This week on the Shuttle Pod, your podcast crew discuss what’s on the horizon for the Star Trek franchise. And, a lot is brewing.
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Shuttle Pod 47: What’s Next in Trek – Discovery Season 2, Kelvinverse Films, and a Corporate Merger
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Oh Captain, My Captain (and Discovery Season 2)
Earlier this week, CBS announced the casting of a well-known Star Trek character for Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery sure to have the fan base buzzing. Anson Mount is set to play the determined Captain Pike of the USS Enterprise, a ship whose redesign we got a glimpse of at the tail end of the Season 1 finale. He certainly looks the part, but he’s got some piercing eyes to fill (have I stretched that metaphor too far?).
The news comes after a deluge of cryptic clues about the next season of Discovery gleaned from panel appearances and interviews at last month’s WonderCon. Matt, Brian, and Kayla break down all we learned, with just a light dusting of pithy commentary.
Oh Captain, My Captain! Those eyes…
A Script Too Far For The Kelvinverse?
While still not much more has come to light since we last spoke about the next Trek movie back in December (check out our podcast about that). There are some little bits of information that have come out as the Kelvin cast are out and about promoting other projects.
Perhaps the biggest bit of information that’s come to light is that there are at least 2 possible pitches for the next movie: the Patrick McKay & JD Payne script JJ Abrams hyped during Beyond’s press junkets; and the Quentin Tarantino/Mark L. Smith project. We had suspected Pegg and Jung were asked for a sequel idea. In December 2016 Simon Pegg tweeted a tease of Simon and Doug sitting in the Bad Robot offices, but of course no context and no follow up. Pegg has now clarified that his tweet was not about Trek, saying:
“Doug [Jung] and I were never going to write the fourth [Star Trek]. That was never the deal. Doug and I are doing something together at Bad Robot, which I probably can’t talk about just yet.”
Star Trek’s Real Life Parallel Universe: CBS/Paramount
Many Trek fans know that Star Trek is a split franchise. CBS holds all of the television and merchandising rights, while Paramount makes the feature films. The companies have had a long and complicated history, and it seems they may be getting the family back together. CBS and Viacom (Paramount’s parent company and previous parent company to all of Star Trek) are currently in talks to merge back together. What does this mean for the franchise?
If the CBS deal is part of a parallel universe, does that mean, we live in the Mirrorverse?
I don’t have a goatee, so no.
Rumor mill: disputed in merger talks is Moonves plan to subsume Star Trek into larger Big Bang Theory Extended Universe (AKA the Sheldonverse) – opposed by Shari Redstone who favors fusing Trek with Transformers franchise.
Both will be junked in favor of a time-travel episode where Kirk and Spock team up with Ethan Hunt to thwart a Romulan attack on Earth in the 21st Century.
Trekformers?
Sheldonverse? – But that would require half the cast of Roseanne to show up and they’re definitely under contract to ABC!
I think Les Moonves’ days are numbered, the CBS name will remain with the broadcast network while all production will once again fall under the Paramount banner (Paramount Television and Paramount Pictures). Assuming that happens I would expect to see previous seasons of Discovery repurposed on the Paramount Network to help drive subscriptions of All Access leading into each new season.
A merger could also mean a push for a more focused approach to Paramount’s film and television franchises. They’ll be looking for their own Kevin Feige or Kathleen Kennedy.
I would greatly appreciate a Disney approach to the franchise. I think it would gain great traction. Also I’ve nocked around ideas for a star trek streaming service with new fiction and non-fiction content and Netflix type movies. Anyone up for an all Klingon foreign language series😀😀 as part of the deal.
Trek 2009 was not the disney approach? Very similar in tone to force awakens. Same director, same cinamatographer.
Not even close.
AhhhhHahahaha
What seems to be emerging is a structure that would echo what was in place prior to the split. Corporate synergy was very much in play back in those days and specific assets were paired with others to feed that synergy. Paramount Pictures and Paramount Television paired together are marketable assets and the assets within those two entities is vast. By pushing to position himself and his number two in charge of the new company it would seem that Moonves’ concern is that the broadcast side of things will be marginalized and with Shari Redstone indicating that she will replace him if necessary his fears may not be unfounded.
Paramount doesn’t have their own Kevin Feige.
Nope, but they need one.
Paramount doesn’t need one but the Trek franchise does. I feel like that’s how people should look at it, even if it’s not splintered off into their own studio, there should be an umbrella or “house” within a studio that deals with each franchise and there should – logically – be a leader of that house to keep everything cohesive. Even if that’s Harberts, then do that but do it and go forward in the best way possible. Begin planning and filming spinoffs you don’t have to have a big Avengers Infinity type event but crossover from film and tv. It was done lightly in the old days but they never took advantage of it like they could’ve and should’ve. There should’ve been much more crossovers going on, especially during the Dominion War.
Agreed. Star Trek needs someone to guide all of it.
Hello. In the event the CBS-Viacom remerger goes through, then the remerged company would retire the Viacom name and be named CBS Paramount with the CBS Television Studios being retained, Paramount Television being folded into CBS Television Studios, the CBS Television Distribution name being changed by adding the Paramount name, and the CBS Studios International name being reverted to CBS Paramount International Television.
CBS Paramount definitely makes sense as a corporate name but I suspect that there will be a heavy emphasis on the Paramount brand and the creation of the Paramount Network was a first step on the Viacom side.. If things go Shari Redstone’s way exec’s on the Viacom side will be guiding the direction of the combined company, not those on the broadcast side.
I wonder, if talking spin-offs that would show on All Access, would fans want to watch a Khan tv series/miniseries set during the Eugenics Wars, or a Starfleet Academy show or a Trek Black Ops show, or even a spinoff that focused on a younger Cochran leading up to his breakthrough in warp propulsion? It would be a different type of show all together but if you had a really good team behind it, they could all be really successful. Just curious…
The Eugenics Wars miniseries is at least a better idea than the reported “Khan on Ceti Alpha V” show.
Yeah, no thanks. Wrong Khan story to tell.
Totally agree, there’s nothing about the Ceti Alpha story that I want to watch. It would essentially be Lost: Trek Edition
And with Kurtzman producing that could happen. Oh, my…
I thought we went over the whole uniform issue after the finale episode. There were people in the background with the blue turtleneck uniforms on during the medal ceremony. In the books it’s even mentioned that the uniforms were being phased in by crews of Constitution class ships.
Those appear to be simplified background actor versions of the standard Disco uniform. There’s a few BTS photos that people have zoomed in on, and you can see it looks more like a quick, less complicated version to fill out that scene. But we’ll have to wait and see what Pike wears when he first appears in Season 2 to know for sure.
https://twitter.com/GeekFilter/status/963237294382620674
I don’t know Matt, those lighter blue ones look like a separate tunic with pants type uniform. The gray ones are definitely alt/cadet versions of the Disco uniforms.
Well, the reality is, we have no idea what kinds of uniforms they wore on the Enterprise between “The Cage” and WNMHGB. Assuming visual canon has any bearing on anything, considering how quickly TMP uniforms came and went, it’s entirely possible that they phased out the turtleneck uniforms and pants for the new DISCO uniforms sweeping the fleet. But then the flagship crews on the Enterprise and others began complaining about how stiff and formal they were for long haul 5 year missions, and they went back to the more relaxed BDUs, redesigning them to be even more comfortable, and even designed miniskirt uniforms for the women. So we could very well see DISCO uniforms throughout Starfleet during the entire run of DISCO, and it wouldn’t violate visual canon at all.
I Think when CBS and Paramount Merge again it means that the Prime Universe and the Kelvin timeline will merge that way we can have the Best of Both Worlds.
I have a funny feeling that the Kelvin TImeline will be phased out and the film series rebooted with the Discovery showrunners taking the reigns of the film franchise.
Denny C – This is 2018, I really doubt they would want to repeat the mistakes of the past with Berman making movies. Berman sucked. JJ is the best choice.
According to the trades the head of Paramount was less than pleased with JJ for opting to direct another Star Wars movie at the expense of Paramount. Everyone seems pleased with how Discovery has been handled and they are more than likely going to go with people who are loyal to the franchise and Paramount than with a producer / director whose focus is elsewhere. Kevin Feige’s focus is on Marvel only. Kathleen Kennedy’s sole focus is Lucasfilm. JJ’s is on Bad Robot and the various projects he and Bad Robot are involved with.
JJ isn’t their guy.
Most definitely JJ Abrams will be involved because he makes Star Trek movies that Millennials want to see, Millennials don’t want to see Cerebral with Deep though provoking things they want to see Big Action packed movies a TV series.
The Movies and Show will still remain the separate no matter what.
Probably but expect to see Discovery showrunners working on both at some point in the future.
We already have that with Alex Kurtzman. He wrote Into Darkness, my favorite ST movie to date.
Exactly. The talent is already in place. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets the job to oversee all aspects of Star Trek.
I was really hopeful season two would be longer than a handful of episodes, really disappointed it’s only 13. Now I can only hope each episode will be at least 45 minutes each – please no 28 minute eps!