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Star Trek Deep Space Nine 4CD Soundtrack Collection – Track Listing + Rear Cover Art

Last Friday we posted the first information on La-La Land Records‘ upcoming 4 Disc release of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Soundtrack Collection. The set is scheduled to ship on February 12 and should retail for $49.98. The record label has issued some more information today including the fact that the set will be limited to 3,000 units and orders will be taken from 1pm on February 12 through their website, www.lalalandrecords.com.

In the meantime, La-La Land have sent us this first look of the rear cover art with full information about which episodes will be featured:

The set contains music excerpted from episodes of all seven seasons with Disc 4 presenting a special “Lost Album” with a more complete collection of music from the episodes “Our Man Bashir”, “Trials and Tribble-ations” and “What You Leave Behind”.

TrekCore is hoping to talk to some of the producers of the set soon, so stay tuned for more information!

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Collection is due for release on February 12, 2013 from La-La Land Records and will be priced at $49.98. The set can be ordered on release day at 1pm over at www.lalalandrecords.com

BOBW Blu-Ray Trailer & More Packaging Images

Amazon UK has now released a low-quality version of a special trailer made by CBS to promote the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s “The Best of Both Worlds” on Blu-Ray. The trailer runs at just over 2 minutes in length and gives a glimpse into some of the special features made exclusively for this release, including – as we’ve previously reported – a behind-the-scenes featurette, gag reel and new group audio commentary. Watch the full trailer below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvp7JjcapLM

Furthermore, the official site recently published a new image of the packaging for the special release which shows the set is in a unique slipcase. When you remove the outer Borgified cover, Picard is revealed in his normal human appearance.

Fans in the US & Canada should expect a release date of April 30 for this disc (the same day Season 3 is set to hit shelves). Fans in the UK can get their copy one day early, as Paramount Home Entertainment (UK) have nominated April 29 as their release date. UK fans can already pre-order their copy now for just £10.49 now at Amazon.co.uk! We’ll bring you pre-order information for the U.S. as soon as we get it.

Order TNG - "The Best of Both Worlds" Feature Blu-Ray today!


Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 Blu-Ray today!



EXCLUSIVE: Enterprise Season 1 Blu-Ray Trailer

With all the recent announcements on the upcoming release of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s third season and “The Best of Both Worlds” on Blu-Ray, the focus has drifted from the debut of Star Trek: Enterprise on Blu-Ray in just over a month’s time. Season 1 is scheduled to hit shelves on March 26 in the U.S. and Canada and a few days later in other countries.

The folks at CBS/Paramount have provided TrekCore with a special look at the release in the form of a brand new trailer. We’re presenting it here in full high-definition with download options in varying resolutions below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdxynXpRyBw
Download480p (52 MB) • 720p (107 MB) • 1080p (224 MB)

The trailer takes on a similar style of the UPN Network promos first used to advertise the series, focusing on the fact that it is set before Picard and Kirk. The trailer features a peak at the raft of new bonus material included on the set including Roger Lay Jr.’s three-part documentary “To Boldly Go – Launching Enterprise”, the “In Conversation” piece between executive producers Brannon Braga and Rick Berman and finally my most anticipated piece – “On the Set”, an in-depth look at the production of an episode (“Vox Sola“) recorded during the filming of the show. We’ll have more about this piece and the set as a whole in an upcoming interview with Roger Lay Jr.

Whilst it’s difficult to gauge the quality of the transfer from the trailer, it’s clear from the shots that the high-definition print certainly trumps the DVD quality we have become used to. VFX shots which have had to be upscaled to full 1080p fare relatively well, and live action footage looks wonderful (especially the outdoor shots from “Desert Crossing“).

Fans worldwide can lock in a pre-order for Season 1 of Star Trek: Enterprise below.

Order Star Trek: Enterprise Season 1 Blu-Ray today!



Order Star Trek: Enterprise Season 2 Blu-Ray today!



Pre-Release info on Deep Space Nine 4CD Soundtrack Collection – Artwork + Teaser News

La-La Land Records aren’t ones for slowing down. The groundbreaking release of Star Trek: The Original Series – The Complete Soundtrack has barely been out two months and the label are already preparing to delight Trekkie music fans once again with the release of a 4 Disc Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Soundtrack Collection. The set is scheduled for release on February 12 and should retail for $49.98. Our friends over at La-La Land sent us this first look at the cover art for the upcoming release:

Modern day Star Trek music has always been a tricky beast for soundtrack releases on account of the sheer volume of music out there. When we spoke to Lukas Kendall in December, he pointed to this as a hurdle for “complete” releases:

With modern day Star Trek series, there’s a much larger quantity of music that was recorded because they did an original score for each and every episode. In the case of the newer Star Trek series and the composers who did many more episodes than Ron [Jones] did, by necessity we have to excerpt their work.

To that end, this collection brings together some of the finest cues from a whole range of different episodes taken from all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Previous releases from DS9 have been limited to the original pilot soundtrack album (Music from “Emissary”), released by GNP Crescendo Records in 1993 and music from two episodes of Season 4, “The Visitor” in The Best of Star Trek Volume 1 and “The Way of the Warrior” in The Best of Star Trek Volume 2, also from GNP Crescendo. This makes La-La Land’s new set the largest collection of music from Deep Space Nine to date.

Similar to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Collection that the label put out last year, this set celebrates the different composers who worked on Deep Space Nine and is broadly divided into categories based on the composers:

  • Disc One features music by Dennis McCarthy including cues from episodes such as “Duet“, “The Circle“, “The Die is Cast“, “Far Beyond the Stars” and many more.
  • Disc Two features music by Jay Chattaway with cues from episodes including “The Search“, “Call to Arms“, “The Changing Face of Evil” and many more.
  • Disc Three features the huge array of guest composers who worked on Deep Space Nine, titled “New Recruits” and showcases the works of John Debney, Richard Bellis, David Bell, Gregory Smith and Paul Baillargeon.
  • Disc Four sports the intriguing title of “The Lost Album” and puts the spotlight on three episodes with a fuller selection of cues from these episodes. All will be revealed soon, but I will tell you that the first episode on the disc is “Our Man Bashir“!

As before, we’re working with our friends at La-La Land to bring you some great coverage of this release including (hopefully) interviews with set producers Mark Banning and Ford A. Thaxton, sample tracks and full track listings. Stay tuned!

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Collection is due for release on February 12, 2013 from La-La Land Records and will be priced at $49.98. The set can be ordered on release day at www.lalalandrecords.com

EXCLUSIVE! BOBW and Season 3 Blu-Ray Cover Art + Bonus Features + Pre-Order in the UK!

As we reported earlier this month, CBS are planning the release of a special feature-length edit of “The Best of Both Worlds” on Blu-Ray to coincide with the release of Season 3 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. We’ve got our hands on some high-resolution cover art for the special disc which features a stark image of Locutus of Borg locked in a soulless stare.

The special release will come with its very own exclusive set of Borg-themed special features, including a featurette, all new audio commentary and gag reel. These features are set to be exclusive to this disc, and because of the feature-length nature of the edit, the audio commentary won’t be split over the Season 3 and 4 sets. We expect CBS to release a special trailer for the disc within the next month along with a fully detailed press release – so stay tuned for that all that information!

Fans in the US & Canada should expect a release date of April 30 for this disc (the same day Season 3 is set to hit shelves). Fans in the UK can get their copy one day early, as Paramount Home Entertainment (UK) have nominated April 29 as their release date. UK fans can already pre-order their copy for the ridiculously cheap price of just £10.49 now at Amazon.co.uk! We’ll bring you pre-order information for the U.S. as soon as we get it.

In the meantime, a few updates from Season 3. The latest cover art we’ve received presents a slightly different shade of green to the lemon yellow/lime green mockup we brought you last year. Here’s a higher resolution copy:

The cover features images of Captain Picard, Geordi La Forge and Beverly Crusher (albeit from a Season 6 publicity shot by the looks of it, with her later-season hairstyle). The third season set contains another epic array of extras, with a wonderful array of new audio commentaries (including fan favorite episodes “Yesterday’s Enterprise” and “Sins of the Father“), the continuation of the ever-growing TNG documentary with another three-part bonanza entitled “Resistance is Futile”, a special tribute to Michael Piller, a brand new gag reel and of course the much anticipated “In the Writer’s Room” feature, showcasing Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, René Echevarria and Naren Shankar geeking out for over an hour under the supervision of Trekkie extraordinaire Seth MacFarlane.

UK fans can pre-order the set now at Amazon.co.uk, again for a delivery date of April 29.

We’ll have all the latest developments, including official press releases from CBS, as and when they are issued! In the meantime, if you’re in the UK – lock in your pre-orders for Season 3 and “The Best of Both Worlds” below! Resistance is indeed Futile!

REVIEW: Star Trek The Original Series – The Complete Soundtrack Collection

Over the last couple of months, TrekCore has been covering the release of La-La Land Records’ complete soundtrack collection release of Star Trek: The Original Series. If you’ve missed it, check out our interviews with three of the producers on the set – Neil S. BulkLukas Kendall and Jeff Bond. To wrap up our coverage, here’s the full TrekCore review of the set.

Star Trek: The Original Series The Complete Soundtrack
Published by La-La Land Records • 15 CDs
Limited Edition of 6000 Units
17 hours, 23 minutes

 

Buy from La-La Land Records

 

It only takes a few notes of the Star Trek Original Series fanfare to conjure up mental images of the Enterprise and her crew getting ready for another adventure. The music is not only iconic, but historic. Simple yet strong melodies have inspired countless musicians, have been parodied throughout the years and dearly cherished by Star Trek‘s fans.

Perhaps it’s a bit of nostalgia, but the lighthearted tones and the whimsical melodies are capable of conveying a strong image to even those who have never seen the series before.

This is the set that Star Trek fans have been dreaming of for over 40 years. The minefield of music licensing, royalties and copyrights had made such a project far too much of a financial risk for the majority of record labels, but La-La Land took the mugato by its horn and set about putting together this dream of a collection. Years in development, the producers of the set have worked tirelessly to ensure every note from all 80 original episodes is included in the best possible quality.

This daunting task of fulfilling a complete soundtrack has been masterfully done. Nothing has been cut out, every song from every episode is included and care for integrity is obvious. Even the most dedicated fans will not be left wanting more or questioning the integrity of the collection. Finding the exact recordings that were used must have been a difficult project, but discrepancies aren’t present, even throughout all 15 discs.

What’s especially exciting for fans are the extra takes and source music, since they’ve never been released before. For the first time, fans can listen to outtakes and retakes from songs they’ve heard countless times. Even recordings of sound effects that were never used — such as a collection of ideas for sound effects for tribbles.

Even after over 40 years, it’s amazing the sound quality is so pristine and more importantly, that the original music has even survived at all. One would expect the tracks to have a bit of background noise, but it’s rarely present and almost every track is completely clear with amazing quality. That’s a testament to the fact that the team went back to the original reels, diligently transferring them and enlisting the help of a global team to ensure the best possible sound quality. The majority of tracks are presented in mono sound, however fans can delight in listening to tracks from “The City on the Edge of Forever” in stereo, a true rarity for television from that time period.

Because original cue sheets have also been preserved, the original names of each title are available. Humorous titles like “Zap the Cap”, “Music to Dent Force Fields By” and “The Unreal McCoy” are an interesting look into the composer’s production process, while other titles like “The Crew That Was”, a track from the episode “The Doomsday Machine“, gives a harrowing reminder of what became of Commodore Decker’s crew.

Star Trek’s more dedicated fans will be able to determine which episode each track is from, if not the exact moment. Without referring to the physical packaging, it can often be difficult to figure out which episodes certain tracks pertain to. However fear not, the collection is accompanied by 4 wonderfully detailed booklets with notes from producer Jeff Bond. The liner notes are full of painstakingly researched information from the names of original musicians to factoids about cues and composers.

When the scores are listened to independently from the show, one can truly appreciate the merits of the theatrical, whimsical and distinct melodies. Iconic songs like that from the famous fight scene in “Amok Time” are easy examples. Imagery of conflict or anxiety is inescapable.

The set is housed in an elegant black box containing three CD boxes, each containing one season. The spine of the box sports a striking metallic effect logo of the Enterprise‘s top profile blueprint inside the Starfleet delta. Every part of the design of this set screams luxury at you.

The box holds four booklets, one housed separately (review set copy shown here signed by composer Gerald Fried, retail copies are not available signed) and one enclosed in each respective season case. Bookets sport imagery of the original Enterprise (not remastered) and each disc features a different character.

There’s no questioning the fact that at $225 the set is a considered purchase, but when you do the math that’s still just $15 a CD and more than worth the expense in my opinion. The financial commitment on La-La Land’s part has clearly been considerable given the huge number of people and entities who needed paying to make the set a possibility, so any cries of “screwing the fans” would be incredibly unjust for these guys. Based on the sheer amount of work that’s gone into this, I would humbly suggest it’s worth every cent and then some.

Overall? I can’t recommend this set enough. It’s been my absolute pleasure to pore through track after track, reliving episodes in my head as I go. The attention to detail, quality and completeness is astounding and I’m thrilled beyond measure that La-La Land managed to beat all the odds and put this set out for fans the world over. It’s an absolute gem of a collection, and I shall enjoy it for years to come. Bravo!

You can order the set from La-La Land’s website here. Numbers are limited to 6,000 copies.

Back to ’88: Paramount Commits to TNG S2

When we heard that the entire principal cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation would be coming together for not just one, but SEVERAL public reunion events for the show’s 25th anniversary – something that hadn’t been done in almost twenty years – we knew that we would finally have a chance to meet all of the actors.

We had originally planned on visiting the TNG EXPOsed reunion at the Calgary Expo in the spring of 2012, where all nine original cast members were in attendance – but when those plans fell through, we quickly bought tickets to the May 2013 Creation Star Trek Convention in Chicago, where TNG’s main cast (minus Denise Crosby and Wil Wheaton) will be attending, along with several of DS9’s cast.

parnews_photo2

We began our search to find something special for when we asked for the cast’s autographs. We didn’t want to use just another cast photo or publicity poster, but we wanted something that had all of the actors together, so we went hunting where many memorabilia quests begin: eBay! We hunted through pages of action figures, video cassettes, card games, model kits, and comic books, when we stumbled across something we’d never seen before…. and after collecting (or at least coveting) TNG memorabilia for the last 20+ years, that was extremely surprising. We quickly hit the “purchase” button, and knew that we had found our prize… at only $4.00 US, this was quite a bargain!

What we discovered was this issue of Paramount News, an internal newsletter published by Paramount Pictures in January 1988. Released only to the Paramount offices (principally in Los Angeles and New York City), it features company news on employee hires and promotions, domestic and international motion picture and television production updates, even home video releases. This oversized, 9″x12″ glossy magazine served as the official corporate communication update to all employees across all of the diverse departments under the Paramount company umbrella.

The biggest draw, of course, was the large image of the TNG cast on the cover! The photo used is part of the pre-production “smoky bridge” photo shoot and this particular image is one that we can’t seem to find anywhere online (the sneer on Brent Spiner’s face sets it apart from every other photo we can find from this shoot).

parnews_photo3

Since it’s not very easy to search the internet for “Paramount News”, we had no idea what we would find inside when it arrived in the mail. Luckily, we were not disappointed. The main article is a two-page spread about the efforts to sell TNG to syndication partners, detailing presentations made to station owners, press kits, and marketing plans used to sell the show, with lovely photographs of press kits sent out to local station managers, early tie-in merchandise, as well as behind-the-scenes shots of Bob Justman, Rick Berman, and of course Gene Roddenberry on-set during the show’s first season production.

The most important find in the magazine, however, is buried within the general Paramount corporate news: the announcement of TNG‘s renewal for a second season! This announcement also includes the promotions of three of TNG‘s biggest names – Rick Berman, Bob Justman, and David Livingston – into new positions on the show.

Trek historian Larry Nemecek gave us this insight:

“Bob’s ‘promotion’ [listed in the magazine] was not one per se, but rather the pre-retirement ‘backing away’, per his request, as a ‘consulting producer.’

It’s a notes-writing status, similar to what Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor did as they prepared to leave from VGR and/or DS9; in Jeri’s case, like Bob, it was a time of actual career retirement. They remained involved, but not on a day-to-day basis.”

There’s also a nice bit of information about selling TNG to international distribution partners, detailing a November 1987 set visit from executives of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, as well as screenings of the then-new show to buyers from British television networks BBC and ITV.

[metaslider id=23593]

If we didn’t know it was nearly twenty-five years old, we could easily believe that it was printed yesterday – it’s in perfect shape, with sharp corners, flat pages, and no signs of yellowing or age anywhere. Whoever held on to this thing did a tremendous job keeping it safe for the last twenty-five years.

We reached out to Paramount Studios in California, where a representative from the studio archives was able to tell us that while the publication is most certainly a rarity (especially in its well-preserved condition), there is basically no way to tell how many copies were originally printed, for two reasons. First, there is virtually no one currently employed at Paramount who was also working there when it was put out in 1988, and secondly, the in-house print shop that was responsible for this type of print job – who MAY have been able to find out that information in their records – was dissolved and outsourced a few years ago.

While we hoped to get some more detailed information about this publication, it seems that there’s nobody left at Paramount who has any knowledge of it, and after twenty-five years, it’s not surprising. Thankfully, we know that it’s at least an authentic piece of Star Trek history, and I’m extremely excited to take this almost one-of-a-kind item with me when we meet the TNG cast in a few months.

Thanks to Trekland’s Larry Nemecek and Christina H. at the Paramount Archives.

Creating the Filmation Generation – Andy Mangels (Co-Author) Interview

TrekCore recently announced news of a new book which delves into Star Trek‘s Animated Series. Creating the Filmation Generation is penned by none other than Filmation Founder Lou Scheimer with the help of popular Star Trek fiction author Andy Mangels. The book takes readers on a history tour of Filmation and its huge catalogue of animated shows including a significant portion dedicated to Star Trek: The Animated Series.

I caught up with Andy Mangels last month to chat to him about the new book and the forgotten history of Star Trek: The Animated Series.

 

Lou Scheimer and Andy Mangels

Andy Mangels: Creating the Filmation Generation Interview

TrekCore: The original concept for the show, the animated Star Trek, dealt with a group of kids on a ship that wasn’t the Enterprise. This is officially how they were going to relaunch the Star Trek franchise. In your expert opinion, would you say it was a good idea and do you think William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy would have been onboard with this concept (especially Nimoy who originally wasn’t going to be a part of the aborted Star Trek Phase II series)?

Andy Mangels: The original concept for the animated series was going to be while the regular series was on the air, so, you could watch the show at nighttime and then again on Saturday mornings – had the original series not been cancelled, they would have both been happening concurrently. The original cast would have been involved, no doubt, but, the original concept was to have a young teenage crew that needed older crewmembers to mentor them and that’s what the Enterprise crew was going to do. It was really kind of a revolutionary and clever idea about how to continue the show but make it accessible to younger audiences, but, still make it Star Trek. If you look at the art of what Star Trek later did, it’s Wesley Crusher… it’s exactly what Roddenberry later did with Wesley Crusher.

One of the things the book talks about is how long they were working on the Star Trek Animated Series and a lot fans don’t really realize how long they were working on it. They actually first talked about doing an animated Star Trek series while the original series was still on the air and they actually entered into a deal before season 3, so, they were actively working with Roddenberry, the cast, and the writers. When the show got cancelled… it didn’t go anywhere for awhile. Then Star Trek went into reruns and became a syndication success, there began to be Star Trek conventions and fandom really kind of rose to its heights and that’s when they were able to come back and say “Let’s do another Star Trek and let’s do it in animation where we won’t have a budget concern, we can literally show anything we want, we can show any kind of space happening, and kind of planetary happening, we can really go where no man has gone before because we don’t have a special effects budget to worry about. The only budget they had was the animation budget and the voice actor budget.”


Star Trek’s Animated Series originally ran for 22 episodes and was broadcast between 1973-1974.

TrekCore: You look at some of the shows that were part of the “Disney Afternoon” in the late 1980s and early 1990s which had one season runs usually with a new episode airing every day. Was there every any consideration by Filmation to take this route with Star Trek?

Andy Mangels: They actually had talked about that with Gene Roddenberry and… he loved the Animated Series… and he made in his later years some comments about it that were few and far between that were pretty derogatory about it because for the most part, the Animated Series was the live action series translated to animation. D.C. Fontana was the story editor, (Samuel) Peeples, who wrote the pilot for the original series (“Where No Man Has Gone Before”) I believe, wrote the pilot for the animated series, David Gerrold who wrote the tribbles episode (“The Trouble With Tribbles“) wrote a sequel for the Animated Series (“More Tribbles, More Troubles”). Almost everybody who worked on the Animated Series had been people who worked on the Original Series, so… the concern was that they knew that kids were going to watch the Animated Series anyway; the challenge was to make it appealing to the adults who watched the Original Series. That’s why the show is adult as it is… it is the first animated show to show the death of a pet… Spock’s sehlat dies in an episode… and that’s major; for that to happen on a Saturday morning show is seismic! It changed everything for Saturday morning television.

No one treated the Animated Series as if it were a children’s show… they treated it as an animated show. They didn’t dumb it down; they didn’t have any goofy animal sidekicks, they didn’t have any chase scenes, they didn’t have any silly puns in their names; for all intents and purposes, what they did on the Animated Series could have been done on the Original Series, had they had the budget. I will say there were a few episodes that were goofy… a giant inflatable Enterprise (“The Practical Joker“) being a prime example, but, there were a number of original episodes that had their share of goofiness, as well… *cough* “Spock’s Brain” *cough*…

When Gene Roddenberry was developing The Next Generation, he and Lou Scheimer (who had remained friends since the Animated Series finished) had actually talked about developing a new animated series that would be set during the TNG time period. When Gene passed away, it didn’t really go anywhere and the reason it didn’t really go anywhere is because Gene was actively involved in the development of the Animated Series… Filmation had a deal with him to do the show and the deal was that the network and Paramount had no power in the series. All they could do was say “Yes, you can air this” or “No, we won’t air this.”


Andy Mangels, co-author of “Creating the Filmation Generation” recalls how Star Trek’s Animated Series was closely linked with the Original Series and featured writers such as David Gerrold who continued his famous tribbles story in “More Tribbles, More Troubles“.

TrekCore: It’s interesting to hear all this about Roddenberry’s involvement in the show because he famously decreed during the second season of The Next Generation that the Animated Star Trek was “not canon.” Now, based on everything you’ve said, how can Roddenberry be so appreciative of what the series accomplished and yet write it off so easily later?

Andy Mangels: It’s very easy for writers to misconstrue things or for people to get up on a pulpit at a convention and say things they might not actively feel and there are also some pressures that come into play in Hollywood. At one point, Gene Roddenberry was against the idea of having gay characters on Star Trek and then towards the end, close to when he passed away, he changed his mind and was going to have gay characters on Star Trek and then after he passed, that went by the wayside. Gene’s opinion during the majority of his time when the Animated Series was going was always very positive. And it’s interesting to note that although at one point he said that the Animated Series was not going to be canon, they are definitely canon now because elements of the series have cropped up all throughout Enterprise, they showed up in Deep Space Nine, they showed up in other stuff… you can’t read a Star Trek book these days (although people argue THOSE aren’t canon) without some kind of reference to the Animated Series, there’s references to it all over the place. You know, James Tiberius Kirk… “Tiberius” didn’t exist until the Animated Series said that was his middle name and Gene Roddenberry certainly allowed James Tiberius Kirk to stand. So, yeah, it was one of those things that when he made that comment, who knows, maybe he was having a bad stomach day or maybe at that one point in time, he didn’t like the series. Does that mean he always didn’t like the series… what does that mean in the grand scheme of things… I don’t know.

There were people who worked in Gene’s office who were very picky about what they considered to be canon and not canon and what they would allow to appear in the books and the comics and sometimes they were controlling the answers… not controlling what came out of Gene’s mouth, but, if somebody turned something in to Gene’s office, sometimes the answer wasn’t coming from Gene.


Andy Mangels recalled how Gene Roddenberry had actively talked with Lou Scheimer about developing a new Animated Series during the Next Generation years, however his untimely passing meant the idea never had chance to reach fruition.

TrekCore: You had mentioned Filmation’s desire back in the early seasons of The Next Generation to do another animated series… one could make the argument that the Animated Series we know of today “resurrected” the Star Trek franchise. Do you feel that with Enterprise now being off the air for seven years that history might repeat itself and a new animated Star Trek could bring the franchise back to television?

Andy Mangels: I think it’s viable. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, while I don’t watch it, is pretty popular… it does well in the ratings and on DVD and it’s a way for people to watch Star Wars every week. I think that if a new animated Star Trek, if it were done with care with people who actively cared about the Star Trek experience, about what it meant, what it became in its later years, that it wasn’t a show for kids, but, for adults… if they approached it from that angle, I think it’d be successful. It’s unfortunate that it probably won’t happen because Hollywood is so fixated on the bottom line that they won’t take chance and they’ll look at it and say “You know what, we know the last movie worked, so, we’ll only make movies.” They won’t say “Let’s do a movie of the week” or “Let’s do a new series or a mini-series to see how it goes.” Look at Battlestar: Galactica… Sci-Fi Channel took a chance when they relaunched that and then they did Caprica and now they’re doing this mini-series that they’re releasing on the Internet – that’s risk taking… let’s try something new and see how the fans react and see if it actively brings us attention and money and ratings… I don’t think the networks are ready to do that, and that’s unfortunate because Paramount and CBS are tied together now – they could easily, you could have a CBS Star Trek on there now but I don’t think they will because they can’t look beyond the bottom line, they’re just thinking “We don’t know if it’ll work or not, so, we’ll just stick with the movies.”

***

Creating the Filmation Generation is available to buy now from TwoMorrows Publishing. Be sure to re-visit TrekCore soon for our review and some exclusive previews of the book!

Buy Creating the Filmation Generation



EXCLUSIVE: Robert Meyer Burnett Interview, Part VII

TrekCore talks to Robert Meyer Burnett, one-half of the talented duo responsible for the creation of the new bonus features on Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s remastered Blu-Ray releases. Normally to be found beavering away in his edit bay, Rob generously took several hours out of his busy schedule to talk to me about all things Star Trek, answering questions about his work and dropping several juicy hints about the exciting things he and Roger Lay Jr. have planned for future Star Trek Blu-Ray releases.

Robert Meyer Burnett

Robert Meyer Burnett: Who Interviews the Interviewer? Part 7

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: When you say [that JJ Abrams’ “Star Trek”] brought the franchise back, there’s been this term bandied about now for many years: “franchise fatigue”. A lot of people, probably correctly, say that Voyager and Enterprise did real harm to the franchise by taking that trip to the well one too many times. Do you think that in the Rick Berman incarnation of Star Trek, it’s possible to get another show on the air, or does it need a complete retooling?

Robert Meyer Burnett: Here’s what I think happened with the Rick Berman era of Star Trek. Rick Berman knew what worked, and he was a devotee of Roddenberry’s original vision, but the Star Trek universe… they did not evolve with the time, with serialized, television storytelling. Deep Space Nine did get into serialized storytelling, but if you look at those episodes, it still had an “A” story and a “B” story for the most part; they still adhered to the formula of the act structure of Star Trek which began in the Sixties. As other shows were becoming more and more serialized, more and more modern, Star Trek was very mired in what had come before.

Enterprise could have been a complete departure, but it still was still telling a story with a five-act structure dealing with “A” and “B” stories; it was still stuck in the same Star Trek storytelling that they had even back in the Eighties. People thought, “Well, Star Trek has to have a spaceship, we have to have to call it Enterprise…” You needed to completely break from that mode of storytelling. Look, I would like to see the Mad Men version of Star Trek. Why not do that? If you could combine, say, The West Wing… to me, the first season of Enterprise should have been The West Wing in heading into Space. You had guys dealing with the Vulcans, dealing with world-building, and we had yet to have… how frustrating would it have been to watch Earth not be a spacefaring power, and all these aliens are coming to us telling us how to live our lives; we desperately needed warp technology to get there, to join this galactic community that we knew was out there, but no one was going to give it to us – we had to earn it, and that in itself… the whole show would have been a metaphor for emergent technologies, how we’re going to manage them… it would have been a great thing to do.

Here’s what I don’t understand. Having worked with the original cast – if I was given $30 million right now – I would go make a kick-ass Next Generation movie that is set on one planet, we never go into space, and we deal with some kind of a really interesting, philosophical, ideological problem. You know, you have Captain Picard who’s retired, or maybe a governor somewhere – you could make a kick-ass Star Trek movie now, with the original Next Generation cast, that doesn’t have to be some kind of a space adventure on the Enterprise. As a matter of fact, Gabriel Koener, who people know from Trekkies, and he became a special effects artist in his own right – he told me the greatest idea ever for how you bring back Data, who’s dead. His idea was that Data’s positronic system – they were able to somehow salvage that, and Data becomes the new central computer on ALL starships. Instead of Majel Barrett’s voice, the new voice of Starfleet computers and the Enterprise is Brent Spiner, who would appear as a CG, animated Hologram, so he’d still look like Data. Brent Spiner, using motion capture technology, becomes an artificial intelligence with Data’s personality, who happens to now be the main computer on every starship. You bring him back, and Data is there, but he’s the ship’s computer instead of being Data himself. I was like, “That’s a genius idea!” You incorporate Data, still alive; the computer is now called Data – you refer to him as Data, and he becomes the ghost in the machine – he exists as his character, he just runs the ship now.


Robert Meyer Burnett in his CBS Director’s Chair in front of the bluescreen stage used for interviews in the bonus features.

TrekCore: Rob, you still speak with such unbridled passion about Star Trek, and it’s been part of your career now in one form or another for almost twenty years. Do you ever get to the point of reaching burnout? Does having it as your day job ever intrude on your hobby, your fandom? Do you get to a point where you say, “I’ve got to call it quits and just enjoy it as a fan again”?

Robert Meyer Burnett: No, because I am, for whatever reason – maybe it’s because it’s so ingrained in my brain – to me, in my imagination at least, the Star Trek universe is real. Probably silly for me to admit this, but I still read most of the Star Trek novels that come out, especially all of the ones set in the post-Dominion War continuity, like the David Mack Destiny novels; his new Data trilogy [Cold Equations] and just in the last month, the Star Trek: The Next Generation 365 book came out. Also, you have Round Two releasing a life-long dream of mine… a large, very accurate model kit, 1:350-scale, of the original Enterprise!  You can also buy additional decal sets with all of the additional Franz Joseph N.C.C designation numbers. You can build any of the original 12 Constitution-Class ships or the I.S.S. Enterprise!  There’s also an additional lighting kit so you can light the shuttlebay and it even has a bridge interior! And if that wasn’t enough, LaLa Land Records released the Holy Grail of Star Trek music, which is, of course, ALL of The Original Series music ever recorded, including tracks recorded but never used before, never heard before – which, to me, I hear that music, there are all these sense memories conjured up all the way back to my earliest childhood. And we’re getting it all now!

So, on December 4th, you have TNG Season Two on Blu-Ray dropping, David Goodman’s coffee table book Federation: The First 150 Years, AND the boxed set of fifteen CDs of all the music from The Original Series! It’s Trek-pocalypse! How can I, as a fan… every dream I ever had, everything that I ever wanted is there! I can now build a three-foot model of the I.S.S. Enterprise that has working warp nacelle lights, a shuttlebay, and a bridge; I can build it in my man-cave while listening to every single piece of music ever recorded for The Original Series. (Laughs) These are heady days indeed, my friend.

I have grown up, Star Trek has never let me down. It’s always been there. Started watching TOS, then the Animated Series came out. The Motion Pictures. Next Gen and the rest…as I’ve grown up and moved through my life…there has always been new Trek. Sure, I’ve liked some a great deal more than others; I can rip on J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie all I want – and I will never stop ripping on it, because it’s almost become part of my personality to do so – but who am I kidding? Do you know how many times I have watched JJ’s movie on Blu-ray? Way, WAY too many times…which is why I know I hate it so much.

TrekCore: Go on…!

Robert Meyer Burnett: A lot. I mean, I watch it a lot! I hate the production design; I hate the fact that San Francisco looks like a polluted mess… but it still has the biggest budget, by far, of any Star Trek movie and it does have a lot of cool, interesting stuff to see in it. I think Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike is one of the most bad-ass motherfuckers ever, in terms of how they can get him so right… I love Chris Pine as Kirk, even though the Kobayashi Maru scene in that movie is an embarrassment; it’s ridiculous – he did not deserve a commendation for original thinking, he just broke the simulator and acted like an asshole. Had I written that scene, I’d have Kirk reprogram the simulator himself, not letting the Orion he was banging do it for him, and he would have reprogrammed it using, say, tactics he learned studying Garth of Izar; some amazing and obscure tactic that he would have figured out how to employ, and his professors at Starfleet Academy would have believed, if only for a moment, he actually did beat the simulator – because he was clearly a brilliant tactician, and they would have been like, “Wait a minute, no one’s ever done this before.” But, in the movie, you know from the beginning that he broke the simulator! He smugly eats his apple. He didn’t do anything clever and was immediately caught. What a douche bag that Kirk is. That Kirk…not the most finely crafted hunk of dilithium in the intermix chamber. But, whatever – I still watch it, fine. It’s okay. And after those nine minutes, I already hate INTO DARKNESS too…I mean…running from the spear-chucking Hovitos? Really? Did the writers adapt an old Gold Key comic for that scene? And, oh wait, Spock’s quoting the Prime Directive as he repels down from a Shuttlecraft which must be in full view of anyone looking up at the erupting Volcano from at least ten miles away. And don’t get me started on the Red October Enterprise…


Robert Meyer Burnett hanging out in “Music of Star Trek” author Jeff Bond’s garage… a treasure trove of Star Trek and sci-fi memorabilia.

But yeah…I’ll be first in line on opening day. Because it’s STAR TREK! As overblown and intellectually challenged and wildly over budget as it is…it’s still the most expensive STAR TREK movie we’ll probably ever get. Besides…I want to see The ‘Batch’s big reveal and I’m really hoping to see the Botany Bay in a flashback on the big screen at some point…if Peter Weller’s character did, indeed, happen to stumble across it a few decades early. Or maybe…John Harrison is simply John Harrison…uh huh.

TrekCore: To what extent does fan feedback influence your work on the TNG Blu-rays? Do you read feedback actively on the message boards, and does it influence the way you produce these things?

RMB: Fan feedback is absolutely one of the most important things for us. I lurk on the comments sections of TrekCore, and TrekWeb, and TrekMovie, just like everybody else. I’ll tell you something – in the “Energized!” documentary on Season One, we did not originally address the 16:9 [aspect ratio] controversy. There were people […] writing, “Why isn’t this done in 16:9? They could go back and do it in 16:9!” I was so annoyed at reading that – and CBS was afraid of fan backlash; I was like, “These idiots! You can’t make this show in 16:9! It can’t be done!” So I was like, “No, no, no – we have to do a bit about 16:9.” So I went at got that footage, I asked CBS Digital to pull the shot from “11001001” where the Enterprise is entering Spacedock and going right off the frame, at the edge of the 1.33:1 frame. Wendy and Sarah at CBS Digital make sure we get all the elements we ask for, because obviously the Spacedock interior was done by ILM for 2.35:1 presentation, so I wanted to put that in to graphically illustrate why the VFX of the show simply can’t be done in 16:9 without recomposing almost every shot and thus diminishing the resolution. That was a direct result of what we’d read in terms of feedback on the web.

TrekCore: Season Two has got a backlash, and I think in many ways, it’s unfair. The vast majority of the product… it’s still a miracle in itself that we’ve got it. How do you feel reading the comments people have posted about the second season set, before they even had it in their Blu-ray players?

Robert Meyer Burnett: Well, obviously, Roger and I are VAM producers. We have nothing at all to do with the remastering of the show itself. But it’s frustrating in the sense that, look – when I read those comments, it’s like, “Oh, okay, are you saying that you’d rather watch the show in standard definition?” The fact we have the show in HD – period – ends the discussion for me. Every time CBS sends over a new group of remastered episodes to use in the VAM, I watch them and marvel…thinking to myself, “I can’t BELIEVE I’m seeing this! In the history of television, NO ONE has ever gone back in and rebuilt a show from scratch. When I watch episodes like “Elementary, Dear Data” – and you made the point in your review – that episode looks so good, and the detail looks so amazing…when originally, at 480i, the blacks used to look like grey sludge. You should see the blacks in Season Three’s “The Enemy!”  Now, CBS’s mandate for the show was to rebuild it in HD. That was it. I would argue that what CBS Digital did in Season One was way above and beyond the original mandate. They went all out, and because they’re an effects house – if you want to look at it a certain way, they went way above and beyond their mandate. They didn’t just preserve the effects that were there; it’s not like somebody failed to do something. Both companies [CBS Digital and HTV Illuminate] took the 35mm negatives and recomposited them, just like they were supposed to. That was their job, and they did it. Period.

They did it to the best of their ability. Now, when you have effects companies that are going above and beyond – doing things like putting reflections on the hull from the glow from planets, they didn’t have that before; that wasn’t part of the original show, but now, with computer technology, all of those things can be done. I think the very idea that we have Star Trek at all in HD is amazing. Well, now that we’re spoiled… it’s like the old Louis C.K. routine – somebody finds out for the first time that they can get wireless internet on a transcontinental fight. They’re like, “Oh my god!”, and ten minutes into their flight, the internet fails. And that person’s like, “Can you fuckin’ believe this shit? The internet failed!” You’re on a plane, flying across the ocean, with satellite internet FROM SPACE! The fact that internet exists at all is amazing! You’ve had it for ten minutes and take it for granted, forgetting it’s amazing! It is astonishing that the Star Trek: The Next Generation Blu-rays exist. I think everyone as CBS, starting with Ken Ross, Dave and Ryan and everyone in Home Entertainment, deserves fine bottles of wine from every fan. This is a pioneering effort never before attempted in the history of television. It’s a first…and let me tell you…for this old school Trekker…I’m stoked.

Now, you can say, “Well, if they can do it with this certain amount of quality…” Everybody wants it to be the best it can be; nobody sets out to do work that isn’t great. There are economic and time constraints on these projects. That’s the reality of what we have. In a perfect world, yes, I wish the matte paintings in Star Trek IV were better than they are, but there’s never enough time and money! The visual effects in Star Trek IV are not nearly as good as the effects in Star Trek III, but I’m not going sit there and go, “Fuck that, man! I’m not going to buy Star Trek IV!” No, you buy Star Trek IV, even though the matte paintings waiver and the Cetacean Institute looks phony and I can’t stand the way the matte painting of the H.M.S. Bounty looks when they’re on the surface of Vulcan – but you still get cool shots when the Bounty takes off in the Vulcan sun; you still watch the movie. It does not hamper my enjoyment of the humor and story in Star Trek IV because the effects are not as good as the work ILM did on Star Trek III. I’m not going to go, “Fuck that, I’m not buyin’ it.”


Robert Meyer Burnett with his good friend and VAM producing partner Roger Lay Jr. on the blue screen stage checking out some footage on the monitor.

That’s sort of my feeling; I just love having Star Trek: The Next Generation in HD. Season 2 has some great episodes – I love seeing “Q Who” in HD, I love that new matte painting where there’s Borg walking around, and they added the green sparks to every Borg alcove, and running water or oil or whatever the hell it is running down the middle of that ship. They didn’t have to do that. It certainly wasn’t part of what CBS Home Entertainment expected during the remastering process. But we got it anyway. I also love the new matte painting in “Loud as a Whisper”; even all the ship shots in “Peak Performance”, I love seeing that stuff in HD. I love seeing the paint job on the Ferengi Marauder and all of that. It looks a hell of a lot better than it ever did before.

TrekCore: Absolutely.

Robert Meyer Burnett: And, let’s not forget – the extended “Measure of a Man” got done! I mean…I STILL can’t believe that one. Astonishing. I love those composites outside the Starbase, a la Star Trek: The Motion Picture – I love the way that stuff looks. So, I mean, I think that when people sit there and say, “Oh, I’m not gonna buy it” – that’s your loss. The way we scrutinize things now, it’s insane. God, it’s crazy – I want things to be perfect, too! It’s not like we’re not trying to make things perfect!

I got taken to task about the [starfield] compositing that was done in the “Energized!” documentary. Well, yes, we didn’t get to do the composites like we did for “Stardate Revisited”. We didn’t have a compositor working on it at the time; it is what it is, I would have liked it to have been better – but that doesn’t mean that the “Energized!” documentary doesn’t celebrate the work of CBS Digital, and isn’t worth watching, because it most definitely is. Season Two still has all the great stories, and the great acting, the great production design work of Herman Zimmerman and Richard James, and the music, and all that. We’re so entitled now – “Oh my god, we’re getting high definition Star Trek, but now we’re going to nitpick it to death.” If you had the opportunity of getting Season Two or not getting Season Two [in HD], I would always take the opportunity to get Season Two. It’s still great. And people should know, everyone at CBS is doing everything they can to make the TNG remastering project the very best in can be.

TrekCore: Robert Meyer Burnett, it has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you about Star Trek for three hours! I really appreciate your time.

Robert Meyer Burnett: Thanks, Adam. That was awesome.

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ROBERT MEYER BURNETT wrote and directed FREE ENTERPRISE and produced Warner Premiere and Dark Castle’s THE HILLS RUN RED.

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My huge thanks to Robert Meyer Burnett for such a wonderful, in-depth interview. We’ll be bringing you more from Rob at a future date with a whole raft of talk and exclusive features on his production “Free Enterprise”. Be sure to stay tuned to TrekCore!

Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Blu-Ray today!



Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 Blu-Ray today!




EXCLUSIVE: The Animated Series Blu-Ray Plans Are ‘Afoot’

With the renaissance of high definition remastering currently underway throughout the Star Trek franchise, TrekCore can exclusively reveal that plans are afoot at CBS for a high definition Blu-Ray release of Star Trek: The Animated Series.

Speaking exclusively to TrekCore.com in our extensive 7-part interview on TNG Remastered, Robert Meyer Burnett confirmed that CBS is formulating plans to bring Star Trek‘s oft-forgotten Animated Series to Blu-Ray:

There are plans afoot to bring The Animated Series to Blu-ray

Just to tease even more, Robert mentioned that he’s already started brainstorming ideas for the release (presumably with Trek VAM partner Roger Lay Jr.), and revealed:

I have an idea that would be crazy to pull off, but if we could it would be really interesting

Given the amazing quality of VAM we’ve had so far with The Next Generation and (soon to be released) Enterprise, we’ll be very excited to learn what crazy ideas are on the table!

Star Trek: The Animated Series was released on DVD back in 2006 at which point we believe it was given a fresh HD transfer. This should make porting the show over to Blu-Ray a far simpler prospect for CBS if an HD remaster already exists. The show aired originally between 1973 and 1974 and a total of 22 episodes were broadcast.

What do you think about plans for a Blu-Ray release of The Animated Series? What special features would you like to see? And just what could this ‘crazy idea’ of Rob Burnett’s be? Let us know in the comments below!

UPDATE: Robert has been in touch with TrekCore and asked us to clarify that his comments on an Animated Series Blu-Ray release were just his opinion and assumptions. He has no first hand knowledge that CBS plans to release the series, he just hopes it to be the case one day.

TrekCore will of course keep you up-to-date with all the developments of Star Trek: The Animated Series‘s transition to blu-ray, so make sure you check back regularly for all the latest news!