Star Trek Teaser

It was nerdgasm time today as the teaser for Star Trek into Darkness debuted.

This has me very excited. I kept my expectations low for the last Trek film and Abrams did not disappoint. It was much better than I was expecting. Details have been scarce so far and the villain has not been revealed, yet. Speculation at first kept saying that it was going to be Khan (which would be a big mistake), but lately Garth of Izar and Gary Mitchell have been tossed out. Either of these would be fine choices. They are good characters and a lot could be done with either. I'm hoping, though, that the writers decided to create something new. You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger fan of The Original Series than me, but that's why I'm so interested in new stuff being done with these characters rather than just rehashing old material. Let it rest and peace and honor the memory of TOS by dreaming new stories up.

I still plan on forking out money to see this opening day and I'm confident it will be a very good film even if the villain is recycled. I will be a little disappointed if that's the case, though.

An Enterprise in 20 Years?

An engineer is saying that if we dedicate the resources, we could have our own starship in twenty years.

In Star Trek lore, the first Starship Enterprise will be built by the year 2245. But today, an engineer has proposed — and outlined in meticulous detail — building a full-sized, ion-powered version of the Enterprise complete with 1G of gravity on board, and says it could be done with current technology, within 20 years.

"We have the technological reach to build the first generation of the spaceship known as the USS Enterprise — so let's do it," writes the curator of the Build The Enterprise website, who goes by the name of BTE Dan.

This "Gen1" Enterprise could get to Mars in 90 days, to the moon in three, and "could hop from planet to planet dropping off robotic probes of all sorts en masse — rovers, special-built planes and satellites,” BTE Dan says.

I'd by lying if I said that this doesn't make me feel giddy. This guy isn't some dreamer, either. He actually is an engineer. He's got plans on the website for the ship including plans for funding the endeavor.

The importance of dreaming big cannot be understated. Dreams inspire us to achieve new heights, to strive for better things. They challenge us to be better than we are today. Without dreams we stagnate. NASA inspired so many people back in the 60s and 70s, but it has lost that these days. Just check out this recent Onion headline: "NASA Announces Plans to Put Man on Bus to Cleveland." How sad that it has fallen so far.

There are a lot of anti-science people out there and there's a lot of people out there who argue that "we shouldn't spend money on space stuff until we fix our problems down here." Guess what? There will always be problems here on Earth.

We are humans, imperfect constructs. We have messy feelings and emotions and an inability to perfectly reason. That's not going to go away. But dreaming big and aspiring to new heights will help us solve problems. Look at this list of technologies that came out of the space race. And that's just the start! It's hard to overestimate what the drive for space technology did for those of us stuck on terra firma. A new push for space will have the same effects. It will inspire new scientists in all sorts of fields.

Maybe this specific project isn't the answer. Or maybe it is. The sad fact is that there is far too little talk of space exploration. Check out his website, though. Check out NASA's website. Bug your Congressional representatives to fund more space exploration. Make your kids watch Star Trek. Inspire them.

Star Trek: The Animated Series is Now Online for Free!

The best news of the day.

Star Trek: The Animated Series has been unjustly neglected by all but the most devoted Trekkies for most of the 36-plus years since it originally aired. The animation may — does — look cheesy by today’s standards, but some of the stories are truly excellent, and they did get all but one of the original cast members to do their characters’ voices.

Well, StarTrek.com has now put every episode of the series online for free viewing (though not, alas, downloading). If you’ve not seen any of the 22 episodes of the series, but are a fan of ST:The Original Series, you’re in for a treat. Some of them are just so-so, but even the worst of them is better (to my mind, anyway) than 70% of the episodes of ST: Enterprise.

I all ready play original series episodes in the background at work. These will have to join the queue.

Star Trek Girl

Cute girl + Star Trek = Win

Harve Bennett Interview

Harve Bennett is credited (along with Nicholas Meyer) as one of the saviors of Star Trek. After the enormous expense and lackluster box officer performance of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the prospects of further movies was grim. Bennett stepped up and with virtually no knowledge of Trek when he agreed to the project, he went on to make some very successful and good films. Naturally then, I hold him in high regard so it was nice to see an interview with him over at Trek's official site. Check out part one here and part two here. There was nothing really new in it to a junkie like me, but I enjoy hearing directly from people behind the scenes.

Off to the Movies

Going to see the new Star Trek film tonight with my daughters and a friend. I can't wait.

The Captain's Chair

Oh, yes, I want one.

Live Long and Prosper

Happy Birthday to Leonard Nimoy a.k.a. Mr. Spock on Star Trek. March is a good month for Trek.

Happy Birthday, William Shatner

Today is the birthday of William Shatner, best known, of course, for being the lucky person chosen to portray Captain James T. Kirk in the semi-autobiographical series, Star Trek. Truly he was blessed.

Happy Birthday, Bill!

Star Trek Opera

Star Trek II: The Opera of Khan

Geek Films - Star Trek and Watchmen

New information is out for two geek films coming out next year. First up - Star Trek.

A new trailer has been released.



I'm not sure what to make of the trailer. I think the film is going to look fantastic no doubt about it. As for the story and the acting, I'm still not sure. I just haven't seen enough to get a good feel for it. Part of that could be my trepidation at the whole project, but we'll see.

For more proof of how good it will look, check out the Enterprise. It's sharp, sleek, and new looking while still being true to the original design. Matt Jeffries would be proud.


Next up - Watchmen.

Another trailer has been released for this flick.

As with Star Trek, I have no doubt that this movie is going to look incredible. In fact, I am more impressed with the visuals for Watchmen than I am with Star Trek because Zak Snyder and crew seem to have managed to bring most of the visual panache of the graphic novel to the screen.

That said, I am also nervous about the script for this. Rumor has it that the ending has been tweaked. Supposedly it still has the same effect, but that the cause has been changed. I don't want to give anything away for those who have not read it (and if you haven't you really should), but suffice to say that any change in the ending risks screwing up everything that came before. We'll see.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high for either of these films, but you can bet I will be seeing both in theaters next year. I hope they turn out good enough to make me want to pay to see them multiple times on the big screen.

New Star Trek Pics

Paramount has released some new pictures from the forthcoming Star Trek 11.







I think there is no doubt the movie is going to look fantastic, but I'm still nervous about everything else. Especially when I read this new interview with director J.J. Abrams. Here is an excerpt that troubles me.

Plus, at heart, Abrams is still more of a Star Wars guy. ''All my smart friends liked Star Trek,'' he says. ''I preferred a more visceral experience.'' Which is exactly why he accepted Paramount's offer in 2005 to develop a new Trek flick; creatively, he was engaged by the possibility of a Star Trek movie ''that grabbed me the way Star Wars did.'' That meant a bigger budget and better special effects than any previous Trek film, plus freedom to reinvent the mythos as needed. ''We have worldwide aspirations and we need to broaden [Trek's] appeal,'' says Weston. ''Doing the half-assed version of this thing wasn't going to work.''

The best of Trek - "City on the Edge of Forever," "Devil in the Dark," "Amok Time" - was at its best precisely because it engaged the viewer's head. That was its appeal. Of course there were great action packed episodes, too, and The Wrath of Khan amongst the movies to give Trek some rousing excitement, but it was not the heart of the show. It was icing on the cake. The writers of the new movie claim to be fans of the original series, but if Abrams takes the new movie too far away from what made the series great in order to offer a more "visceral experience," then he is going to disappoint a lot of people.

Of course, maybe that's what he wants. After all, The Voyage Home (non-fans know it as "the one with the whales") is the largest grossing Trek film to date. Most fans of the show, including me, do not find it to be the best of the films because of the forced humor. But that humor helped it find a larger audience. If only the studios were more concerned with making quality films instead of films that make lots of money, but that's another rant.

Oh, and for the record, I am also a huge fan of Star Wars

Star Trek Luminaries

I mentioned the passing of Alexander Courage recently. Geekdad also pays tribute to him and to two other people who were important to the development of the original series, Joseph Pevny and Robert H. Justman.

UPDATE: Here is a link to a .wav file of the awesome theme that Courage wrote.

Alexander Courage Passes Away

Alexander Courage, composer of the Star Trek theme, has passed away. I can't help but think of that theme music whenever I think of Star Trek; it's just such an integral part of the show and eerily awesome. Mr. Courage will be missed.

William Shatner's Ego

I suppose I can somewhat understand because he was graced with the opportunity to play the coolest freakin' guy EVAR, but still, sometimes it gets a bit old, like, I don't know, complaining about having sex with fans of Star Trek.

In his new autobiography, Up Till Now, Shatner explains how women would pretend they were being "beamed up" by the Starship Enterprise commander, shrieking: "So, this is what it's like to be in bed with Captain Kirk!"
He writes: "You can't imagine how much of a downer that is in every sense of the word."

Life's tough, eh, Bill?