We’re just two short weeks away from the return of Star Trek: Discovery for its second season, and ahead of the long-awaited season premiere, CBS today has revealed a set of new character posters featuring new and returning cast members with the tagline “Exploration is Logical.”
Pairing Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) with Spock (Ethan Peck), Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) with Saru (Doug Jones), Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz) with Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), and Philippa Georgiou (Michelle Yeoh) with Christopher Pike (Anson Mount), the four posters debuted through IGN this afternoon.
While this week brings us the final Discovery Short Trek — “The Escape Artist,” directed by and starring Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd — the premiere of Discovery Season 2 will follow later this month, on January 17 (for CBS All Access and Space viewers) and January 18 (for Netflix subscribers).
The Art of John Eaves is another excellent addition to the growing list of Star Trek reference books released in the last few years by Titan Books. The oversize, hard-cover coffee table book is 208 pages long and contains literally thousands of images detailing the incredible 30-year career of prolific Star Trek artist John Eaves.
Needless to say, the book satisfies in every way. From classic renderings to never before seen images, editor Joe Nazzaro has expertly compiled Eaves’ first-person account of his entire Star Trek career, detailing his artistic process in broad strokes across hundreds of creations. (Nazarro is also the author behind 2017’s excellent Star Trek Beyond: The Makeup Artistry of Joel Harlow.)
Eaves is well known among Star Trek fans as the creator of the Sovereign-class Enterprise-E, first featured in Star Trek: First Contact, as well as the missile silo-inspired Phoenix that so memorably achieved warp speed at the conclusion of that film.
Throughout his career, which began in earnest for Star Trek back in 1988 during production of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, he has worked on the original series films, ‘90s era Trek television, the Next Generation films, the Kelvin Timeline movies, and now Star Trek: Discovery.
His career has literally touched every incarnation of Trek from Kirk to Burnham — and with that in mind, the book is broken up into five dense, career-spanning sections from his work before joining the Star Trek family through his modern-day contributions to the franchise.
As long-time Star Trek production designer Herman Zimmerman says in the foreword, “I’m predicting that the book you are holding will amaze you.” He’s right — it did! It also educated us on quite a few amazing facts about the career of John Eaves that not everyone will know.
Developing the new phaser design for STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER.
Phasers and props, not just starships: Everyone knows Eaves is one of Trek’s most popular starship designers of the past 30 years, but he’s also designed props, scenic landscapes and helped construct physical models. One of the first items created by Eaves in his illustrious career is the popular Type 2 phaser with the removable clip (first seen in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier).
When his artwork for that design was published in a sci-fi magazine, the original drawing included his phone number for the production team in case they had any questions. The designer was soon fielding numerous calls from fans with their own questions about his phaser design.
John Eaves is color blind: It seems like a story told straight out of a Star Trek parable. Young artist dreams big, finds out he is color blind, overcomes it to become one of Trek’s most celebrated creatives. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
Eaves was in high school when he learned about his ailment; that was also when he learned how to work around it by just following the labels. “It was never the handicap to my work I thought it would be,” he says, adding that his co-workers, though, quickly learned to never ask him to mix their paint for them.
Eaves’ look for planet Vulcan carried through from ENTERPRISE to DISCOVERY.
City and landscapes, too:Eaves also designed the iconic Vulcan landscapes that so impressively showcased that popular planet in the Vulcan trilogy from Star Trek: Enterprise.
Those renderings included the striking city landscape of the Vulcan High Command (with it’s distinctive landing platform that was seen similarly in Star Trek: Discovery) and the modern United Earth Embassy that is eventually damaged by an explosion in “The Forge.”
Greg Jein first hired him: Legendary Trek model maker Greg Jein, who also wrote a foreword for the book, calls John Eaves “a true trailblazer and an inspiration to new generations of industry artisans.” It was Jein who first hired Eaves to work on Star Trek, bringing him on board for Star Trek V.
Eaves had spent years as a child in Arizona studying his craft and dreaming of a job creating sci-fi art for Hollywood productions. Eaves’ story about moving back and forth between Arizona and Los Angeles, before finally establishing himself, is told in heartfelt detail in the book’s opening pages.
The Vulcan landing craft T’Plana-Hath from STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT.
Designing the T’Plana-Hath lander: In addition to the Enterprise-E and the Phoenix that debut in Star Trek: First Contact, Eaves also was the man responsible for the unique design of the Vulcan lander T’Plana-Hath that appeared at the conclusion of the film.
As part of that design, it was Eaves who first used the stark rust-colored palette on the Vulcan ship — something that other designers would emulate moving forward in Enterprise and Discovery — and he also came up with the cool entryway design in the ship’s landing leg via a door that turns into a plank extending forward to the ground.
Inspiration from sharks to airports: Eaves details the inspirations that helped spur his love of science fiction and Hollywood storytelling to open the book.
From seeing Jaws in the theater (nudity and profanity!) to catching spaceships on TV in movies like Silent Running (domes on ships!) to spending hours at different airfields drawing planes (and gliders!), they all contributed to Eaves love of drawing and eventually to the knowledge that there were people out there whose job was to draw creatively for a living.
A 1950’s vision of station Deep Space 9, as seen in “Far Beyond the Stars.”
Visions of Deep Space 9 for Benny Russell: Remember those great pieces of hand-drawn posters handed out by Roy Ritterhouse in “Far Beyond the Stars” to help inspire stories?
John Eaves had a hand in finalizing the art on many of those sci-fi homages, including the classic image of Deep Space 9 re-imagined as a 1950s Air Force space station. While the idea was originally created as a CGI rendering by Jim Van Over, Eaves created the finished product that appeared in the episode.
Kelvin Timeline shuttle continuity: Eaves was basically the only creative from Trek’s ’80s and ’90s heyday to transfer into the Kelvin Timeline films as part of JJ Abrams’ production staff.
Although Eaves knew the general mandate from the films was to create a stylistic departure from the recent television series, he also knew production designer Scott Chambliss wanted to see subtle tie-ins in certain areas. As his first assignment for Star Trek ’09, Eaves designed the medical evacuation shuttle that played such a critical role in the film’s famous opening sequence.
In going through quite a few different designs, he ultimately settled on a look that tied directly to Matt Jefferies’ original design of the shuttlecraft Galileo. Eaves also designed the Enterprise shuttle seen later in the film, this one being sleeker and more in line with updated look of the new movie.
Concepts for the Vulcan photo case seen at the end of STAR TREK BEYOND.
Bringing Beyond benefits: Eaves had his hand in a number of critical prop elements showcased in Star Trek Beyond. He designed Jaylah’s staff as a fighting stick that she could manipulate into any number of uses, thus showcasing her ability “to manipulate technology just like Scotty does.”
He also created several of the props seen on the old USS Franklin, including the music console that Jaylah uses a couple of times in the film. It was also Eaves who designed Spock’s Vulcan photo box that memorialized the late Leonard Nimoy so powerfully at the conclusion of the film — and gave the Shatner-era cast their cameo appearance.
Discovering a new frontier: Eaves has already designed a plethora of great ships for Trek’s latest incarnation, Star Trek: Discovery, including the titular ship itself and the immensely popular USS Shenzhou with its underside bridge — and of course, the new look of Captain Pike’s Enterprise.
In designing the Shenzhou, Eaves used a ‘blended body’ style that he learned from Tony Moore at Edwards Air Force Base, where everything smoothly transitions into itself. “So the hull blends into the wings and so forth,” said Eaves. “My hull blended with the saucer and that ended up being a nice idea that the producers really responded to. It had all the necessary elements. It still said Star Trek, but a new Star Trek.”
As Herman Zimmerman said, Star Trek: The Art of John Eaveswill leave you amazed. It’s a brilliant, career-spanning collection of not only the art, but of the creative process of one of Trek’s most valued behind-the-scenes contributors.
The Federation races to discover the culprits of several terrorist attacks, sending their flagship, the USS Prometheus, to stop war breaking out in the galaxy.
The situation in the Lembatta Cluster is deteriorating rapidly. Fleets from the Federation and Klingon Empire are heading for the borders.
The crews of the U.S.S. Prometheus and I.K.S. Bortas are racing against time to break the cycle of violence that is spreading through the Alpha Quadrant. A
dams and Kromm are on the trail of a secret weapons facility, but instead discover an enemy from their pasts who seems utterly unstoppable.
Together, they search for the answers to their questions, before the galaxy goes down in flames
The Star Trek: Prometheus trilogy, written by German authors Brend Perplies & Christian Humberg with translation assistance from Keith R.A. DeCandido, concludes with book three,In the Heart of Chaos.
This novel, which was originally published in German in 2016 in conjunction with the franchise’s 50th anniversary, reaches the English-speaking world and finishes the story from book one’s Fire with Fire and book two’s The Root of All Rage.
With the ability to now reflect on the complete story and characters of the Prometheus trilogy, I find it to be underwhelming and largely forgettable. I enjoyed the second book the most of the three, and the final book In the Heart of Chaos probably the least. The ending was predictable, and the book continued the trend of the first and second of over-stuffing unnecessary fan service and episode references.
Prometheus never really felt like it amounted to all that much. The end of the second book intrigued me with a connection to a previous Star Trek novel trilogy, The Q Continuum, and with the alien from the episode “The Day of the Dove.”
But the execution was left wanting – the resolution to the crisis and the death of the entity that was causing chaos in the Lembatta Cluster was both rushed and underwhelming. In addition, there was almost no exploration of the alien energy beings, whose value to the story seemed to only be as a plot device to bring the story to a close.
The Prometheus trilogy felt like it was trying to say something about hated, but for what purposes and to what end? If the books had been attempting to comment on the rise of populism and tribalism over the last half decade, it falls well short of saying anything interesting because the hatred of the Renao was caused by an outside source – the alien energy being.
Unfortunately, the problems of the world today cannot be waved away as attributable to alien interference. Our problems lie much deeper.
The characters of the Prometheus and Bortas crew also left me disappointed. Ultimately, they were largely reframed retreads of other, better characters in the Star Trek universe. Some examples of this: the captain who lost his wife to the Borg and is emotionally distant from his crew as a result, the junior officer who is estranged from his homeworld but holds the key to bringing them back together, and the bartender with a friendly ear for the crew.
While I applaud the authors decision to set out with an original crew, the potential of having all those new characters are entirely wasted if we’re seeing pale shadows of other characters we know and like better. Give me Sisko over Richard Adams any day of the week if their characters and motivations are so similar.
In addition, the other characters suffer from clichéd storylines that I found very frustrating. Probably one of only a handful of characters with any real story arc to speak of is the Andorian security officer, whose heart of ice is melted over the course of the book so that she can learn to love again. You’ve read this, and you’ve seen it, a thousand times before, and Prometheus brings nothing new to the arc.
In addition, the book includes more totally unnecessary cameos from characters from the Star Trek pantheon. This book, we get a whole chapter updating us on the life of Kosinski, the warp specialist from the episode “Where No One Has Gone Before.” The end of the chapter even includes an appearance from Wesley Crusher.
These two characters do not reappear in the book at all, and their appearance was utterly superfluous to the story. Characters are also referring back to the events of episodes and movies from the franchise’s history constantly throughout this novel. The connection to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was the most tenuous instance of “remember when?” I could find.
Ultimately, the Prometheus trilogy was serviceable, but nothing special. The story felt like it was paint by numbers, the characters were boring and cliched, and the cameos and episode references were too much. As a German language story for a German audience, I hope it was fun and the kind of thing that they haven’t seen before. But for an English language audience, nothing sets Prometheus apart.
If anything, I was interested to see whether there would be much of a German cultural influence on the books. I am fascinated by how other cultures perceive Star Trek and would tell a Star Trek story. But we don’t get any of that in Prometheus – the characters and plot seem to have been purposefully created to be as anglicized as possible. I would have preferred something a bit more German, because at least then it would have been interesting and different.
If you enjoyed the first two books of the Prometheus trilogy, you’ll probably find a lot to like in In the Heart of Chaos. But for me, the book fell far below expectations and the promise that a foreign language trilogy of Star Trek books could contribute to the franchise.
While the Prometheus trilogy served as an interesting stop-gap during the drought year of 2018, we’re happy to enter 2019 where the ongoing novels set in the Original Series, Next Generation-era continuities will return to print, starting in April with the arrival of Dayton Ward’s TNG story Available Light.
But first, we return to the flashback line of Star Trek: Discovery tales, as the Sylvia Tilly-centered The Way to the Stars beams down next week from author Una McCormack.
Watch for our review here at TrekCore in the coming weeks!
It’s so appropriate to think about toys at this time of the year, and the McFarlane Toys Star Trek figures of Captains James T. Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard are not to be overlooked. After all, what other toys can a Star Trek fan of my years have fun with?
Before I begin, I have to share, I’ve been playing with the Captain Kirk figure at my desk for the last twenty minutes, much to the amusement of my colleagues. I’ve been preoccupied with arranging him in different poses that I haven’t noticed the onlooking crowd of passerby’s looking through my door, laughing, pointing and walking away with a general sense of mirth.
Grateful I am to be the source of so much joy to my co-workers.
Of course, that’s the joy in owning an action figure, right? At this moment, Captain Kirk is standing with his phaser pistol held in front, his head cocked slightly to the left as he appears to be talking into his communicator. As much as I want to express this pose in a literary way, imagining some sort of crisis that the good captain is addressing at the moment, and wanting to justify this moment in some sort of dramatic fashion, all I can do is say to myself is: “cool”.
Because it is cool. When you pose an action figure, you’re creating a mini-story for yourself. You are instantly whisked back in time to when you were a child and your imagination was your best source of entertainment.
Action figures are like starter engines to the adult imagination.
The McFarlane Kirk is doing that for me right now. Retailing at about $20, the figure comes with a classic Trek Type II phaser pistol, a communicator, a “Where No One Has Gone Before”-era phaser rifle, and an extra left hand. There are three points of articulation in the arms, a rotating head and torso and the legs are equally manipulable as well. He’s been posed in every dynamic position I can think of: legs wide in a classic shooting stance, or looking thoughtful by holding his communicator and standing defensively, communicator held close.
I’m having too much fun positioning the figure. Actually, I have to confess that I’ve just had a good twenty minutes of solid diversion of experimenting with different positions. I opted to stay with the communicator and phaser pistol as opposed to the rifle. I figured the hand phaser and communicator are more iconic and recognizable for visitors. That way I can share my enjoyment with all.
The figure also includes a decently wide and fairly rugged display stand. With the range of articulation, the action figure boasts, there are a great variety of poses to display him in.
My desk has never seemed more authoritative, but I’m going to try and top it off by adding the Captain Picard figure to the other side.
With the same range of articulation, this figure comes with a TNG phaser and a Ressikan flute – which is, of course, evocative of the most touching and poignant Next Generation episode of all time, “The Inner Light.” It’s a real nod of respect to fans that the McFarlane folks would choose this particular prop for their action figure to sport. I’ve never been a fan of the TNG phasers so this is a perfect alternative for Picard that fits his character.
Even the likenesses and facial expressions are impressive. Again, I have to remember that the retail price for these figures are incredibly low, but surprisingly, the level of quality in the figures doesn’t reflect that cost. It’s an easy sell, given what you get for the price.
But let’s come back to the fun. The figures are conversation pieces and I’ll admit to actually playing with them. I think the fun for me is to pose them in a way that will not only attract attention to my workspace, but something I can share with colleagues. That’s part of the fun as I sit here, writing out this review.
Because it’s all about the enjoyment of the toy. McFarlane Toys has an excellent and affordable product that has a surprisingly high amount of quality and provides a great deal of entertainment — though while I enjoyed these two figures, it’s still an open question if any more McFarlane Trek product will ever hit the market after the long delays in this pair of releases, and the scrapped Star Trek: Discovery phaser which came so close to being released in early 2018.
What do you think of McFarlane’s take on Kirk and Picard? Let us know in the comments below!
It’s been a few months since we got our first glimpse at high-definition content from What We Left Behind, the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine retrospective documentary, and while backer-funded premieres in Los Angeles, New York, and the UK have come and gone, fans have been wondering when a wider audience will get to see the film.
Today, in a new update today from Ira Steven Behr, the DS9 and What We Left Behind executive producer has shared a new status update on what’s going on inside the production of the documentary — and has also revealed a special surprise!
In today’s release, Behr details why things are taking a bit longer than originally planned: the team is moving forward with a full conversion of all used Deep Space Nine footage to high-definition.
So what the hell happened? One night last August, I suddenly realized I did not want to release the film until we had remastered all the show clips we were using to high definition. Now at first, [the DS9 doc team was] not thrilled with that decision.
They said that it would be too expensive; that even with another fundraiser we’d still have to take out a huge loan to pay for it. That it wasn’t financially feasible. That the remastering process would take months and months and months, and we’d never have the film ready for 2018. And you know what? They were right.
But this is an opportunity — perhaps the only opportunity for years to come — to show how great ‘Deep Space Nine’ looks in HD… and I’m afraid I can’t pass that up.
You’re going to get the best-quality version of the film we can provide, and that’s going to take more time. So if you wanto be angry, be angry! If you want to complain and vent, please do.
I get it — I’m annoyed, and it was my idea! But bear with me. In the long run, when you finally sit down and watch the film, I think you’ll be happy. And though you may not think so now, you’ll come to agree that it was indeed worth the wait.
While it’s great to hear that the documentary will be full of HD content from the series, the even bigger news today is that we’ve now got our first look at high-definition video from the rescanned film masters, as part of Ira Behr’s video update.
In this newly-revealed HD excerpt from “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang,” we can see the fan-favorite strut of the DS9 crew down the Promenade, ready to head to the holosuite and save Vic Fontaine’s casino from mobster Frankie Eyes.
As first revealed in the August production update, we can definitely see that the additional widescreen composition made possible from the original filming process is being used here, as there’s definitely new picture material visible on the sides of the frame — though it’s resulted in a slight loss of material at the top and bottom of the image.
That being said, we know there are plenty of original-aspect-ratio purists out there, so please keep in mind that this widescreen look for the Deep Space Nine clips is only for the documentary, and is not an indication of what any (potential) remastered version of the complete series may look like.
Now as for the image quality seen in this HD clip, remember that this is a compressed video uploaded to YouTube, so the final documentary will look much closer to the “pure” HD look you’re probably expecting — in addition, there’s still more work to be done on the remastering process itself, the documentary team tells us:
The HD remasters are still an ongoing process — we’re working with the team at CBS Digital to get access to scan the many boxes of original film negative and search for the correct scenes and takes. Any additional post-production work (recoloring, cleaning up the picture, editing and VFX work) is being handled by our team internally for purposes of the documentary.
We’re hoping to get Jonathan West back in to oversee final color, and have been working with the Okudas, Doug Drexler, and Dan Curry throughout for support and supervision.
As Behr and the documentary team has said multiple times over the last few years, this HD footage may only ever find a home within What We Left Behind, but boy is this a tantalizing look at what a full remastering project for the Deep Space Nine series could bring us.
Regarding the fundraiser itself, we’re told that there’s still time to contribute to the “HD Heroes” second-wave campaign; while they have completely sold out of the ‘legacy sponsorship’ spots, there are still #HDHero challenge coins available, which have just begun shipping.
While we know that some backers have been frustrated and the long development timeline of the documentary, we’re happy to wait until the team can bring us as much HD Deep Space Nine content as possible — so while things may be taking longer than originally expected, it sure seems like the wait will be worth our patience.
What do you think of this latest update, and our first look at high-definition footage from the series? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
We’re still two weeks out from the next Star Trek: Discovery “Short Treks” release, but today we get our first extended look at the return of Harry Mudd in a trailer for “The Escape Artist,” coming January 3.
Rainn Wilson returns as Mudd, reprising his role from the first season of Discovery, and he also serves as director of this short — which showcases Mudd in the hands of Tellarites, Orions, Klingons, and one new alien species along the way.
Seeing a Tellarite operate as a bounty hunter isn’t a new Trek idea, and is a nice callback to the time Jonathan Archer was captured by Skalaar back in 2003’s “Bounty.”
We’ll find out more about exactly what kind of trouble Harry Mudd finds himself in when “The Escape Artist” debuts on CBS All Access and Space next month — the Short Trek beams down January 3.
After more than a year, IDW Publishing returns to their successful 2017 anthology title Star Trek: Waypoint with a brand new set of stories to close out 2018!
While not technically classified as an “annual” release, perhaps a sign that more Waypoint stories will come over the next year, it’s great to see this title back after spending the last year in the world of Star Trek: Discovery and the evil Terran Empire incursion into The Next Generation.
After the conclusion of the Kelvin Timeline story in Boldly Go and the end of John Byrne’s Star Trek: New Visions series, we’ve certainly seen somewhat of a reduction in IDW’s Trek comic output. Aside from the Discovery and Mirror Broken sequels — and the crossover Star Trek vs. Transformers miniseries — it seemed to me as if IDW’s plans for Trek were starting to sunset a bit, even with the announcements of the one-shot Star Trek 20/20 flashback tale and six-issue The Q Conflictminiseries coming in 2019.
Now that Chris Ryall is back as editor in chief — after leaving the role (and IDW entirely) back in March 2018 — perhaps we’ll see a ramp up in Trek comics for 2019, bringing in new artists and storytellers to join mainstays Scott and David Tipton, Mike Johnson, Angel Hernandez, and J.K. Woodward in print.
But enough of that for now, today we’re here to talk about Waypoint — and friends, I love an anthology. Sure, you may have to pay a little more — at $7.99, this is a bit pricier than a monthly release — but readers get an assortment of talent and stories in this special issue, one that I wasn’t sure we’d see again.
This year’s Waypoint collection includes four tales from throughout the Trek timeline, with spotlights on Deep Space Nine’s Ezri Dax, a check-in with post-V’Ger Will Decker, a heroic tale featuring Data’s cat Spot, and a look back at the legend of the Federation from the far future.
In the first story, “Only You Can Save Yourself,” we get a wonderful visualization Ezri Dax’s relationship with the Dax symbiont, as she uses the memories of all its previous hosts to save a group of Starfleet survivors from a beleaguered station attacked by Andorians.
Written by Dave Baker and drawn by Nicole Goux, I liked the premise of Ezri showcasing the variety of talents and expertise her hosts the symbiont has lived in over twelve lifetimes, but the artwork had sort of a cartoony vibe to it and I’m used to the Andorians being members of the Federation.
I have to ask, when did the Andorians leave the Federation and institute a neutral zone? Or is this just a bunch of rogue rebels or privateers who have no qualms in attacking Federation outposts? I hope I’m not showing my ignorance but I was somewhat puzzled by this aspect of the story, and it would have been helpful to include a bit of an explainer for readers who don’t follow the novel series.
The second story, titled “Consider Eternity” by Brandon Easton and drawn by Josh Hood, is a great ‘whatever happened to…’ tale that sees an encounter between the Will Decker — after his merging with V’Ger at the end of The Motion Picture — and the Q Continuum. I have to say that the art was truly great, and Hood does a great likeness of John de Lancie, I have always been fascinated by V’Ger and enjoyed seeing a return to a cool Trek storyline.
Easton really captures Q’s sarcastic approach to winning friends and building relationships in this story. As he tries to teach the fledgling Decker/V’Ger entity what it means to be an omnipotent being, we see the beginnings of Q’s awareness of humanity. It makes for an excellent segue to “Encounter at Farpoint,” and I’d love to know how he came up with this idea.
“My Human is Not,” the third tale from writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and artist Sonny Lew, was a touching examination of the relationship between Data and his cat, Spot. It’s interesting how the Lanzing and Kelley suppose that to the cat’s perception, Data is indeed human, yet it’s also endearing to see the devotion of a faithful pet in that it is able to recognize its human by its behaviour.
It’s a subtle way of manifesting Data’s success in his search for humanity that ties nicely into the established canon of the series — and like the Porthos Enterprise story back in Waypoint #4, the furry companion gets to take part in the action of the tale.
In the final story, Matthew Dow Smith assumes both pencilling and scripting roles with “Histories,” and brings us to a planet a thousand years after the Federation has vanished from the galaxy. This species looks back at their first contact with Starfleet centuries earlier with violent disdain for the Federation, in a similar manner to the events of Voyager’s “Living Witness.”
When one member of their race challenges that interpretation of those historical events, his integrity is called into question, and while this is a familiar theme, the end of the story didn’t really reconcile the historical schism. For me, it fell a little short, but given that the scope of the story was to be fairly limited, perhaps my expectations were a little too high?
So, which one did I enjoy the most? Out of them all, I’d have to say that the nod has to go to “My Human is Not.” Why? Well, I just liked the affirmation of Data’s humanity from Spot, even though he cannot perceive it, and we know that his responses and concern for the cat are the human things to do. Even though he may not know why, Data is forced to do these things in pursuit of that ideal and that is the most accurate exploration of a character out of this anthology.
With my questions expressed, some answered or others that will hopefully reveal themselves in time, I can enjoy this collection of stories that span over fifty years of Trek history. It’s eclectic in its collection but I can’t find any fault with the selection of time periods.
All are entertaining stories in their own right. Kudos to IDW for giving writers the chance to showcase their talents on this book — and hopefully 2019 will bring us more Waypoint tales from around the Federation.
CBS marked the one-month countdown to the the Season 2 return of Star Trek: Discovery today with another new behind-the-scenes video from the sets up in Toronto, this time showing the cast between filming enjoying each other’s company during production… but also gave us some tantalizing details about the revised hero starship of the Original Series.
Click to go to the video on Facebook, which cannot be embedded at this time.
Along with featuring a few moments of levity on the Discovery bridge set, we get some brand new information about the revamped USS Enterprise, which at this point in the Trek timeline is commanded by Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount).
In a bit of dialogue seemingly set just after the arrival of the Enterprise in the Season 1 finale, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) confirms that “scans show all 203 crewmembers aboard,” which is the same personnel complement the ship carried in “The Cage” back in 1964.
We also get to see a look at the first on-screen technical schematics of the Consitution-class vessel, thanks to a quick shot of Discovery’s scans of the ship — which seems to be in trouble, as noted by the bright red ALL SYSTEMS OFFLINE warning.
Image has been cropped and enlarged, with minor color correction to enhance legibility.
Starting from the top left, we have on-screen confirmation that Discovery has retained Captain Robert April’s place as the original commander of the Enterprise; April of course appeared in the Animated Series episode “The Counter-Clock Incident,” and was mentioned by name in the Discovery Starfleet records in last season’s “Choose Your Pain.”
While the overall length of the ship can’t be read, we can see the secondary hull measures (as far as we can read) approximately 103 meters, with the primary hull at a 127 meter diameter and nacelles of 153 meters in length; this seems to align the revised Enterprise close to the 289-meter length of the classic design.
We can also see that the ship’s armaments include two phaser emitters and two photon torpedo launchers, indicating that the aft torpedo launcher — never featured in the Original Series, but seen in use by the Defiant in “In a Mirror Darkly” — is in fact a standard part of the Constitution-class design.
The Enterprise, a work bee, and Discovery.
Finally, based on the graphic it appears that the warp nacelle struts are now vertically straightened — like the classic Jefferies design — rather than swept back as seen in the Season 1 finale, but this seems like it may be an incorrect rendering, as all the physical models of the ship have the swept-back nacelles in place, and new clips of the Enterprise in the trailers released so far maintain the previous look.
I have to give Mike Johnson and John Barber credit: I never imagined that they’d be able to sustain a story out of this truly odd fusion of franchises.
Yet, here we are in the third chapter of Star Trek vs. Transformers, and the improbable story continues. However, I think that’s the draw for this book. It’s improbable and unexpected, yet somehow a coherent storyline has emerged.
When we last left off, our intrepid Animated Series-era Enterprise crew were facing off against the combined threat of the Klingons and the Decepticons protecting a group of miners of a planet that is both rich in dilithium and energon, power sources that the Federation, Klingons and Transformers can use.
Very little has transpired since the last issue, as the Enterprise crew is still separated: some of the crew is down on the surface, with a damaged Optimus Prime, protecting the miners from the Decepticons, while others venture below the surface with the Autobots and Captain Kirk trying to find their way back to the surface. Meanwhile, the Klingons have cemented an uneasy alliance with the Decepticons in their campy, Filmation rage against the Starfleet officers.
When I looked at Issue #1, I mentioned that nostalgia is a big key in in appreciating this book, though the two franchises are separated by at least a generation of different viewers. I remember watching the Filmation animated Star Trek when I was a young kid.
While the cartoon failed to fully convey all the nuances of Star Trek within its roughly 30-minute episodes, I still had a fondness for it that extends to my middle ages as I have the good nature and maturity to forgive its repeated sequences, clunky animation and relatively stiff voice performances of Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and others.
The same can be said of the Transformers. The cartoon of these toys showed up in the 80’s when I was an older teen, ripe with cynicism, yet a little bit more discerning. I couldn’t forgive the fact that they were originally toys, and that I was aware that both comics (published by Marvel) and cartoon (Sunbow and Marvel Productions) were intended to support the toy line. Even as a teenager, the crass commercialism of the intent was obvious.
Flash-forward to today. While the animated version of Star Trek was at least based on something that had more literary substance, I still have an issue with accepting Transformers into my range of fandoms that I’ve never been able to shake. I don’t know, perhaps I need an intervention or some sort of literature.
My younger contemporaries most vehemently disagree with me. For them, Transformers came at an age when they were able to play with the toys and be mesmerized by the cartoon. So, for them, the toys and this book have an intense nostalgic appeal, even as much as the animated Star Trek does for me.
Thus, the oddity factor is at great play here and it’s clearly more than meets my eye, at least.
I have always been a big fan of Mike Johnson’s work. It makes sense that IDW would tag this guy to assemble a story with this unlikely combination of intellectual properties to work. To be fair, he does make it work. He pays close attention to the nostalgically appealing features of each show (the focus on Kirk, the Trypticon vs. the Fortress Maximus dynamic and the simplistic dialogue) and crafts a story out of these and other simple elements.
Don’t look for any degree of sophistication in this story; it’s pure whimsy. The animated Star Trek couldn’t have overly simplistic dialogue and stories given its audience range and the length of time to wrap up a story. Also, involvement from other characters had to be limited to a small number as the show didn’t have most of the original cast and there were many occasions for the cast to double up on roles.
The same conditions existed with Transformers. Under half and hour and Optimus Prime and his battling ‘bots had to defeat Megatron and the Decepticons fairly quickly so the plot had to be fairly formulaic and easy to resolve.
Even with the presence of the Klingons – the rogue element in the mix – this is still a very simple story. the Klingons add very little to their new-found allies. But things that weren’t present in the animated series, like hand-weapons such as the d’k tahg or cloaking technology have found a place to go beyond the scope of the original animation’s concept of the Klingons.
I found Issue #3 to be a tad rushed, particularly when it came to the appearance of the Enterprise. Through the Cybertronian connection, Kirk is able to craft a Transformer Enterprise that will allow him and his compatriots to break out of the underground mine they’ve been trapped in since last issue. Even for a simplistic book, I found this to be a bit contrived.
I’m going to blame it on The Transformers.
I missed Phillip Murphy’s work in Issue #3. No disrespect to Jack Lawrence, but Murphy has the Filmation style down pat. It’s apparent in the positioning of the characters and also in their dynamism. They move like the cartoon characters and their facial expressions are exactly as you would remember them.
Even the Transformers are exactly the way I remember them, from even my limited exposure to the 1980’s Transformer cartoons. While Lawrence’s work is good, I think Murphy’s work has spoiled me.
Cover ‘A’ is Phillip Murphy’s. It’s also of note that Uhura isn’t in this issue for some reason, but if you look at her expression, it’s exactly as you would remember it from the cartoon. I also love the fact that Soundwave still has his ejectable tape-transformers. This is my favourite cover of the three.
Cover ‘B’ by Gavin Fullerton is a little scratchy and I don’t think it jibes well with the animated vibe. It’s probably best to get an art style that meshes with the animation. I enjoyed the scene, but I think the styling just wasn’t what was best for this book.
Finally, the retailer-incentive cover by Megan Levens, with colours by Charlie Kirchoff, is a wonderful rendition of the major female characters (though we really haven’t seen much of Christine Chapel in this series) from the cartoons that emulates the same styling.
Is it the Trek story I’ve been longing for? Nah… but it does have a nostalgic appeal to it and I think it’s quite a feat of literary legerdemain that Johnson and Barber were able to cobble a story out of the two franchises distanced by time and subject matter.
And, if there was anything that could make Transformers better, it would be Star Trek!
CBS is continuing their rollout of Season 2 promotion ahead of January’s Star Trek: Discovery premiere, and following yesterday’s debut of a new trailer and poster for the upcoming episodes, a new behind-the-scenes video from the production has arrived giving us more teases at what’s to come.
Executive producers Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, and Olatunde Osunsanmi each offer a few comments about the production of the upcoming season, and series stars Sonequa Martin-Green (Burnham) and Anson Mount (Pike) also get some time on camera — along with a few small snippets of new episodic footage — but some of the most interesting bits are on-set images from things only previously hinted at before today.
We also get a look at Martin-Green and Doug Jones (Saru) filming on location, in what seems to be traditional Kelpien garb — signaling that Burnham will be joining Saru on his Season 2 return to Kaminar following last week’s “The Brightest Star” Short Trek tale.
Plus, from the new episodic footage, a newly-styled alien operating a transporter system:
There’s certainly more to come over the next few weeks as we get closer to the January 17 return of Star Trek: Discovery — to keep checking back here at TrekCore for all the latest!
Star Trek: DiscoverySeason 1 Blu-ray
Star Trek: DiscoverySeason 2 Blu-ray
Star Trek: DiscoverySeason 3 Blu-ray
