Last week, during a podcast appearance, the author of Project Hail Mary accurately described Paramount’s shitty Star Trek shows as “shit.”
Andy Weir wrote the novel that the hit movie Project Hail Mary is based on and dared to tell an inconvenient truth on the Critical Drinker Podcast.
Weir started out quoting someone who said, “All modern science fiction TV shows and movies have been heavily influenced by the original Star Trek — except for the current batch of Star Trek shows.”
Weir then added, “I’m Gen X, so my sci-fi was like original series Star Trek reruns and Lost in Space reruns. And there wasn’t really much in the way of [new] sci-fi that was airing — where people are off in space doing cool things — until we got to [Star Trek: The Next Generation].”
After host Will Jordan mentioned the just-canceled and much derided Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, Weir cheered on the news: “It’s gone, baby! It’s all gone!”
Weir continued that while he thought Star Trek: Strange New Worlds was “pretty good” and that he “didn’t hate” Enterprise, and found Lower Decks “entertaining and fun,” the rest of their “shows are shit”:
I’ll give you my opinion and I’m just a consumer. I like Strange New Worlds. I think it’s pretty good. I didn’t hate Enterprise. I thought it was kind of weird. Lower Decks I thought was entertaining and fun. All the others, they can go. And here’s another thing: I pitched a Star Trek show to Paramount and I was in Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer Alex Kurtzman]. I don’t like a lot of the new Trek. He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are shit. He is a nice guy. But they didn’t accept my pitch so, you know, fuck ’em.
Obviously, in fascist Hollywood, no one is allowed to criticize anything precious and woke, no matter how shitty it is, so Weir has now apologized.
Addressing Kurtzman on his Facebook page, Weir in part wrote, “I feel like my quotes were taken out of context as salacious sound bytes. I hope you saw the other parts where I said how much I like you as a person and what a nice guy you are. Also, how I like SNW and LD.”
“I was trying to be funny, but in retrospect it comes off as disrespectful and mean,” he added. “So I’m sorry for that. I was also trying to be self-deprecating when I said, ‘But they didn’t like my pitch so fuck ’em!’ but out of context it can read like I actually meant it.”
I must say I kind of respect this apology. Weir is not groveling. He’s not taking back his “shit shows” opinion. All he’s doing is expressing some remorse at mouthing off some, especially about someone he’s met. Honestly, I can see myself doing the same in Weir’s situation. In the age of social media and viral videos, it is easy to forget that you are never just chatting with someone online, and once your words ping around the World Wide Web, you see them a little differently.