@ValueSubtracted but part of st vi laid out how the Federation and klingon empire became the allies we see in tng. That's the kind of "filling in the blanks" stories I'm talking about. VI is my 2nd favorite movie after Khan, so I'm not saying those kinds of stories can't be good as well.

@ValueSubtracted I mean, it's not binary, but it is a factor. I've watched the same movie, or even single episodes, many, many times. But there is a reason people, like myself, want to avoid spoilers before watching something new. Knowing how it ends ahead of time just hits different.

@billmason @startrek I'm skeptical. I fear they ruined trek with discovery. By showing the universe nearly a millennium in the future, now any new stories they will be "filling in the timeline" where we already know at some level how it all works out. The dramatic tension is gone.

Or, stories set after any time we haven't already seen will be so far into future as to be disconnected from what came before.

Makes me sad. Abrams damaged Trek. Kurtzman may have killed it.