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Star Trek (OS) Complete Soundtrack – Neil S. Bulk (Producer) Interview

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Star Trek (OS) Complete Soundtrack – Neil S. Bulk (Producer) Interview

Thought by many (including – it turns out – the people who worked on it) as nothing but a pipedream for so many years, the Star Trek: The Original SeriesComplete Soundtrack Collection from La-La Land is hurtling towards us at warp speed for its official release date next week.

Our preview of the set on November 18 drew a huge response so we’ve lined up some special interviews with the talented producers that worked so hard to bring fans this incredible set.

First up is Producer Neil S. Bulk. We caught up with Neil yesterday for an in-depth chat about the boxset. We’ve also got FIVE new exclusive sample tracks from the set chosen by Neil to complement the five we posted last time. Scroll to the bottom of the interview to listen to them!

Neil S. Bulk: Star Trek TOS Soundtrack Interview

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: Great to talk to you, Neil. Tell us a bit about your responsibilities on the Star Trek: The Original Series Complete Soundtrack project. How were you involved?

Neil Bulk: On Star Trek I was the first person after the engineer to actually get the music, to get to hear the transfers. My job was to cut up the correct takes that were used in the television series – make sure we had the right takes and segues for episodes – make sure the takes were in good condition, the speed was correct and there was no damage. In some cases we had to go to another source, maybe to plug in a hole where there was some damage, but overall it was all in beautiful condition.

I passed along all the material to our engineer in Australia – DropBox got a great work out on this project, I was sending about three gigabytes a day! Each episode was about three gigabytes when you factored in all the music recorded, and on this project – like all projects – I recordedreference audio. Usually I use a DVD, I literally just rip the audio and put it into ProTools just as a reference. It makes it easy to ID takes that way. If you hear some stage noise in the music, you can say “Ah, let me listen to that stage noise… yes, that’s the right take.”

You know this as well as anybody – there have been DVDs and Blu-Rays of Star Trek released over the years with remixes done. We weren’t quite sure if the remixes were 100% accurate. We know of instances where a piece of music was dropped or there were new sound effects. That’s not a knock on the products, that’s just what happens. I thought in the case of Star Trek “let’s do this right, let’s go back to the earliest source possible.” So I convinced them to let me get the laser discs from the 80’s for Star Trek. I thought “What’s the earliest highest quality source that we can use… the laserdiscs!” I knew someone who had them, and I knew someone with a laserdisc player. I literally went ahead, got it all, plugged it in to my ProTools and then for every scored episode – around 33 or 34 – I recorded in real time the laserdisc audio strictly as reference. Right there, 34 hours’ worth of work just recording the audio into ProTools. Once that was done, I had a reference for synch, for pitch, for takes and for segues. That all got passed on to the engineer so he could do his fixes.

That was really my big job, making sure everything was right on this. We had a breakdown of what every cue was in terms of composition and then it became my job to cut them, line them up to the show, make sure it matched and pass them on to the engineer  to make sure everything was clear to him. And it was – it worked out very well and we had good communication, his name was Chris Malone and he works in Australia!

TrekCore: Do you remember when you first found out about La-La Land’s plans for theStar Trek TOS music release and how did you react?

Neil Bulk: I was talking to Michael Gerhard from La-La Land and he said “we’re doing Star Trek.” There had been talks of “What’s your dream project?” They would mention Star Trek once in a while, and every time they said it I said “I have to be on that in some capacity!” You know, I know this music pretty well, I’m well versed in my Original Series Trek music. Every once in a while it would come up in a conversation and I just said “If it happens, let me know.”

Fast forward and I was talking to Michael Gerhard one day and he mentioned Star Trek was happening and I couldn’t believe it! Jeff Bond then confirmed it, the only person who didn’t tell me was Lukas Kendall who really spearheaded this project. So, I was having a bad day on another project and Lukas called me saying “Neil, I’ve screwed up and I’ve got an emergency project that needs to be done. Paramount needs the audio assets from some stupid French Western. You have to come immediately and there’s no money in it.” So I said no! I wasn’t driving into Hollywood with LA traffic at that time. So I called a colleague, Mike Matessino who’s done a lot of great Trek work and was going into Hollywood already and he said he’d pick it up for me and take a look. But then I didn’t hear from him and all of a sudden it clicked “Oh, Lukas hasn’t told me about Star Trek yet, that’s what this French western is!” When I finally did get the material, it was a happy ending, there was no French Western, but throughout the project all sorts of stuff that we shared amongst each other was dropped into the “French Western” folder on DropBox so Star Trek did ultimately become a French Western!

TrekCore: What’s your favorite new discovery from this set, Neil? What should fans listen out for?

Neil Bulk: Oh brother! My favorite new discovery is how awesome Gerald Fried’s Season 2 scores are. We heard all sorts of stuff that we’d never heard before. For me, “Catspaw” and “Friday’s Child” on Season 2, Disc 1 – Gerald Fried was the sound of Season 2 for Star Trek. Season 1 was a little more serious and Season 3 was a little dour, but Season 2 was always these fun-filled romp episodes – you know, “Mirror, Mirror” and “Amok Time”. That was my biggest discovery, just admiring this fantastic music, and I listen to it all the time.

Some of the most anticipated music is in the form of original voice recordings such as the famous song “Beyond Antares” sung by Nichelle Nichols in “The Conscience of the King“

TrekCore: The set also features original vocal recordings from Nichelle Nichols and Charles Napier. Tell us about those.

Neil Bulk: What was really cool with Nichelle’s “Beyond Antares” from “The Conscience of the King” is that it was cut down in the episode. We have the full song on the set, on three tracks – harp, voice and a blank channel. We have it all, and when I was lining it up I was shocked!

TrekCore: So that touches on my next question – did you find any surprises that you didn’t expect?

Neil Bulk: The big bombshell was that not only was “City on the Edge of Forever” recorded in Stereo, but Fred Steiner composed music that was never used in Star Trek. Not only have we got the best episode with the best sound, he wrote stuff you’ve never heard! He wrote this whole piece of music where Captain Kirk steals the clothes, but I’m guessing the scene was recut or changed because it doesn’t match properly. There were so many instances where music was dropped from an episode.

TrekCore: In the trailer for the release we see you thumbing through pages full of track names and cue numbers from the original show. Tell us a few of the strangest and funniest names you came across.

Neil Bulk: The most politically incorrect one will not be in our set! We changed the name. There was a cue written for “The Conscience of the King” which was in the blooper reel called “Five Sex and a Half”! It’s when Lenore first beams aboard the Enterprise. And that cue lines up right with the episode. I don’t know why they dropped it, part of the art of film-scoring is knowing when to use and not use music. Lukas [Kendall] can probably tell you more, but those sheets of paper were actually the original cue sheets which were mainly made up for legal purposes. They’re a breakdown of what piece of music is used where by composer and publisher so people get paid correctly. Going through them, we discovered they were riddled with typographical errors. When Sulu freaks out on the Enterprise in “The Naked Time” it was called “Solo Finks Out”! Lukas went through the original manuscripts which CBS had, so when you see the cue titles those are the original composers’ titles.

TrekCore: It’s a miracle those sheets survived all these years!

Neil Bulk: The tapes weren’t even supposed to survive; they were supposed to be destroyed after every year. But thank goodness they weren’t!

Neil had the original manuscripts detailing all the cue titles, composers and publishers for the entire Star Trek back-catalogue at his disposal for the project.

TrekCore: When La-La Land first announced this set, fans went absolutely crazy at the news! As a fan, how long did it take you to calm down after you found out?

Neil Bulk: I think last week! You know – you’re a Star Trek fan – and you have this stuff imprinted on your brain. I always used to think “Wouldn’t it be great if someday somebody released a complete collection of this stuff?” And with the library music! That’s what really puts this set over the top. Star Trek would record previous cues from a previous season to use over again in the new season. The opening of “Mirror, Mirror” is a library cue from “Mudd’s Women”! And so I always wanted to hear the Season 3 version of a Season 1 cue just because I think that’s cool – they didn’t have an electric violin in Season 3 for “The Man Trap” cues, they had a female vocalist.

TrekCore: One of the more popular follow-up questions we’ve had from fans is whether there’s a chance we could see the complete Animated Series music as a companion piece to complement this set. Is there a chance it could happen?

Neil Bulk: It would be nice, and I would love to be a part of it. The story is that that is lost. But, I’ve been doing this type of work for a while and sometimes things that are lost suddenly aren’t lost. I have no knowledge, I know nothing about an Animated Series project happening – but I’d love it, it’s very cool music.

TrekCore: We understand La-La Land are releasing a Deep Space Nine soundtrack collection in January. Are you involved with that set?

Neil Bulk: I think they’re targeting January, but don’t quote me on that. I listened to it, but just for quality control – I wasn’t involved in the project. I’m not a Niner, but I think it’s a “Best Of” compilation. It’s a 4-Disc set, and I think they went through and cherry-picked from all the seasons. I think it’s more based on the Next Generation set that La-La Land put out previously.

TrekCore: Yes! The TNG set was tantalizingly titled “Volume 1”. Was there ever a temptation to release the Original Series set in volumes as well?

Neil Bulk: I think there will be a TNG Volume 2 at some point. For the Original Series, I think the deal precluded ever doing it as season sets. I’m totally convinced by having the complete set – it tends to become anticlimactic with a show like the Original Series. Getting it all in one big collection is sort of sugar overload, but trust me on this – it’s really awesome and you’re going to be really thrilled getting it all at once!

TrekCore: If you can sum up this set for all our readers, what would you say?

Neil Bulk: To me it’s a very happy ending to a wonderful dream. As a fan of Star Trek and film music, I always wanted everything from Star Trek. It was always a pipe dream of this glorious boxset that no-one would ever release! To be a part of it is fantastic, but the best part of it is when other people get it and you start reading the messages. You know, I was at a James Bond screening recently and a friend-of-a-friend who I’d never met before said “You know, I haven’t bought the James Bond blu-ray set yet – I’m saving up for the Star Trek music set!” He had no idea who I was or that I was involved, and then we were introduced. It’s fantastic being able to share it with fans – we all have this common bond of loving this music, and here it is in fantastic quality. It’s a tremendous boxset with tonnes of info in it, we even have quotes from the composers. It’s as thorough a set as anyone could hope for in terms of Star Trek. I don’t like to use the word ‘definitive’, but I don’t see this set being topped for Original Series music! It is the last word on Star Trek Original Series music.

The set is broken down into the three separate seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Each season gets its own special disc casing.

The 15-CD boxset will contain all episode scores as heard in all three original seasons of Star Trek. This special collection has been newly remastered from studio elements and features hours of material previously unreleased in any format. The set is limited to 6,000 units and will be available exclusively from www.lalalandrecords.com at 1pm (PST). The retail price will be $224.98.

To complement our interview with Neil Bulk, TrekCore is able to bring you some more exclusive sample tracks from the release for your listening pleasure! You can stream the tracks directly or save them to your computer by right clicking on the links.

Situation Grave (from “Where No Man Has Gone Before“, Alexander Courage)
The Rock Slide / Beam Up (from “The Enemy Within“, Sol Kaplan)
Ship in Orbit (library cue, Alexander Courage)
Distress Signal (from “Friday’s Child“, Gerald Fried)
Aberrated Captain (from “The Enterprise Incident“, Alexander Courage)

Stay tuned to TrekCore for more exciting news and coverage on the Star Trek: The Original Series Complete Soundtrack Collection. Be sure to guarantee your order by ordering from www.lalalandrecords.com at 1pm (PST) on December 4th 2012.

Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 Blu-Ray

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Review: Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 Blu-Ray

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2
Release Date: December 4, 2012
Blu-Ray Disc • 5 Discs
CBS Home Entertainment

 Buy TNG Season 2 Blu-Rays from Amazon UK Kaufen bei Amazon.de

Many people unfairly group the first two seasons together when they talk about the “uneven start” of Star Trek: The Next Generation. For me, Season 2 has always stood apart from the first season, the show feels different – the actors and the writing are more confident and despite the troubles and politics going on behind-the-scenes in 1988-1989, TNG’s sophomore year manages to bring forward a large number of unique and memorable episodes which still captivate fans 25 years later.

Between seasons, the ship’s main players have been re-shuffled into more familiar postings. Both Geordi and Worf switch to their familiar mustard-colored uniforms, gaining promotions to Chief Engineer and Chief of Security respectively, Troi is out of her Season 1 jean-suit and finally gets to let her hair down (literally) and the crew welcome Diana Muldaur’s Dr. Katherine Pulaski and Whoopi Goldberg’s Guinan on-board. Everything just feels more comfortable for the viewer. Perhaps it’s the reduction in clunky awkward dialogue, or maybe it’s just Frakes’ beard – either way, this is the TNG we all know and love.

CBS once again took on the monumental challenge of remastering the full season into high-definition, returning to the original 35mm negatives of the show and editing the episodes together as they were originally presented back in the late 1980s. After seeing the first season and becoming accustomed to the high-definition image, it’s all too easy to forget what the show looked like in its original standard definition broadcast and DVD release.  In the last few months we’ve published a range of articles describing just what an unimaginably huge undertaking this remastering process represents. The challenge of reassembling the show from the ground up to match the original episodes is by no means easy, yet CBS have somehow managed to locate every second of film from the live-action footage and transfer it to high-definition.

Remastering Star Trek: The Next Generation was always going to be a risky venture. A process as complex as this was never going to be cheap, but coupled with the fact that Star Trek fans are some of the most particular and discerning viewers in the world made it even more important that CBS did the job right and engaged with the fan community.

After it became apparent just how much work (and therefore time) was involved in remastering any one season of the show, CBS took the decision to split the workload between two teams: their in-house visual effects and design studio CBS Digital and an independent post-production house, HTV-Illuminate. As a result, Season 2 was handled by HTV-Illuminate with extra guidance and help from members of the original VFX team who worked on the show, including Mike and Denise Okuda, Doug Drexler, Dan Curry and David Takemura.

So how does Season 2 shape up? Firstly it’s worth mentioning that Season 2 uses a different film-stock to the first season – the image is less glossly, less saturated and more matte and filmic in appearance. I love both looks for different reasons, but I love them even more in high definition. Over the past few days I’ve found myself going back to the DVDs of the show often to remind myself how much of an upgrade this set represents. The HD live-action footage continues to blow my mind in so many ways. Textures in fabrics used for costuming are revealed for the very first time and the detail is simply beautiful. Viewers can finally appreciate the intricate craftsmanship that went into creating the Klingon and Romulan uniforms, Guinan’s hats and everything in between. This is detail that has never been seen before, always lost in the blurry murk of a standard definition transfer, and I never get tired of seeing it.


The intricate detail in the Romulan uniform on Subcommander Taris from ‘Contagion‘ jumps off the screen in HD – the designer’s craftsmanship can finally be appreciated in all its glory.

Particular mentions are due to episodes such as “Elementary, Dear Data”. These are the shows that I feel benefit the most from a high-definition transfer. The details on the sets are breath-taking to see – I almost felt like I was walking through Holmesian London WITH Data and Geordi. I was totally immersed in the episode like never before and found myself staring at the most benign details on those sets which had hitherto been obscured in SD. Another shout out is owed to “A Matter of Honor”. Klingon episodes always suffered the worst in SD on DVD. The dark shadowy sets and stark red lighting were rendered terribly and resulted in blurry messes when the camera would pan across the set. In HD this episode looks unbelievably good – we can see layers of shadow and texture that make the Klingon Bird-of-Prey set feel so three-dimensional and realistic. These episodes are surely a marvel to behold.


The remastered scenes on the Klingon Bird of Prey from ‘A Matter of Honor‘ look amazing in HD – textures and shadows never before seen leap off the screen. Very immersive!

Visual effects elements which were originally created at videotape SD resolution – planets, transporter effects and the like – had to be recreated from scratch by the team at HTV. There has been a lot of debate by fans on the quality of the visual effects from Season 2 and how they compare to those done by CBS Digital for the first season.

CBS Digital set the bar incredibly high with Season 1, going beyond the call of duty in many ways and adding “extra love” to shots. Artists such as Eric Bruno and Max Gabl worked hard to add a sense of realism to shots – creating rich intricate textures for planets whilst respecting the original design ethic and then at the same time making the Enterprise look like it belonged in a scene – reflecting light from the newly rendered planets onto the orbiting Enterprise’s hull. Their work is undeniably stunning.

For Season 2, HTV have taken a different approach to visual effects. In all honesty, I found the second season to be a somewhat mixed bag of hits and misses with these shots. Some work is truly stunning – the new digital matte painting for the Borg Cube interior is a work of art: we are treated to steam rising from vents and Borg drones walking around the cube as the camera pans out. It’s clear an awful lot of time and effort went into that. On the flip side, a lot of work just doesn’t meet the (admittedly high) standards set by CBS Digital in Season 1. Whilst I respect the team’s intention to remain ardently true to the original show, as I made my way through the season I started to question why some planets have been created with blurry textures (almost appearing like they’ve been upscaled from standard definition) which jar so much with the beautiful HD renders worked on by Max Gabl and CBS-Digital for Season 1.

We like…. Iconia from ‘Contagion‘. Beautifully remastered, rich textures, authentic cloud cover. We dislike…. Starbase 6 from ‘The Schizoid Man‘. Blurry and unrealistic, almost looks upscaled from SD.

Additionally, the compositing on display in many of the VFX shots seems exceedingly flat and characterless. I was left with the impression that certain shots were rushed to meet deadlines and that the team could really have benefited from someone like Eric Bruno to deliver that “extra love” which permeated through Season 1. I have no doubt that HTV and the artists involved delivered their best work on the schedule they were given, however I can’t help but wish that CBS had stuck with the decision to remaster the whole show in-house with CBS Digital.

We like… the new Borg Cube interior from ‘Q Who‘. Stunning new digital matte painting, recreated with love and care. A joy to see. We dislike… Enterprise probe launch from ‘Where Silence Has Lease‘. Plastic, flat and unrealistic recreation with no grain.

I should stress that this is by no means a deal-breaker for Season 2. It would be remiss of me not to mention the differences, but at the same time the episodes presented are still jaw-droppingly beautiful in so many ways. The enormous leap in quality from standard to high definition is more than enough to outweigh the different style taken with the visual effects.

Bonus Material
Excitement for the TNG Remastering project is somewhat segmented for me. One half of me craves to see my favorite episodes brought into crisp sharp high-definition, the other half is completely and utterly addicted to the outstanding work of filmmakers extraordinaire Robert Meyer Burnett and Roger Lay Jr. Robert and Roger have once again worked their asses off to bring us some of the best bonus content we could wish for.

A couple of months ago I was trailing Star Trek: The Next Generation – Season 2 as having the best bonus content of any Star Trek home video release. Period. I continue to stand by that assessment. TNG is 25 years old, and when a show has been off the air for so long the process of putting together interesting, fresh content for bonus features becomes increasingly difficult and more challenging.

“Making it So: Continuing the Next Generation” picks up where “Stardate Revisited” left off in Season 1. The documentary is split up into two parts, “Strange New Worlds” and “New Life and New Civilizations”.

    • “Strange New Worlds” dives straight into the Season 1 wrap party and ties up all the loose ends from the first year of production. Expect more candid opinions from the cast and crew of Next Gen including Rick Berman acknowledging the animosity he engendered from some fans and a reflective Michael Dorn confessing he considered quitting the show early on. Burnett & Lay have brought us some great interviews this season with a variety of people we don’t often hear from. It’s a pleasure to listen to Rob Bowman’s story of his first experience directing “Elementary, Dear Data” and Melinda Snodgrass recounting how her script for “The Measure of a Man” was accepted. Especially noteworthy is the touching montage at the end voiced over by Diana Muldaur and Rick Berman… I won’t spoil it, but I challenge anybody not to be moved by the words.


The new interview with Diana Muldaur almost didn’t happen, but it’s a testament to the dogged determination of all involved that we’re able to hear Diana’s views – and she’s a total joy to listen to!

    • “New Life and New Civilizations” covers a lot of the major changes in the second season. Diana Muldaur and John de Lancie are both heavily featured here and it’s a joy to hear about their Next Gen experiences. We also get to hear Gates McFadden discussing her controversial exit from the show which, in the words of Patrick Stewart “horrified and appalled” the cast. Whilst the team weren’t able to interview Whoopi this season (I understand a new interview will be included in a later season), there are archival interviews and cast reactions about the introduction of Guinan. This segment also features a wonderful collection of early test footage from “Time Squared”, “Q Who” and Nagilum from “Where Silence Has Lease” alongside rare new interviews with Dennis Madalone (stunt coordinator) and Cosmo Genevese (script supervisor).


A rare glimpse at the original huge matte painting created by Syd Dutton for ‘Q Who‘. The painting had to be replaced for the remastering due to the visibility of brushstrokes so it’s a treat to see the original in all it’s glory.

“Reunification: 25 Years After Star Trek: The Next Generation”: One of the jewels in the crown of these bonus features has to be the must-see cast reunion which brings together the entire principal cast for an emotional roundtable chat moderated by Robert Meyer Burnett and coinciding with the show’s 25th Anniversary. Burnett avoids going into sudden fanboy meltdown (somehow) and presides over one of the most touching genuine displays of true camaraderie and friendship I’ve ever seen from Star Trek actors. The humor and interplay between them all is such a joy to watch. There are too many little nuggets to mention here… everyone poking fun at Patrick’s “25 years at the RSC”, Michael Dorn’s hilarious Patrick Stewart impression, the line about Dorn not being allowed on set because of his work on CHIPS… the list goes on. I can’t praise the material here enough – I could watch it over and over again without getting bored! It’s great how the actors still remember scenes they filmed right back in the pilot, and the stories about director Corey Allen are so much fun to watch.


Robert Meyer Burnett hosts the historic cast reunion with all the principal TNG actors (from left: Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Michael Dorn, Patrick Stewart, Gates McFadden, LeVar Burton, Marina Sirtis, Jonathan Frakes and host Robert Meyer Burnett.)

“The Measure of a Man” Extended Edition: CBS painstakingly restored almost 15 minutes of extra footage from one of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s finest episodes. The extended ‘Measure of a Man’ is a complete tour-de-force in every way. I won’t spoil the new scenes here, needless to say they add a lot of heart to the episode (one scene in particular) and remind me why I miss this show so much – because of the characters. We’ll be reviewing the extended cut separately after the blu-ray release date.


The extended edition of ‘The Measure of a Man‘ features a number of very touching character moments. I don’t want to spoil them, but this scene was especially well done!

“Energized! Season Two Tech Update”:  The shortened 8-minute segment focuses more on the artistic direction the crew took filming the show rather than remastering it. Mike & Denise Okuda and Dan Curry are the sole interviewees here, so don’t expect a behind-the-scenes look at HTV’s remastering on the same scale that we had with CBS Digital in Season 1.

“Reading Rainbow”: Also on the first disc is LeVar Burton’s original Reading Rainbow episode featuring a behind-the-scenes look at production in TNG’s first season. The episode has been doing the rounds on YouTube for years, but it’s nice to see it in a more complete form with better image quality and a fresh introduction from LeVar himself.

“Gag Reel”: I’m still in awe of the fact that CBS managed to find original 35mm outtakes and bloopers from a show that’s 25 years old now. The finished cut is a hilarious compilation of some of the best bloopers I’ve seen. Michael Dorn’s “Oh Jesus” will go down in history and needs to go viral as a soundbite. I won’t spoil the end, but it is emotionally charged and incredibly poignant. All in all… a magnificent collection.


The new HD gag reel is a wonderful inclusion on the set. Not only did it have me in stitches (you can watch it over and over without tiring), but there are some wonderful touching moments where the actors’ deep friendship really comes across.

Audio Commentaries: The set contains two new audio commentaries on arguably the most popular episodes from Season 2 – “The Measure of a Man” and “Q Who”. Both commentaries give technical insights into the production of the episodes, although the “Q Who” commentary covers a lot of the same ground laid in the “Making it So” documentary and seems to be a bit tooorganized – I feel that more spontaneous comments and observations would have worked better.

Deleted Scenes: Almost 10 minutes of deleted scenes from “The Icarus Factor” and “Up the Long Ladder” are featured. The scenes are in rough cut VHS resolution which makes me wonder – if CBS were able to locate the original 35mm elements from the “Measure of a Man” deleted scenes to rebuild the episode, wasn’t it possible to do the same for “Icarus” and “Ladder”? Perhaps they tried and couldn’t find them – we don’t know, either way it’s still a treat to have these presented here in any format!

Yet again I have to laud the efforts of Burnett and Lay for the production of the bonus content, there isn’t a doubt in my mind that they are the perfect uber-fans for this job. They’ve both really upped their game for Season 2 and it shows. The content has become more polished and professional as they’ve settled into a unique style of presentation which fits so well with this project. I know they’re working on content for Season 3 as I type, and I’m left with no doubts that it’s going to continue with the same level of excellence on display here. Bravo!

So what’s the bottom line? All things considered, Season 2 of TNG on blu-ray is still another must-buy for all fans. Whilst the issues with the VFX does take the polish off the end-product in some ways, the lion’s share of the restoration looks simply glorious in HD and the bonus features speak for themselves in sheer epicness!

– Adam Walker, November 26 2012
Order Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 1 Blu-Ray today!



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

Exclusive: Mike & Denise Okuda talk Season 2 – Interview, Part 2

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Exclusive: Mike & Denise Okuda talk Season 2 – Interview, Part 2

To mark the second season release of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-Ray in just over a week, I spoke with the consultants on the TNG: Remastered Project, Mike & Denise Okuda. We talked about the different challenges of Season 2 and how the remastering team at HTV with the help of Dan Curry have brought the show into high-definition.

Mike & Denise Okuda

Mike & Denise Okuda: Season 2 TNG-R Interview, Part 2

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: One of the more infamous shots from the second season is the quite cheesy morphing sequence that we see in ‘The Dauphin’. Were you able to recreate that shot to make it more convincing?

Mike Okuda: The morphing shots in ‘The Dauphin’ were – back in the day – an absolutely brilliant use of amazingly lo-tech techniques to create this very complex visual effect. Again, the original elements were done at video resolution so they could not be directly upscaled. In this particular case, it was entirely redone with present day visual effects technology, so it’s a little bit different – I personally think it’s more convincing, but we’ll leave that up to you. Once again we had Dan there who has a shelf full of Emmy’s…

Denise Okuda: We relied on his expertise to try to get it as perfect as we possibly could.

TrekCore: One of the last shots I want to talk about in Season 2 is that of Nagilum. Looking back at the standard definition it’s still a wonderful sequence – a combination of live action footage and the computer generated elements. Was it possible to recreate the effect faithfully for the remastering?

Mike Okuda: Most of the original elements still exist on film, so I think they did a great job of capturing the original murky creepiness but again – we’ll be interested to know what you think!


Nagilum from ‘Where Silence Has Lease‘ was faithfully recreated in high-definition to capture the original ‘murky creepiness’

TrekCore: Thankfully both of you were able to contribute to some fantastic audio commentaries in Season 2. How does this experience differ from the famous text commentaries you’ve done for DVD in the past and how much research goes into one of these audio commentaries?

Denise Okuda: Anytime we do any kind of commentary, whether it’s text or audio, we do our homework. We basically watch the episode and go over things. The really fun thing with these audio commentaries is that we got to sit down with Melinda Snodgrass who was the writer of ‘The Measure of a Man’ and Rob Bowman who was the director of ‘Q Who’.

Mike Okuda: He was busy shooting Castle and he took a morning off to join us.

Denise Okuda: He actually gave us his time, he came down and did the audio commentary. We really appreciated it, and we’re big fans of Castle so we enjoyed talking about that too!

TrekCore: Denise, last time we spoke you described doing the extended edition of ‘The Measure of a Man’ as pretty much a crap-shoot, you didn’t know whether it would work out or not. How much of a journey has this been for both of you?

Denise Okuda: It’s been an amazing journey! We really didn’t know if it was going to happen or not. There was so much work that went into it, we still almost can’t believe it happened.

Mike Okuda: It’s not uncommon for a finished episode to have a scene or two – or a few lines – trimmed. But it’s very unusual to have that much material trimmed from an episode. Then, to luck out in such an extraordinary way – to have an accurate reference of the original version… Melinda held on to that VHS tape for 25 years and she was so kind to loan it back to us. Then CBS and HTV went through and examined all the fresh material and discovered all of the original elements still existed. When CBS found out about it, they looked at the extended episode and said “Wow, there’s some good stuff here, this really adds to the episode.” They were thrilled to jump through the hoops to make this happen.

Denise Okuda: One of the things that I particularly love about Star Trek in general but Star Trek: The Next Generation in particular is the character interaction. I’m not going to spoil it, but there’s a scene between two characters that is new – that nobody has seen – that I very much enjoy, and I can’t wait for everyone to see it as well!

TrekCore: On the Blu-Rays it’s described that there’s going to be a “Hybrid Extended Cut” as well as the high-definition extended episode. What is this, and what does it mean?

Mike Okuda: The hybrid extended cut is basically the remastered episode but with the new visual material inserted in its original form. You get a sense of the shots without visual effects, you get a sense of what the editors saw back in the day.


Season 2 on Blu-Ray contains an unprecedented extended edition of ‘The Measure of a Man’ with many new scenes, including this one of Riker interrupting one of Picard’s fencing sessions.

TrekCore: ‘The Icarus Factor’ and ‘Up the Long Ladder’ also have fresh deleted scenes included. Could you tell us a bit about those?

Mike Okuda: In both of those cases there were small amounts of additional material. It’s fun stuff but it’s not so much as to warrant creating a new episode out of it. For those of us who have loved the show for so many years, just to spend a few extra moments with those characters is something very special.

TrekCore: Speaking of that, we discovered that CBS found an absolute goldmine of outtakes and bloopers from the show that haven’t been seen for 25 years. How did you feel when you discovered these elements had been found?

Denise Okuda: Well we obviously were really excited. It’s a lot of work to go through and find these things. I think we’ve said this before – Mike and I, when we’re working on this and being fans of the show, we get really excited about some of the things that come forward – the bloopers, the missing footage et cetera, and of course the quality of the HD episodes. We feel like we’re sitting on Christmas or something like that and we just can’t wait for Star Trek fans around the world to see what we’ve seen. So as far as we’re concerned the release of the second season can’t come fast enough!

TrekCore: I think it probably will be the Christmas present for a lot of fans! Season 3 is already well underway with CBS Digital – which episodes are you most looking forward to seeing, which shots and which scenes?

Denise Okuda: Season 3 is awesome. ‘Yesterday’s Enterprise’, ‘The Best of Both Worlds’, ‘Sins of the Father’…

Mike Okuda: ‘The Offspring’…

Denise Okuda: Yes, ‘The Offspring’, one of my favorites.

TrekCore: We can’t wait to see it! The trailer for Season 3 looks fantastic. Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about from Season 2?

Mike Okuda: I’d just like to add that the people working on this season are all exceptional, talented individuals and we were thrilled to have them. David Takemura started his career on Star Trek: The Next Generation and he worked his way up as a visual effects assistant, he became a coordinator and a supervisor in his own right. He had and has this encyclopaedic knowledge of the material of the show. He was very instrumental in helping to recreate these shots. Having someone like Dan Curry there who actually remembers, “Oh yes, we did this with a pom-pom” or “We did this with liquid nitrogen” or “We did this with the paint box” gave us an enormous leg up on a lot of these things. It’s hard to say too many good things about the professional visual effects artists who we worked with there. They were simply part of the team. A lot of them love Star Trek and I think it shows in their work.

Denise Okuda: We also know – of course – Doug Drexler, who is a co-worker of ours. He was on the second season as well. Of course he was an Academy Award winning makeup artist who then went into graphics and worked with us on different Star Trek incarnations. He’s currently in visual effects and he worked on Battlestar Galactica and continues to work in visual effects with Gary Hutzel. Of course we want to give a shout out to him as well.


Mike & Denise Okuda were thrilled to have three of the original creative team on board for Season 2 (Left to Right: David ‘D-Tak’ Takemura, Dan Curry and Doug Drexler).

TrekCore: I still find it amazing that you were able to get the original team back together after 25 years. It’s such a rare opportunity.

Mike Okuda: Well again, that was our friends at HTV. Those three happened to be available at that time, and when they mentioned to us we said “Cool!”

Denise Okuda: We were very, very excited. It was a lot of fun!

TrekCore: Do you know if they’re going to be coming back to help with future seasons?

Denise Okuda: We really don’t know. If they came back, we would be thrilled again. Both the artists and the folks at CBS Digital and HTV, we have a great working relationship. We enjoy the enthusiasm. Mike and I feel so fortunate to be on this project and part of the team.

Mike Okuda: If we were fortunate enough to work with them again, we’d be thrilled.

TrekCore: Mike and Denise, it’s been great talking to you again. Thanks for all your continued hard work, and we look forward to Season 2!

Mike Okuda: Thanks Adam and thanks for all your coverage and we hope everyone enjoys Season 2.

Go to Part: 1 2

With just over a week to go until release… be sure to pre-order Season 2 below so you get it on release date in your country. All Amazon stores have significantly discounted the title – at the time of writing it’s under $65 in the U.S., £47.00 in the U.K. and under 57,00EUR in Germany!

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



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

Exclusive: Mike & Denise Okuda talk Season 2 – Interview, Part 1

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Exclusive: Mike & Denise Okuda talk Season 2 – Interview, Part 1

To mark the second season release of Star Trek: The Next Generation on Blu-Ray in just over a week, I spoke with the consultants on the TNG: Remastered Project, Mike & Denise Okuda. We talked about the different challenges of Season 2 and how the remastering team at HTV with the help of Dan Curry have brought the show into high-definition.

Mike & Denise Okuda

Mike & Denise Okuda: Season 2 TNG-R Interview, Part 1

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: Does the different film stock that was used for Season 2 change the look on Blu-Ray? Season 1 was very glossy and vibrant, Season 2 seems more matte and dramatic, almost filmic.

Denise Okuda: Star Trek: The Next Generation, as in many incarnations of Star Trek had almost from episode-to-episode a different look. You would have different directors and cinematographers who would try things. There may be a little bit of a different look, but there are different looks within seasons as well.

Mike Okuda: Occasionally the Director of Photography would experiment with a different film stock. Sometimes they would change the film development process – that is – shooting it at a film speed so you have more light sensitivity which gives you a different contrast ratio. Those kind of things happened all the time.

TrekCore: Both of you had the pleasure of having a TNG Staff Reunion with Season 2 as Dan Curry, Doug Drexler and David Takemura came on board. You must have had a real sense of nostalgia…

Denise Okuda: Well it was a lot of fun. We were so thrilled to have Doug, David and especially Dan Curry with us for Season 2. It was a reunion. We all worked on Star Trek, and as with any organization where you work together for a long time – you almost have a shorthand, you almost read each other’s mind. That gave us a great deal of artistic comfort and also a great deal of fun. To have Dan Curry there who was Visual Effects back in the day was really a hoot. We felt so honored to have him with us.

TrekCore: Quite often there was a different style with Dan Curry’s episodes and Rob Legato’s episodes as they alternated episode-to-episode. Did that affect the look of the second season as a whole?

Mike Okuda: One of our missions was to try – as much as possible – to respect the original creative choices by the original Visual Effects Supervisors. One thing that Dan did, he had a slightly different – in some episodes, not all – style for his transporter, a subtle difference. He told us what the style was and he actually preserved the differences, so in shows that were originally supervised by Rob Legato he preserved it the way Rob wanted it. If it was one of his episodes, he did it the way he wanted it back in the day. We were trying as much as possible to respect what the original artists wanted to do, so that you get a sense that you’re watching the original show. It’s just brighter and clearer and sharper.

Denise Okuda: That really is the mantra for this project. We are trying – as much as we can – to respect the original artists and have that come forward in the remastering process.

TrekCore: Was the approach HTV took in creating the planets for Season 2 different to Max Gabl’s approach in Season 1?

Mike Okuda: The approach for the planets in Season 2 was fundamentally the same as Season 1 which was – where HD elements existed, we generally use those elements. Where they didn’t hold up, we asked them to experiment with different looks, different ways to try to recreate the original experience. That said, our request to all the people involved in creating the planets was to try to create a diversity of planets. Star Trek is all about going to strange new worlds and different places, so we very much wanted them to experiment with different looks. We did that back when we remastered the Original Series, and that’s how Max [Gabl] ended up with his style at CBS Digital, simply by experimenting over a number of episodes.

Denise Okuda: But also remember that we had Dan Curry! He would put forth his opinion of his artistic view on the planets and many other things. That also was a great deal of fun, to have a guy who has worked on the original help us with the decision making and keep an eye on the remastering.


Season 2’s planets are a departure from the style we saw Max Gabl use in Season 1. Mike Okuda mentions that their aim is still to recreate the original viewing experience.

TrekCore: With having a second team involved for the second season, was it very difficult for you both to ensure there was consistency between the CBS Digital look and the Dan Curry and HTV look for Season 2?

Mike Okuda: We didn’t really see it as being a separate team. We saw it more that the HTV group was joining the team. We were all one team and Denise and I were the common element. We were overseeing everything. The main thing is that all of the effects artists at HTV and CBS Digital – they’re all consummate pros. These are people with an awful lot of experience. That’s the main thing – we had top-notch people.

TrekCore: Looking at the second season as a whole, do you have a favorite shot or favorite episode from that season that you were desperate to see in high definition?

Denise Okuda: I think that – Mike and I both agreed – that ‘Q Who’ was an episode that we looked forward to and were very excited. We are really, really thrilled with the results of remastering that episode.

TrekCore: I was blown away when I saw the new digital matte painting done for the Borg Cube interior with all the steam coming from the vents – it looks fantastic. Was the old matte painting lost? How did it come about that it was replaced by a digital painting?

Mike Okuda: A lot of the original matte paintings – not all of them, but a lot – were done by the legendary visual effects company Illusion Arts by the great Syd Dutton and Bill Taylor. A lot of those were done old-school style, that is – composited in-camera from the matte painting – and in many cases those original film elements still existed, and that was the case here. Usually when we have something like that, we will simply clean up the shot a little bit and use it. However in this particular case, because there was that very dramatic pull back, at the beginning of the shot, they were quite close to the painting and as a result you could see some of the brush strokes. Now this was not at all a problem in standard definition – even though the brush strokes were there, you didn’t really notice them. Now suddenly in high definition, it became an issue. Dan [Curry] suggested – and CBS concurred – that this was a case where it was appropriate to try to recreate the sense of the original but make it look better in high definition.

Denise Okuda: And this is a point where we really want to give a shout out to CBS – Ken Ross, David Grant and Ryan Adams. They’ve been extraordinary in the support for this project. We’ve worked on Star Trek a long time and many different projects before, but we continue to be amazed at the support that this project has received. This matte painting, and the extra love that was given to it, is a prime example of how the folks at CBS really want this to be the best it can possibly be, even when we’re running at warp speed to a deadline, they will support us and give us the OK to do wonderful things like that Borg matte painting.


The iconic matte painting of the interior of the Borg Cube from ‘Q Who’ was digitally recreated for the Blu-Rays (exclusive preview shot shown)

TrekCore: In the painting itself, it’s interesting that it has been designed to almost take on a look of future Borg Cubes with more of a greenish-tinge, whereas ‘Q Who’ had a somewhat unique look before. Was that a conscious decision to bring it in line with future episodes?

Mike Okuda: It wasn’t so much to bring it [in line] with future episodes, it was simply that adding that green flicker – to our eyes – brought it to life a little more.

TrekCore: Let’s talk a bit about the other matte paintings we see in Season 2. They’re spread throughout the season – did you have to recreate any others, or are they the same as we see them in standard definition?

Mike Okuda: For the most part when they existed on film in high definition, we generally kept them on film in high definition, albeit with a little bit of clean-up. The Gagarin station in ‘Unnatural Selection’ was another Syd Dutton painting – I think it was Syd – and it got a little bit of clean-up, a little bit of work on the sparkles in the water, a little bit of work on the shuttle – but other than that, it’s the original painting. On the other hand, not all the matte paintings were shot on film. Some of them were actually created in Paintbox at standard video definition, so if you blow them up they really don’t look very good. One such example is ‘Loud as a Whisper’. Fortunately, we literally had the original artist there. That was a painting that Dan [Curry] did back in the day, so it was great to have him there.

Go to Part: 1 2

With just over a week to go until release… be sure to pre-order Season 2 below so you get it on release date in your country. All Amazon stores have significantly discounted the title – at the time of writing it’s under $65 in the U.S., £47.00 in the U.K. and under 57,00EUR in Germany!

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



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

Analysis: TNGS2 Blu-Ray ‘The Icarus Factor’ Deleted Scene

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Analysis: TNGS2 Blu-Ray ‘The Icarus Factor’ Deleted Scene

With all of the talk of deleted scenes being focused on the stunningly remastered and expanded ‘The Measure of a Man‘ (and rightly so – it’s a tour de force in every way), you could be forgiven for forgetting that CBS have also included deleted scenes from two other episodes on the 2nd Season Blu-Ray set of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Today we take a look at one of those scenes, breaking it down for you and giving our analysis.

TNG Episode 140 ‘The Icarus Factor‘

Act 2, Scene A21 (1:10)
This scene takes place in a corridor on Deck 10, right after Riker’s standoff with his father in the Observation lounge, and right before Data and Geordi try to get Worf to open up about his problems in Ten Forward.

CORRIDOR – DATA AND GEORDI ARE APPROACHING TEN-FORWARD

GEORDI
I don’t think Worf is going to appreciate being observed like some laboratory specimen.

DATA
Correct. He is quite sensitive… particularly at this stage of his development.

GEORDI
Just remember, this is Wesley’s operation, okay?

DATA
Wesley is quite competent.

Just as they approach Ten-Forward, Wesley steps up,
agitated.

WESLEY
You guys aren’t going to believe this…

GEORDI
Believe what?

WESLEY
Commander Riker just caught me coming out of the turbolift.

GEORDI
So? This area of the ship isn’t off limits to you.

WESLEY
I know, but I’ve been working on Paracelsian calculation as part of my studies; Commander Riker wants them right away.

GEORDI
What about Worf?

WESLEY
When Commander Riker says right away, he means RIGHT AWAY.

DATA
(to Wesley)
Indeed.

(to Geordi)
Indeed.

WESLEY
You guys can cover for me, right?

GEORDI
No, see, you were supposed to —

WESLEY
Geordi, I’ve got to get my calculations done.

GEORDI
I understand that, Wesley, but this was supposed to be your —

WESLEY
(A smile spreads across his face)
This is what friends are for, right?
(to Data)
Right, Data?

Data reacts, very much put on the spot; then:

DATA
(to Wesley)
Go ahead. Finish your work!
(to Geordi)
We will study Worf.

WESLEY
Thanks – I knew I could count on you guys!

With that, Wesley heads off down the corridor, leaving a stunned Geordi to chase after Data.

Our take: Data and Geordi refer to this conversation in the final version of the episode, as they build up the nerve to talk to Worf:

GEORDI
Wesley really should be doing this on his own.

DATA
But he needs his study time.

GEORDI
I can’t believe you fell for that.

While it’s fun to see Data fall for Wesley’s excuse to get out of dealing with Worf, we can understand why it was cut from the episode. It makes Wesley look like a jerk for so blatantly taking advantage of Data’s naiveté, and it leaves Geordi looking like a wimp for completely undercutting his previous order for the teenager to lead the way in handling Worf (and for letting Wesley get away with it wearing such a smug grin on his face).

The brief reference to the conversation in Ten Forward works better on its own, leaving all the characters looking better than what’s shown here.

In addition to this deleted scene and the one from ‘Up the Long Ladder‘, Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 on Blu-Ray includes a brand new hour-long roundtable discussion with the principal cast, the continuation of Robert Meyer Burnett and Roger Lay Jr.’s epic documentary chronicling the history of TNG with Making It So: Continuing The Next Generation. Also included are the much-talked about extended edition of “The Measure of a Man”, a brand new gag-reel and other extras including LeVar Burton’s original TNG-based “Reading Rainbow” episode!

With just two weeks to go and Black Friday fast approaching… be sure to pre-order Season 2 below so you get it on release date in your country. All Amazon stores have significantly discounted the title – at the time of writing it’s under $65 in the U.S., £47.00 in the U.K. and under 57,00EUR in Germany!

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



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

Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years – David Goodman Interview Part II

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David Goodman’s historical Trek masterpiece Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is set to hit shelves in under three weeks. The book is packed full of information chronicling the pivotal era leading up to Humankind’s First Contact with Vulcan in 2063, the Romulan War in 2156, the creation of the Federation in 2161, and the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311.

To celebrate the launch, we spoke with the author himself, David Goodman in an exclusive in-depth interview. Part 1 of the interview was published earlier this week, and now we present the second and final part.

 

 

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: The book is teasingly subtitled “The First 150 Years”. Why was the decision made to stop after 150 and does it leave the door open for a follow-up book?

David Goodman: Well I assume it leaves the door open for a follow-up book, but only if people buy it! I think that the feeling was… the 150 years came out of wanting to end the book with the last Original Series movie. That is the last movie with the Original Series cast which was The Undiscovered Country, I mean Generations still had guests – but for most fans it was The Undiscovered Country. So, working backwards it was more than 100 years but less than 150, so we pushed it to 150 so it would make it sort of logical. The book itself actually covers 250 years of history because we start before the Federation is founded… a good 100 years before the Federation, so we probably should have settled with “The First 250 Years”, but it’s not… I mean, the Federation is only 150 years old in the book.

TrekCore: It’s a challenge summarizing that!

David Goodman: Yes! Laughs

TrekCore: The book itself has a really unique design with the pedestal. Was that always the intention with the publishers?

David Goodman: Yes, absolutely. From the beginning they wanted a real gift book. They wanted [it] to really feel like something that was “in world”, like something you would feel was futuristic. The pedestal was not my idea, but I love the idea of it. We had thought of using a computer voice for the message, but my idea was ‘why don’t we get George Takei’. If he’s available to come in and record his voice, he’ll be Admiral Sulu because he’d probably still be alive at the 150th anniversary. Canon establishes him as having been an Admiral from a Voyager episode [‘Flashback‘]. It seemed like that created a lot of fun for the whole experience of the book. It’s like something that fans can really have on their table – it’s on my table, I love it!

TrekCore: Fans also know you from your work on Enterprise. With 10 years of hindsight now – it’s gone so fast – have your opinions on the show changed?

David Goodman: That’s interesting. Yeah, I’ve grown fonder of it as time’s gone on. I look back at some of those shows, and there’s still no show like it on television any more. There’s no Star Trek on TV anymore… hardly any spaceships on TV, it feels like sci-fi leaks into other genres now, but we don’t get to do future-TV anymore, which makes me sad because I love anything that takes place on a spaceship! I look back, and I re-watched a lot of episodes before I wrote the book and it’s such a great cast. The pilot is the best pilot of any of the sequel series and it had incredible scope. It makes me wistful that it’s not still on, that it didn’t go 7 years. I think that part of the problem with Enterprise and the conception with it is that by doing a prequel series you’re sort of trapped as a writer between wanting to tell original stories, but also wanting to explore the canon. You wanted to show how the Federation came about – and we did some fun episodes about that – but I wonder whether that limited our audience. Those are sort of the things. But in general I look back on the show and it was one of the best experiences I had in my career and I loved being a part of it.

TrekCore: What was the writing environment like? Did you feel like you were overly constrained by the network or producers to stay within the ‘Star Trek formula’ when you were story writing?

David Goodman: The Star Trek formula had been… I don’t know about the network, but Rick [Berman] and Brannon [Braga] had been doing Star Trek very successfully for a long time and Enterprise was definitely in that kind of genre: the genre that they essentially helped create. I don’t know if I would say I was restricted or constrained by that, I would say that I wanted to… you know every TV show has its own formula and rules, and that’s your job as a TV writer when you’re hired on the show – to write good stuff within those rules. I can speak very highly of my colleagues who showed that there were no constrictions. If you look at Manny [Coto]’s ‘Similitude’ episode or Mike [Sussman]’s ‘Twilight’ episode, there were – throughout – great episodes done within this world. I don’t see it as constraints, I see it as ‘you need rules, how do you make it good within those rules?’

TrekCore: Looking at your own list of Enterprise writing credits, you went from writing one of the least liked episodes in Season 2 with ‘Precious Cargo’ to one of the best received episodes in Season 3 with ‘The Forgotten’. How does writing each episode compare to you? Did you know when you’d made a good episode?

David Goodman: I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve written one of the most hated episodes of Star Trek ever (laughs). I know that I’m not given credit for writing one of the best ones, but definitely for writing one of the worst. The fact that I still get to be involved in Star Trek probably really annoys people. With ‘Precious Cargo’ I was new to the staff, I didn’t fully understand the rules and I definitely didn’t – a lot of my problems with that episode were my fault, in terms of how I approached writing it. You learn as you go. I still say the piece of crap that I wrote was not the piece of crap that aired. (Laughs) I don’t take full responsibility for the episode, but I definitely had a lot to learn… even up to that point I had not written for one-hour television which was definitely very different from writing for half-hour. I had a big learning curve, and I learnt a lot.

My next episode was ‘Judgment’ which I am very proud of. A lot of people had problems with that episode, but in general I’m very proud of it. My next episode after that was ‘North Star’ which has its fans and its detractors, but it was fun to get to write the one cowboy-planet episode of the sequel series. And then going to ‘The Forgotten’ which I wrote with Chris Black – so I have to absolutely give him credit as it was a real collaboration. We split up the script and we helped each other and Chris was one of the best writers for Enterprise, if not the best writer. Writing that script with him elevated that episode for me. I worked on a lot of my episodes with other people, but that was a true one-on-one collaboration with a very gifted writer who was also very confident and understanding of what the rules were for writing for Star Trek Enterprise.

TrekCore: IMDB also lists you as serving as a ‘consulting producer’ on Enterprise to the end of the third season. What did that role entail?

David Goodman: Well, producer titles in television are often – but not always – a title for a writer. A producer can be somebody who, aside from being a writer, is somebody who’s casting the show and working with set designers and special effects teams. On my episodes I did that. I worked with the director, gave casting suggestions. In the episode ‘Judgment’ my friend Dan Riordan played the Klingon Duras and I worked with him a couple of times before – he played this character Captain Zoom in a TV movie I wrote back in the nineties. So you play that role of being an advisor and working with other people in production to help realize the script in a way that you want it to be realized. You’re also working with other writers on their episodes, you’re helping them break their stories. I had a hand in a lot of other Enterprise episodes while I was there, helping other writers figure out their stories, figure out what the scenes were – those kinds of things with notes on scripts.

TrekCore: A lot of your Enterprise episodes are dripping with references to TNG. Did those come from the producers wanting to link Enterprise to previous shows or were they your own ideas?

David Goodman: Well ‘Precious Cargo’ – that was their idea. They included those references to TNG ‘The Perfect Mate’. ‘Judgment’ was all me, I shoved as many TNG Klingon references as I could into there, and most of them stayed in so I was very happy about that. I like linking it in. It was fun for me to write this episode that was an attempt to explain… the Klingons in the Original Series are very different to the Klingons in the Next Generation, and I was sort of saying that the Klingons themselves were undergoing a kind of crisis as a culture that would lead to the Original Series Klingons but that the basis for the Next Generation Klingons would be under the surface. And I explore that in Federation too!

TrekCore: Thanks for your time, David – it’s been great to talk to you. I wish you all the best of luck with ‘Federation’, it’s a wonderful book and I think fans are going to love every page of it.

David Goodman: Thanks, Adam. It was great talking to you too.

Go to Part: 1 2

Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is published by 47NORTH and produced by becker&mayer. It is officially licensed by CBS Consumer Products. The book will go on sale: December 4, 2012.

Order Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years

Season 2 Cast Roundtable Discussion – Preview Video

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Season 2 Cast Roundtable Discussion – Preview Video

Undoubtedly one of the big highlights on the upcoming release of Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s second season on Blu-Ray is the unprecedented cast-reunion roundtable discussion chaired by Robert Meyer Burnett. The discussion is over one hour in length and brings together the entire principal cast of TNG: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis and Wil Wheaton.

The official site today posted a brief 1-minute clip from the discussion where the actors discuss the remastering project and their reactions to seeing TNG on blu-ray.

In addition to the roundtable discussion, the Blu-Ray set features the continuation of Burnett and Roger Lay Jr.’s epic documentary chronicling the history of TNG with Making It So: Continuing The Next Generation. Also included are the much-talked about extended edition of “The Measure of a Man”, a whole range of new deleted scenes, gag-reels and other extras including LeVar Burton’s original TNG-based “Reading Rainbow” episode!

With just two weeks to go and Black Friday fast approaching… be sure to pre-order Season 2 below so you get it on release date in your country. All Amazon stores have significantly discounted the title – at the time of writing it’s under $65 in the U.S., £47.00 in the U.K. and under 57,00EUR in Germany!

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



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

Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years – David Goodman Interview Part I

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David Goodman’s historical Trek masterpiece Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is set to hit shelves in under three weeks. The book is packed full of information chronicling the pivotal era leading up to Humankind’s First Contact with Vulcan in 2063, the Romulan War in 2156, the creation of the Federation in 2161, and the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311.

To celebrate the launch, we spoke with the author himself, David Goodman in an exclusive in-depth interview! Part 1 of the interview is shown below:

 

 

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: What were your thoughts when David Rossi first mentioned the Star Trek Federation project to you?

David Goodman: Well my thought was ‘Why are they calling me?!’. I mean, I’ve never written a book before and I felt like there had to be a whole list of people that they would have tried before calling me. I was excited but also very nervous that at some point somebody would say “Oh, he’s never written a book! Who said he could write this book?!” But nobody ever said that. I guess the only one who questioned whether or not I should write it was me. Which I’m still questioning! But I was very excited… immediately in my mind there were so many things in the Star Trek history that I’d like to write about.

TrekCore: How much of a leap was it for you going from television script writing to authoring a book of this magnitude?

David Goodman: It was interesting because TV writing is a collaborative effort in so many ways, you are always working with a group of people before you go off to write a script. You’re figuring out the story, and comedy where I mostly work you’re figuring out jokes. So by the time you write a script you’ve sort of had a lot of help. There was a similarity to writing this book, because there was a way in which all the Star Trek writers who had come before me had come up with stuff that I wanted to include but also had to include. So when I went off to write the book, I had all this material to work from, but also had to create a fair amount.

TrekCore: That’s interesting, so did you find yourself anywhere in the project needing to turn to any previous Star Trek authors or staff who worked behind the scenes on the shows?

David Goodman: There were a couple of times, and I had my own sort of mini-tribunal. There was a guy [John Van Citters] who worked at CBS Consumer Products and was also a big Star Trek fan, and then Dave Rossi and Mike Sussman – who I worked with on Enterprise and is a good friend. I ran a few things past them, and when I had a question about something… I would come up with something and wasn’t sure if it contradicted canon, so I would run it past them and they would either give me the go-ahead or say “No, you have to do this.” But that was only a couple of times, for most of it, I sort of figured it out on my own.

TrekCore: You mention canon there. How much of a hindrance or an aid was canon to you? Star Trek has such a rich and varied history – it must have proven a minefield at some times!

David Goodman: Yeah, ‘minefield’ is a great term for it… especially since the ‘Minefield’ episode of Enterprise caused me all sorts of problems for the canon! It was a puzzle. I was basically putting together this puzzle because it was so important to me as a fan that if I was reading this book, I wouldn’t read something that would bug me because it so blatantly contradicted something that I remembered from an episode. I was very much driven to write something that obeyed everything that had come before me, but also stood on its own. I had to create scenes and pieces of history that had not been fully elucidated in the Star Trek TV shows and movies but that didn’t contradict them either. So canon wasn’t a hindrance… in fact canon was fun to work in. However there was just this feeling of times where… you know, for example during the Romulan War you have to obey the fact that no human had ever seen a Romulan. So when you’re doing the Romulan War you have to say ‘OK, so that means there were no troops on planets’ because there would be a dead Romulan body left somewhere that someone would find. So then it would be a war that takes place entirely in space. There are all these sorts of things that you have to obey that don’t necessarily make sense if you were doing it the other way round, for instance if you’re doing a war between Humans and Romulans you would do troops, you would do landing on the planets and all this sort of thing. But I just didn’t think that was realistic given what we knew about that war. So that’s just an example of where canon was a hindrance, but I just sort of worked it out in such a way that it doesn’t read like one.

TrekCore: I find it interesting that whole sections of this book sometimes originate from what maybe just a throwaway line in an episode years ago. I find that amazing! What inspired you in choosing which stories to tell?

David Goodman: (laughter) Well, I’m writing a history book. I’m writing a History of the Federation. So, for example – Tarsus IV – which is this event that is described in ‘The Conscience of the King’, an  Original Series episode. It’s one episode of the Original Series, it’snot necessarily considered one of the best episodes of the Original Series, however the backstory to that episode feels like a big historical event. It’s something they all know about, that means in the history books that’s got to play a role. What role does that play? How does it fit in? So that’s an example.

The one line – I don’t know if you’re referencing the line where Picard, in a Next Generation episode, as a throwaway line says ‘The Prime Directive came about as a result of a disastrous first contact with the Klingon Empire’. Now that’s just one line, a throwaway line. Now of course we see in the pilot of Enterprise which happened before Next Generation but which was produced afterwards, we see first contact with the Klingons and it doesn’t seem to be this disastrous thing. But my job was to sort of say ‘well wait a second, let’s make these two things connect. Let’s figure out a way that that first contact with the Klingons – which seemingly worked out alright – in fact had repercussions that caused huge problems for the Federation and led to the Prime Directive.’ So it was kind of a fun puzzle to respect everything that had come before and create something that reads as a history book. So you’re choosing things that might be in a history book, so you might not cover everything that happens in every episode. You might discard… you know, I really don’t deal with the mirror universe at all, even though that showed up in so many series, because it doesn’t really affect Federation history. It’s a history book.

TrekCore: The line I was going for was the one leading to your narrative on the invasion of the Tribble homeworld. That whole section is expanded from one line Worf delivered in DS9’s ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’ and becomes a huge monologue. Was that done tongue in cheek?

David Goodman: Well it’s a little tongue in cheek, but I didn’t want to do it as a joke. I wanted it to feel like it was part of the history. But the way Worf was describing that in ‘Trials and Tribble-ations’ is that it was the ‘Great Tribble Hunt’ and that it was this thing that they wrote operas about. So it was clearly a big deal. I did that because ‘Tribbles’ is obviously a very popular episode for fans and non-fans alike. I think ‘Tribbles’ is probably the one episode that non-Star Trek fans have probably heard of, if not seen. I wanted some reference to that, and it did involve the Klingons and Klingon-Federation interactions. I wrote that mostly to sort of answer a problem that I’ve always had – what was Cyrano Jones supposed to do with all those tribbles? Kirk just says ‘pick them up’. So I thought, ‘what does that mean?’ and I figured, ah, he gets them off, takes them to the planet – that’s why it’s going to take seventeen years, he’s shuttling them back to and from the planet where they’re from. That was my idea. So I thought Koloth would write this celebratory thing about ‘What I did, How I destroyed the Tribble Homeworld’. I thought was really a nod to fans of the Original Series.

TrekCore: It’s clear from reading through the book that a huge amount of work has gone into both researching and writing it. How long did it actually take you for this project?

David Goodman: Well there it is. This is the question I don’t like to get asked, but I’ll still answer. I only had three months to write the book. I laid out in June 2011 a broad outline of what each chapter would be about and the documents that I would include in it. In October I got the go-ahead to write, but I only had until the end of January to finish. That also included writing all the documents. So it was really a crazy short schedule that ruined a family vacation! But it got done, and there are still things that I would like go back and fix, pieces of prose that I think could be a little clunky. But overall I’m very proud of the accomplishment.

TrekCore: The book is really chock full of stunningly designed illustrations and the documents you just mentioned. Did your writings inspire the illustrations or vice versa, or was it collaborative?

David Goodman: Oh it was very collaborative. I had ideas for some of the illustrations, and the illustrators also had ideas. The opening piece of the chapter on the Romulan War is this attack on Starbase 1 which was the instigation of the war. I just said very broadly, ‘It would be great to showthat’. I thought it would be a great painting to have in the opening of that chapter. But I didn’t describe it, that artist just took it and ran with it – and did an amazing job. I love that piece. There’s also in that same chapter a propaganda poster ‘You may be talking to a Romulan’ which I liked… that was my idea based on World War II propaganda posters ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ kind of thing. I wanted something like that because I felt like historically it had been established in ‘Balance of Terror’ that there was a lot of bigotry towards the Romulans from that war, and I wanted to talk about how that came about . But the other art pieces – I may have given sort of general ideas of things that I thought should be in there, and the artists would take it and run with it. Or other people involved would make suggestions. It was very collaborative, I mean those artists really did a phenomenal job. Some of those pieces are just incredible.

TrekCore: The book itself is broadly divided into different time periods through the chapters. Which era in the book was the most difficult for you to write and which did you enjoy writing the most?

David Goodman: Each era presented its own difficulties. Weirdly, the era that was the most detailed in the shows – which is the Star Trek Enterprise chapter – where they really were talking a lot about pre-Federation history  in the show, so detailing those events for me was hard to make it interesting because it was hard to make it interesting. It was a real struggle, and I hope I succeeded but it was hard to make it interesting. There were things in that chapter where I cursed my colleagues on Enterprise – the Xindi war makes no real sense! So I had to make some sense of that, and some sense of how I talk about the Temporal Cold War. I sort of covered that in footnotes, I don’t really accept the Temporal Cold War as definitive history. So those pieces were very difficult. There were also other pieces in other chapters that were very difficult – World War III, because there was no consistency in terms of how it was described. It’s been described as happening in the 90’s, but then the movie First Contact it looked like it had just ended 10 years ago. So how long was this war? What shape did it take? So I had to fill that in in a way where it made sense. I enjoyed it but it was also very tough. And of course there are 100 years between Enterprise and the Original Series which really hasn’t been detailed at all. Filling that in was difficult to make it interesting without doing anything that would contradict things that we’ve seen. Each chapter presented its own difficulties.

Probably the most fun chapter to write was the Romulan War. I knew what my limitations were, but there were only a few of them, and then I found some things that I’m very proud of… in The Next Generation there’s this reference to the Battle of Cheron. That’s been sort of accepted that this was the final battle of the Romulan War. Then the question has always been ‘Is this the same Cheron as we see in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield’. I found a way to connect Cheron to the Romulans in a way that I consider canon, which is Bele in that episode has an invisible ship. To me that connected them to the Romulans, so there’s a way in which we make that planet part of the Romulan War.

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Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is published by 47NORTH and produced by becker&mayer. It is officially licensed by CBS Consumer Products. The book will go on sale: December 4, 2012.

Order Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years

Star Trek: The Original Series Complete Soundtrack Collection: Special Preview with Sample Tracks!

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Star Trek: The Original Series Complete Soundtrack Collection: Special Preview with Sample Tracks!

Three years ago Star Trek fans were delighted when Film Score Monthly released the full expanded soundtrack from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Since then, there has been a whole renaissance of new Star Trek soundtrack releases from a number of different specialist record labels.

One of the leading forces in releasing these much sought-after soundtracks is La-La Land Records who this year put out the critically acclaimed limited edition 3CD release of the soundtrack from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Hot on the heels of that release, La-La Land astounded fans with news that a complete soundtrack collection of the full archive of music from Star Trek: The Original Series would be released in a deluxe 15-CD box set in December 2012.

Our friends at La-La Land have provided TrekCore with some special high-resolution images of the boxset and its contents. We’ll also be working closely with La-La Land to bring you a series of exclusive features on the collection to tide you over until release date on December 4th 2012. Scroll to the bottom of the article for some exclusive samples from the set!


The set is broken down into the three separate seasons of Star Trek: The Original Series.
Each season gets its own special disc casing.

The 15-CD boxset will contain all episode scores as heard in all three original seasons of Star Trek. This special collection has been newly remastered from studio elements and features hours of material previously unreleased in any format. The set is limited to 6,000 units and will be available exclusively from www.lalalandrecords.com at 1pm (PST). The retail price will be $224.98.


There are five discs per season, each one embellished with wonderful cover-art featuring a character from the series. Seasons are color-coded for easy identification.

Original series composers Alexander Courage, George Duning, Jerry Fielding, Gerald Fried, Sol Kaplan, Samuel Matlovsky, Joseph Mullendore and Fred Steiner are all represented in this deluxe collection, their historic work meticulously assembled, restored and remastered. Four CD booklets featuring over 100 pages with in-depth liner notes from film music writer and Star Trek historian Jeff Bond, complement this set, which is housed in a hardcover slipcase.


The accompanying booklets contain a wealth of information – everything from Jeff Bond’s in-depth liner notes to original composer biographies and lists of musicians, all sumptuously illustrated with classic Star Trek imagery.

This release marks the kind of authoritative collection of original Trek series music that fans have desired for decades. Album producer Lukas Kendall states:

For 45 years, those like me who love this music could only dream about having it all. This is the major, historical piece of sci-fi music, television music and pop culture music that we have always wanted to release in a definitive form for the collector.

It’s also particularly note-worthy that the set will contain a whole chunk of music which has never been heard, as mentioned by La-La Land President MV Gerhard:

A majority of the music featured in this set has never been released. Of that unreleased music, there is a fairly large percentage that no one has ever heard because it was written and recorded for the show, but never featured in the episodes.

TrekCore is able to bring you some exclusive sample tracks from the release for your listening pleasure! You can stream the tracks directly or save them to your computer by right clicking on the links.

Salty Cat – Dressing Down (from “The Man Trap“, Alexander Courage)
Meet Andrea – Android Kirk (from “What Are Little Girls Made Of?“, Fred Steiner)
Mace Fight (from “Catspaw“, Gerald Fried)
It’s Her – Loveliness (from “Metamorphosis“, George Duning)
Battle Music (from “Elaan of Troyius“, Fred Steiner)

Stay tuned to TrekCore for more exclusive news and previews of the set over the coming weeks. Be sure to guarantee your order by ordering from www.lalalandrecords.com at 1pm (PST).

Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years – Editor & Designer Interview

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Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years – Editor & Designer Interview

David Goodman’s historical Trek masterpiece Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is set to hit shelves in under three weeks. The book is packed full of information chronicling the pivotal era leading up to Humankind’s First Contact with Vulcan in 2063, the Romulan War in 2156, the creation of the Federation in 2161, and the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311.

To celebrate the launch, TrekCore caught up with the book’s Editor, Dana Youlin and the Designer, Rosanna Brockley.

Interviewed by Adam Walker for TrekCore.com

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TrekCore: What are you both responsible for in this project?

Dana Youlin: I am the editor, so I oversaw the editorial production portion of the book. So once the manuscript was edited and it went into layout, I made sure that everything went as planned, and I was also the main contact for CBS Consumer Products.

Rosanna Brockley: I’m one of the designers who worked on the book. The design team designed the cover and the interior spreads and we art-directed with CBS and the artists and also art-directed the illustrations. A big chunk of the work was also designing the documents that appeared throughout the book, and also designing all of the removable documents and overseeing the illustration side as well. Dana and I also worked with a company to create the trailer for the book.

TrekCore: That was quite unique for a Star Trek title. What led you to design a trailer for Federation?

Dana Youlin: There’s sort of a growing trend in publishing to produce book trailers. This was actually the third type of project that we’ve done in this line, the other two were Star Wars properties – ‘The Book of Sith’ and ‘The Jedi Path’ and we did trailers for those as well. It’s part of our programme for these types of deluxe books

TrekCore: Why did you decide to produce a Star Trek book – was it a natural follow-on for you from Star Wars?

Dana Youlin: Actually we’ve worked with CBS for a number of years. This is not our first Star Trek book – this is our first deluxe Star Trek book though. We’ve got a great working relationship with them and they actually came to us. John Van Citters who is Vice-President of CBS Consumer Products – and he’s the creative force and the continuity person over there – he saw our deluxe edition of a book called 1776 by David McCullough. We had done a deluxe version that had removable documents and came in a clamshell case, and John loved that book. He wanted to see something similar for Star Trek. That’s kind of where it was born, and then we started making concepts for it.

TrekCore: David Goodman has mentioned you were quite adamant about sourcing a TV Writer for this book, why was that?

Dana Youlin: Well typically with our Star Trek books that we’ve done in the past, we have kind of pop-culture writers, but we knew this book would require someone who could speak in many different voices so we could create these documents which are coming from different parts of Star Trek’s history over the 250 years. We needed somebody who could embody all of those voices well, so a TV writer is actually a pretty natural fit when you think about it.

TrekCore: The illustrations that have been used in this book are of a very different style to those that we’ve seen in other Star Trek books in the past. Did you purposefully stray from the illustrators who were familiar to fans to get a different look?

Rosanna Brockley: Yes, from the beginning they wanted to have a very different look for the book overall. So the idea was that when the team got the outline, we looked for artists who could convey the kind of emotion and dynamic action that we wanted for this book. We collected samples from many artists and then reviewed them with CBS to get their input, and then we collected these artists together. While Cat [Staggs] and Mark [McHaley] aren’t necessarily known for Star Trek work, they’re both actually Next Generation fans. And Joe Corroney has done quite a bit of Star Trek work including graphic novels. Jeff Carlisle – I think that he was probably the biggest fan of Star Trek. So much so that when we would ask him to produce something, he would go well above and beyond what we asked for. He illustrated the removable blueprints of the Enterprise and he actually created an entire dialogue on paper between the designers and the engineers, with so much backstory. I’ve kept all his original files – so some day…!

TrekCore: How much were you aware of the huge backstory that comes with Star Trek? I know a lot of authors and publishers view it sometimes as a hindrance because of the volume of information. Were you aware of that before you started and how did you tackle it?

Dana Youlin: I think for both of us this was a crash course. I had watched some Star Trek – I had grown up watching Next Generation – but the backstory was not something I was fully aware of. David [Goodman] was really helpful, he created sort of a cheat-sheet list for us, but whilst I was working on this I watched a lot of Star Trek. I had to get my mind around the pivotal episodes and the things that were coming in play with our narrative. So there was a lot of backstory, but David [Goodman] and John Van Citters are both encyclopaedic, they know so much about Star Trek and have such a great grasp of the canon that they were hugely cool in getting us up to speed and always had their eyes on continuity. That really made it possible.

Rosanna Brockley: Some of the books that I’ve done before – we call them ‘in-world’ titles – the thing about becker&mayer is that we really immerse ourselves into the world, and gain a lot more knowledge than we ever thought we’d need. Shortly after this I went on to work on two more Star Trek titles, and I never thought I’d know as much about Klingons as I do now!

TrekCore: The book is titled ‘The First 150 Years’ although it actually covers 250 years as you mentioned. Why was the decision made to stop after 150 and would you consider a sequel at some stage?

Dana Youlin: Well that’s not only up to me, but I think that would be wonderful to do a follow-up. I think the era that it covers was selected because it’s just ripe for storytelling. It covers a time period that we don’t know a tonne about beforehand, so there was a lot of filling in of the canon. In terms of cutting it off after 150 years – the book that we envisioned in terms of the content and how detailed we wanted to make it, we had to draw the line somewhere. That’s why we ended up at that 150 year mark, and it sort of leave us on the cusp of a very interesting time within the Star Trek canon, just 50 years before Next Generation.

TrekCore: Could you give us a brief idea of the workflow of the project, from conception to publication?

Dana Youlin: It was very fast! It was a very ambitious project, and pretty intense on our end. So it was conceived probably a little bit more than a year ago, David had roughly three months to write which was very intense considering the amount of research he had to do and all the supplemental documents. The documents were a bear of a task that ended up being almost as much work as writing the narrative. Once the book went into design and the really intensive illustration schedule, which was probably about another four months – it was really very fast. The last six months or so of this project have actually just been spent in manufacturing. We were living and breathing Star Trek Federation for quite a while here, as was David [Goodman], as were our friends at CBS. Everyone was so involved here.

TrekCore: You talk about the manufacturing stage there. What led to the inspiration behind the unique pedestal?

Rosanna Brockley: The pedestal fits really well into the concept of the book as an in-world artefact. Where we started in terms of the idea was that this would be a book that was commissioned by the Federation on the anniversary – 150 years after founding. They wanted a historical document. Our idea was that the pedestal would be a display that you would see on Memory Alpha. We wanted it to take on the feel of that environment.

TrekCore: How did you persuade George Takei to do the voiceover?

Rosanna Brockley: That was all wheeling and dealing with our friends at CBS! We actually started with a slightly different design. Initially we had conceived of a design which locked the book, and it opened when a keypad was activated, but there were problems with the mechanics of that. We ended up with a pretty large direction shift after we were well into the project. It was really amazing that George was able to come on and record it for us. I think it ended up twenty times better than our original idea. We were very lucky.

TrekCore: The cover of the book is beautifully designed with the metallic embossing and raised symbols. Tell us a bit about how you came up with this design.

Rosanna Brockley: The design team – Gabe Stromberg actually designed the cover – the idea was to have the Federation logo on there. What we did was have a production team source all of the different materials for the cover, and they came up with this blue metallic look. We also wanted it to look very futuristic. There were a lot of experiments going back to make the medallion, and make it pop. Initially we were just going to go with the normal logo here, but we really wanted to make it pop – make it a medallion. That’s how we arrived at it. You’ll notice that the words Star Trek are not on the book, that was intentional so it really does feel like it’s an in-world object.

TrekCore: How did you marry up the documentation inserts with the narrative of the book itself?

Dana Youlin: I can’t take any credit for that. That was all David [Goodman]. He wrote the narrative first and then went back and created documents to weave through that story. Some of them directly relate to the text. Some of them were other things that were happening at the same time, but they’re being described in the text. It was really things in Federation history which were really pivotal, but also things that hadn’t been explored. And it really created that really rich story you see.

TrekCore: If you could sum up the book – the whole package – and tell fans what they can expect, how would you describe it?

Dana Youlin: I think I’d start off by saying it’s a Star Trek book like no other Star Trek book. It’s rich in history with beautiful illustrations in a really fun and exciting luxurious package.

Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is published by 47NORTH and produced by becker&mayer. It is officially licensed by CBS Consumer Products. The book will go on sale: December 4, 2012.

Order Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years
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