2006 October | TrekMovie.com

Review of Catspaw Remastered October 31, 2006

by Jason Lee , Filed under: Review, TOS Remastered , 20 comments

Kirk and the gang find a planet where an alien odd couple has set up their own private house of horrors complete with spectral witches, a sinister castle, a black cat and zombified landing party members. All of this seems to be an elaborate ruse to discourage uninvited guests and/or evaluate their worthiness as a species, etc, etc. It’s a rare, Halloween themed episode of Star Trek with some fun and memorable moments, but mostly you’ll go home with a bag full of cheese instead of candy. With the new remastered ‘Catspaw’ you get more castle, more cat and no strings attached.

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Trek XI Convinced Paramount To Pass On Halo?

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Abrams, Paramount , 33 comments

Like Star Trek XI, the Halo movie was one of the more anticipated films planned for 2008. Now the film is in limbo, and apparently Trek is partially to blame. After losing financing from Universal and Fox, the Halo producers (Peter Jackson and Microsoft) pinned their hopes on Warner Brothers and Paramount. According to IESB, Abrams and Trek factored into Paramount’s decision to say no. IESB quotes a Paramount exec as saying

Why share a franchise with other parties when we own Star Trek and have a real director doing that film?.

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Abrams Still Not Sure If He Will Direct Star Trek XI October 30, 2006

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Abrams, ST09 Creative , 21 comments

Paramount chief Brad Grey recently described JJ Abrams as a ‘triple threat’ because he can write, produce and direct. However so far it looks like Para is only getting a ‘double threat’ for the first project under his new multi-mil deal. Abrams is down as producer and (co)writer for Trek XI, but tells MTV that it is still ‘too early to make the call’ on directing. He also talked again how ‘cool’ Trek XI is going to be, saying…

we’re all ridiculously excited about it. It’s hard to talk about at this stage, because there’s so much still left to do, but I can say that the story is incredibly cool. To be honest with you, I haven’t been a follower of the more recent "Star Trek" films. I got to appreciate them and like them, but this is the movie I would be in line to see.

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Abrams: Trek XI Story Is ‘Incredibly Cool’

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Abrams, STXI Status , 42 comments

TV Guide has an interview with JJ Abrams that focuses on M:I:3, which is released this week on DVD. However, they do throw in a couple of Trek questions

TVGuide.com: Changing topics, where do you stand on the Star Trek feature? Is there any framework in place, a setting, characters…?

Abrams: The framework is firmly in place, the script is being written now, and we are incredibly enthusiastic about it.

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Shatner To Set New Standard Of Cheesiness October 29, 2006

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Shatner , 13 comments

Details on the new Shatner hosted game show ‘Show Me The Money’ are starting to come out, and it sounds pretty cheesy. Variety reports…

After answering a trivia question, a contestant will choose one of 13 dancers, each of whom has a scroll with a dollar figure to be added to or subtracted from the player’s winnings. Contestants must answer at least six questions. ABC is calling the hoofers the "Million Dollar Dancers" and says they’ll always be "ready to break into any style of dance, while audacious master of ceremonies William Shatner spontaneously boogies with the beauties onstage."

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Listen To Trek Actors Performing ‘War Of The Worlds’

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: TNG , 4 comments

Just in time for Halloween, LA Theatre Works present the classic radio play ‘War of the Worlds’ performed by a whole bunch of Trek stars. Lending their voices are John de Lancie, Gates McFadden, Leonard Nimoy, Dwight Schultz, Armin Shimerman, Brent Spiner: and Wil Wheaton. de Lancie, a LATW regular, directs. It was originally aired last night on KPCC in Los Angeles. No word yet how many Angelinos thought aliens were actually attacking Grovers Mill, New Jersey. It is available online for free until Nov 4, after that it will be available for purchase.

[Listen with RA ]

“Catspaw” Screenshots and Video [UPDATED] October 28, 2006

by Matt Wright , Filed under: TOS Remastered, TOS-R Screenshots/Video , 84 comments

We have the usual assortment of old versus new and remastered shots for your pleasure.

Click the pictures for larger versions.

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Today Is Catspaw Remastered Day

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: TOS Remastered , 46 comments

The Enterprise and her crew are held captive by some spoooooky aliens

Video preview / Local Station & Showtimes / More at Memory Alpha

This rare ‘themed’ episode is yet another one with few opportunities for new CGI crew. We already know there is a new matte painting for the castle. In addition keep your eye out for…

new planet and Enterprise in orbit shots
new witches maybe?
maybe some new magic flashes?
…and for the aliens…no strings attached!

so what did you think of Catspaw Remastered

Picardo Says Abrams Has ‘Golden Touch’, Questions Prequel October 27, 2006

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Abrams, Trek Franchise , 20 comments

Robert Picardo, Star Trek Voyager’s lovable Holodoctor, seems to have a nuanced view of Star Trek under the command of JJ Abrams. According to an interview from Trek Magazine (via SciFi Pulse) the actor seems to be supportive of Abrams helming the franchise, but isn’t too sure he likes that rumored prequel idea.

Look they’ve re-launched the Batman franchise and that worked out. I’ve heard that they may re – launch the franchise with a story about Kirk and Spock as younger guys, back in the day, but I don’t know whether that’s the way to go because it seems to remove some of the jeopardy to know what happens in the future. On the other hand, they did kill off Spock four times and bring him back to life. I lost count!

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Bryan Fuller Says Trek Needs JJ Abrams

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Abrams, Trek Franchise , 9 comments

Bryan Fuller is certainly one of the more successful Star Trek almuni in Hollywood. Since his time as a writer on Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Star Trek Voyager, Bryan Fuller has been very busy with shows like ‘Wonderfalls’, ‘Dead Like Me’, and this year’s breakout hit ‘Heroes’. Comic Book Resources interviewed the writer/producer on his various projects, but spend quite a lot of time on Trek. Fuller said he got into the business because of Star Trek and he could talk about it all day. He certainly seems to be optimistic on Trek’s future under JJ Abrams, saying:

I think the status right now is very encouraging, and I’m referring to the J.J. Abrams-helmed reinvention of the franchise, which it’s desperate for.

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Trek’s Return To Gaming Off To Shaky Start October 26, 2006

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Games , 8 comments

It is great to see Trek return to the world of gaming, but perhaps the new publisher Bethesda could have chosen a better game than ‘Star Trek Encounters’ to be the first entry. IGN gives the game a 4.9 out of 10. From the review: "Encounters suffers from a dire lack of Star Trek. There’s very little point in using the Star Trek license without exploiting its greatest assets"…ouch. Bethesda has just started shipping the 2nd game (Tactical Assault for the PS2 and DS), hopefully the reviews for that are better. For the third and most anticipated game, ‘Star Trek Legacy’ it appears we will have to wait even longer. Gamespot reports the bad news that the game is being delayed until the end of November due to quality assurance issues. There is a bit of good news, Bethesda recently announced a deal with Ubisoft to distribute all the new Trek games in Europe, story here. While we wait for Legacy, Bethsoft has provided some screenshots to tide you over…

(Xbox 360)

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Cruise Rumor Morphing Around the World…Original ‘Source’ Denies Ever Running Story

by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: Rumor, ST09 Cast , 18 comments

Yesterday we reported that the Tom Cruise in Trek XI rumor appears to be bogus. But of course it is hard to keep a good rumor down, and anything with Cruise in it is ‘good’ to the tabloids. The British tabloid Daily Star has picked up the rumor but morphed it into ‘Cruise Will Be Spock‘. That story is now being cited by others including ITV a British TV Network, but so far this is our favorite…