall of 2D animated films was inevitable, or do you think it would've been avoided if, say, Pixar was the only studio who did CG animation and Dreamworks was never founded?
 
Do you guys think the fall of 2D animated films was inevitable, or do you think it would've been avoided if, say, Pixar was the only studio who did CG animation and Dreamworks was never founded?
I say inevitable, at least by your idea for avoiding its fall. I believe that if Pixar was still doing CG animation no matter what other studios you have never founded. Other TTL studios will pop up attempting to do what Pixar are doing. I think if you want to avoid the downfall of 2-D animated features. You have to have a POD within 2-D animation studios. Maybe have one of the studios pushing out some epic features that consistently beat Pixar features both critically and publicly.
 
I say inevitable, at least by your idea for avoiding its fall. I believe that if Pixar was still doing CG animation no matter what other studios you have never founded. Other TTL studios will pop up attempting to do what Pixar are doing. I think if you want to avoid the downfall of 2-D animated features. You have to have a POD within 2-D animation studios. Maybe have one of the studios pushing out some epic features that consistently beat Pixar features both critically and publicly.
Its also (usually) cheaper and does not require two hundred animators at drawing desk's. That said without Pixar/DreamWorks maybe they'd just automate traditional 2d animation instead of going all "Toy Story" style all the time. I miss that sort of film...
 
I say inevitable, at least by your idea for avoiding its fall. I believe that if Pixar was still doing CG animation no matter what other studios you have never founded. Other TTL studios will pop up attempting to do what Pixar are doing. I think if you want to avoid the downfall of 2-D animated features. You have to have a POD within 2-D animation studios. Maybe have one of the studios pushing out some epic features that consistently beat Pixar features both critically and publicly.
Even if some other studios did try out 3D eventually, I think the fall of 2D animation would still take a little longer without Dreamworks coming in. Maybe Disney would shut down its 2D studio in 2008 instead of 2004, for instance.
Its also (usually) cheaper and does not require two hundred animators at drawing desk's.

I never agreed with the "CGI is cheaper than 2D animation" line of thinking. Every single film on this list is CGI, and a lot of older 2D animated films are relatively cheap when adjusted for inflation. (The most expensive 2D-animated film, Treasure Planet, had a LOT of CG in it.)
 
“Seven years after the release of Batman, with total revenues topping the $2 billion mark, Melniker and Uslan have not seen a penny more than that since their net profit participation has proved worthless. According to Warner Bros., Batman is still in the red.”
(Hit and Run by Nancy Griffin & Kim Masters)

In case you need a demonstration of Hollywood accounting genius :)
 
Hand drawn animation costs courtesy of Kim Masters’ Keys to the Kingdom:

1 minute of hand drawn 1980s 2D animation at 24 FPS = 20 people for a week. This is quality like Roger Rabbit or the old days.

12 FPS was standard for major animated features

4 FPS was standard for children’s animation
 
I'm going to try my hand at a Star Trek TOS timeline where the brave crew of the Enterprise complete their five-year mission. NBC somehow keeps Star Trek on the air for five seasons in this timeline. There will be some surprises, and the divergence point is towards the end of the second season where NBC recognizes the appeal of the show to a young adult audience and does not move it to the late Friday Night death slot despite its middling ratings with the general public.
 
I'm going to try my hand at a Star Trek TOS timeline where the brave crew of the Enterprise complete their five-year mission. NBC somehow keeps Star Trek on the air for five seasons in this timeline. There will be some surprises, and the divergence point is towards the end of the second season where NBC recognizes the appeal of the show to a young adult audience and does not move it to the late Friday Night death slot despite its middling ratings with the general public.
Here is a list of undeveloped TOS episodes that might help:
 
I'm going to try my hand at a Star Trek TOS timeline where the brave crew of the Enterprise complete their five-year mission. NBC somehow keeps Star Trek on the air for five seasons in this timeline. There will be some surprises, and the divergence point is towards the end of the second season where NBC recognizes the appeal of the show to a young adult audience and does not move it to the late Friday Night death slot despite its middling ratings with the general public.
One suggestion is that the Nielsen ratings start coming in earlier and Paramount realise Trek is a hit with exactly the right demographics.

Maybe it goes on hiatus after Season 3 and get restarted a year later (before the sets where removed from storage and destroyed) giving producers, writer, and actors cooling off time and a chance to look at what worked (allagory, Gene Coon, sharp characters) and what didn’t (Bill’s ego, Roddenberry absence, lack of comedy) and then Season 4 reflect these lessons?
 
Maybe it goes on hiatus after Season 3 and get restarted a year later
Skipping an entire broadcast year would release everyone’s contracts. Given that Paramount had already collapsed the budget per episode there’s no way they’d pay for a year off or expensive new contracts.

An executive at Paramount and/or NBC that actually believes in the show would be helpful, but probably not enough at the season 3 point.
 
Skipping an entire broadcast year would release everyone’s contracts. Given that Paramount had already collapsed the budget per episode there’s no way they’d pay for a year off or expensive new contracts.

An executive at Paramount and/or NBC that actually believes in the show would be helpful, but probably not enough at the season 3 point.

Fair. To keep TOS on the air probably needs a POD before season 1?
 
Fair. To keep TOS on the air probably needs a POD before season 1?
I don't think it requires a POD that early. I devised one at the end of Season 2 where NBC realizes the show is very popular with young people and decides to take a real chance by putting it on Monday night at 8 PM. I also moved Roddenberry upstairs and put Justman and Fontana in charge of creative control. The series is still campy but becomes grittier and season 3 starts with a Federation-Romulan war arc expanded from The Enterprise Incident
 
You could maybe do a 2-part episode. Actual plot based arcs over multiple episodes wouldn’t be acceptable to either NBC or Paramount for syndication and rerun reasons.

War episodes requiring expensive SFX and maybe even a new shop model is well beyond Star Trek’s budget in most scenarios—they couldn’t even afford to shoot on location in season 3.

A good simple POD would be rerunning Star Trek heavily in the summer, same way Cheers got popular for instance. That would show NBC Star Trek has potential—as the syndication ratings showed in the 1970s.
 
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You could maybe do a 2-part episode. Actual plot based arcs over multiple episodes wouldn’t be acceptable to either NBC or Paramount for syndication and rerun reasons.

War episodes requiring expensive SFX and maybe even a new shop model is well beyond Star Trek’s budget in most scenarios—they couldn’t even afford to shoot on location in season 3.

A good simple POD would be rerunning Star Trek heavily in the summer, same way Cheers got popular for instance. That would show NBC Star Trek has potential—as the syndication ratings showed in the 1970s.
I already added one new story idea in my thread that is a sequel to The Enterprise Incident. I could create a two-parter that goes through most of the fighting and involve two or three Federation ships. I believe they built a smaller model of the Constellation for The Doomsday Machine in season two and were in the process of creating the Defiant for The Tholian Web so I could fit a maximum of three Federation ships in for SFX purposes. They already had two Klingon battlecruiser models and a Romulan Bird of Prey built for The Enterprise Incident IRL so that could be the three enemy vessels. So in theory, there could be a set piece 3 on 3 battle where we only see the Enterprise bridge and the lead Romulan ship bridge, with audio communications involving the other ships.

Then, I could wrap up the arc with an episode where the Federation "wins" the brief conflict and the Romulans sue for peace. So the arc will only last 5 episodes, maybe 6 at the most. I'm just spitballing for ideas and all ideas are welcome.

I didn't put in the rerun idea and that would be a good one to include.
 
The only way I could see network executives in the 1960s approving this kind of thing is if the majority of the episode is standalone. Keep in mind though I represent the “hard” position in AH, that is even wish fulfillment pop culture timelines should adhere to plausibility. You wanna make a “soft” AH timeline you’re free and clear to do whatever.

So if you want a multiple episode arc, the only plausible way to do it in the 1960s is small. The episode would have to be a full regular adventure of the week episode… but for a very daring Paramount and/or NBC executive whose career is boosted because of the summer rerun plan you could tie it together—the adventure of the week happens because of the Romulans and maybe they’re involved maybe they’re not but you can reference what’s happening and build towards 1 big mid season finale (with lots of Basil Exposition for syndication).

But like 3+ episodes required to be viewed in a row? Never ever in the 1960s or 1970s and even the 1980s barely did that outside of miniseries.

Edit: I don’t know if you’re confusing things but the Enterprise Incident was the same Klingon D7 model x3 just with a paint job for the Romulan version IIRC. Not 3 models, no Bird of Prey.
 
The only way I could see network executives in the 1960s approving this kind of thing is if the majority of the episode is standalone. Keep in mind though I represent the “hard” position in AH, that is even wish fulfillment pop culture timelines should adhere to plausibility. You wanna make a “soft” AH timeline you’re free and clear to do whatever.

So if you want a multiple episode arc, the only plausible way to do it in the 1960s is small. The episode would have to be a full regular adventure of the week episode… but for a very daring Paramount and/or NBC executive whose career is boosted because of the summer rerun plan you could tie it together—the adventure of the week happens because of the Romulans and maybe they’re involved maybe they’re not but you can reference what’s happening and build towards 1 big mid season finale (with lots of Basil Exposition for syndication).

But like 3+ episodes required to be viewed in a row? Never ever in the 1960s or 1970s and even the 1980s barely did that outside of miniseries.

Edit: I don’t know if you’re confusing things but the Enterprise Incident was the same Klingon D7 model x3 just with a paint job for the Romulan version IIRC. Not 3 models, no Bird of Prey.
The way I'm designing it is the first two shows of the arc are largely standalone while the final four episodes are an arc. I think that's doable, even in this time period for television purposes. I would be stretching it if I went beyond 6 episodes with 4 of them in a tight story arc. The way the first two episodes are done in my TL, they could be stand-alone for syndication purposes. It's the next four which could border on "soft" AH, but I don't think it's ASB in any way for them to go over budget a bit, or for them to serialize for a short period of the season. That could be explained away by a new creation of the writers, or Matt Jefferies pulling off miracles with some of the set designs, which he did IRL.

The direction I'm going in for the entire TL is that season 3 is a major success, but season 4 gets tiring and by the end of that season, everyone is sick of Roddenberry's meddling, Shatner's ego in wanting to make it the Captain Kirk show every week, and Spock sick of getting typecast. They manage to eke out a season 5 somehow but it is terrible (like parts of season 3 were IRL) and the show is cancelled because of irreconcilable differences where everyone is going vs. Gene and Bill, and Leonard fears never getting another role in show business again despite the popularity of Spock.
 
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Might make an actual thread to brainstorm, but I've been kicking around an idea for a while that would basically be an exploration of a different publication history and development of the X-Men franchise after Chris Claremont's exit from Marvel, mostly with the idea of Fabian Nicieza having more of a creative impact on the line and staying on past his OTL departure in 1995. Might end up looking at developments in different parts of the comics world, but my initial idea are all pretty centered on the early 90's X books.
Any thoughts would be really appreciated!
This sounds interesting
 
Here is a list of undeveloped TOS episodes that might help:
IIRC the first season of TNG used a lot of the partially developed ideas that were not put to film in the original series. Therefore, I could butterfly some of the TNG season one stories, like The Naked Now, into either season 4 or 5 of my TOS timeline. I can also use some of the 22 TAS series episodes (without Arex and the other aliens that would be impossible for makeup to pull off) as stories in a season 4 or 5. There is enough material to easily get me through a season 4. It'll be season 5, the final year, that will be challenging from a TL perspective.
 
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