Anson Mount’s time as Captain Christopher Pike on Star Trek: Discovery was so well-received that he is now set to lead his own series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. But Mount isn’t just going to be seeking out new life and new civilizations on TV, he is doing it IRL as well.
Mount joins METI
Today METI, the scientific organization devoted to Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence, announced that actor Anson Mount has joined its Board of Directors. The star of the upcoming Paramount+ series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds said in a statement:
“It is a distinct privilege to be asked to join the outstanding scientists, artists, and innovators that make up the METI team. I look forward to helping this organization expand its footprint in our cultural landscape and educate the general public about our endeavors to connect with extraterrestrial intelligence through scientific methods as we continue to grapple with the implications of this work. As a Starfleet Captain, it brings me unbridled joy to be able to say that I am actually sending out a hail.”
Anson Mount
San Francisco-based METI was founded in 2015 to expand the scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). While other SETI organizations only listen for signals from advanced civilizations, METI reverses the process by sending powerful, intentional signals to nearby stars in the hope of prompting a reply. “If other civilizations are simply listening, and not transmitting, we’ll never make contact if we limit ourselves to standard SETI strategies,” said Douglas Vakoch, President of METI. “We’re delighted to welcome Anson to METI’s leadership team as we continue to reach out to other worlds, letting them know we want to make first contact.”
UPDATE: Anson Mount shared TrekMovie’s story with a message about joining METI and a promise of more to come.
https://twitter.com/ansonmount/status/1328737135189487621
The following video offers more insights into METI, including their efforts to communicate with Trappist 1.
For more information about METI visit meti.org.
Keep up with Star Trek celebrity news at TrekMovie.com.
Great news indeed, he is perfect. This means a lot for the franchise too.
Captain Pike is the Captain Picard for our time after Picard morphed into Stewart unfortunately! Looking forward to the adults taking over the reign again in SNW after the (still) emotionally out of control looney house that is Discovery!
Hold your horses, it’s way.. waaaay too early to make that conclusion.
He was the only watchable part of Discovery season 2 along with Spock and Number One. And Discovery is re-descending deep into soap opera again ever since they left. So thats what I’m going by to make that conclusion.
Of course Akiva & Gang are free to hijack these characters again like Picard, Seven, Icheb, Hugh and Maddox on Picard. But this time, it would be their own sandbox they are defiling so I’m somewhat hopeful!
Is it possible that they simply are so trapped by their approach that all of these various creatives involved canNOT transcend and deliver something approaching quality, even when superior elements like Mount are in place? David Gerrold talked about hardening of the creative arteries on a TV series over 45 years back, but how does that apply to a franchise, especially one that seems to coast on its laurels instead of earning them? (not just picking on the current folk here, felt the same about much of TNG and as much as I could stomach of VOYAGER and ENTERPRISE.)
I think the Pike series was exactly the place where CBS (and now maybe Par?) should step in and take the shiny new toy away and give it to somebody more deserving (i.e., competent-to-brilliant.) Akiva and the Kurtz could have taken bows for intro’ing Pike back in without taking brickbats for trashing them, so a win-win (and something that would probably get me to actually pay to watch the series — as I’m wont to do with THE MANDALORIAN — something I’m not about to do with any of this CBS Trekish stuff to date, instead just catching up when there is a free week.)
Now it may be that somebody will reevaluate at some point and bring in some jiuicy hot blood, but tptb shouldn’t assume that every new TREK series will get x-number of seasons to develop its spacelegs — it’d be a real shame if Pike fell prey to the failings of its creatives, which has to be considered a genuine possibility given that this show is supposed to be somewhat more standalone-episodic in nature, which in my mind mandates an even higher standard for storytelling than the one this current batch of shows is utterly failing to meet (have not seen the cartoon, so that doesn’t weigh as part of this opinion.)
Decades back, I read in a couple places that GR and team put together a list of popular or at least well-worn SF premises before s1 TOS to give to writers to say, ‘don’t pitch these.’ I’m thinking that kind of list would probably instead prove to be creative fuel for the current team, since they could figure, ‘this already works, let’s just shoehorn in our guys’ (sort of how TOS itself did with middling results with non-genre stories in THE GALILEO 7 [Flight of the Phoenix] and BALANCE OF TERROR [The Enemy Below.]
Picard morphed into Stewart long before STP, that started with Nemesis and that idiotic dune buggy scene. That was all Patrick’s doing lol….might still be the dumbest scene ever for the franchise.
I didn’t have an issue with it. What else do you want? Picsrd, Data and Worf on motorcycles waltzing around a desert surrounded by fluorescent trees and an orange desert lol?
Are those my only choices?
“might still be the dumbest scene ever for the franchise.”
Joystick
Pretty sure several scenes from Generations would also qualify.
Maybe in a movie, but, ahem… “We reach.”
“I can’t get used to having a woman on the bridge.”
I think we could do this all day…..
Understandably, maybe he was thinking of Borderline Burnham ;)
Nah, pretty sure that was the object of Roddenberry’s itch sitting at the helm. That aside, Burnham really does seem to be an obsession with you, doesn’t it?
It’s hard to miss or ignore her, being front and center in every Discovery episode*, no? You lose the ensemble, you lose the opportunity to satisfy a great diversity of fans.
*3×02 being the one exception to the rule
That’s a weak rationale – It’s hard to miss William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Avery Brooks, Kate Mulgrew, and Scott Bakula in their respective shows, as well, all were the top of billing stars.. You’re citing a preference, not a rule. TNG didn’t need more Wesley Crusher, or more Chekov in TOS. It’s just as easy to argue that ensemble casts weaken the product, simply because it takes way to much time to bring a story into focus if you’re sharing screen time with to many secondary characters…
Yeah, if anything, Discovery is a little too crowded at this point. We get whole episodes with no Culber or no Reno, because you can’t squeeze them all in.
So cringeworthy.
Hear, hear!
I’m still going with “Threshold” and those Warp 10 sex slugs for that one.
Y’know, they could have saved it very simply. When I first saw the stills of it, I thought, well they’re just going to paint out the wheels afterward and make it a hover vehicle, so you have the fun of a car chase — including all the jostling — without the retrograde anachronism. But NOOOOOOO!
Then again, we’re talking about NEM. a movie that for my money has an even dumber scene, when SCIMITAR manages to dislodge the E-e by just putting their ship in reverse, which should have just pulled them backward through space together. A far more exciting and dynamic scene that would have been at least slightly accurate technically would have involved them firing port thrusters in one direction and starboard in another, then alternating, as they unwedge themselves with thumps and grinds from Enterprise. But, again … NOOOOOO!
And you’ve got the dramatic finale with Picard and Data, where Data should have told Picard, ‘Captain, shut up,’ as he sacrifices himself, echoing the Captain’s saying the same to him at the start of the film, but with a much different context, one of love. But, one more time now … insert my favorite N-word here-000000!
NEMESIS … another shining example of John Logan’s inability to create anything of value — ON HIS OWN without the benefit of rewrites from others — that doesn’t crib from heaven knows how many other sources. (and yeah, I consider SKYFALL to be one of the absolutely worst films in the Bond franchise, and feel that’s ALL on him. Really would have liked to read Peter Morgan’s notions for the film, as I guess the only thing that carried over was killing M.)
G Roddenberry would be SO proud……! As are we all. From a Trekkie from way back in the 1960s who continues to enjoy all of the spinoff series’ based off TOS, thanks, Anson: you really are boldly going….. Hey: perhaps the U.S. Military will seek you out to offer you the honor of christening the new aircraft carrier USS Enterprise CVN 80 when she’s launched at the Newport News, Va. shipyards in about 5 more years…… that would be a total, crowning achievement in Star Trek lore!
Thanks for the info on the Enterprise. I don’t suppose they considered CVN 65-A as the registry?
All new class vessel than the 60-series ships: this one is a new version of the Ford Class vessels. This website about the new ship has a reference to Star Trek: https://www.thefordclass.com/cvn-80/
It’s a different model: a suped-up variation of the Ford Class vessels. I’d LOVE to see Anson and/or any of the ‘Trek captains (Shatner, Bakula) perform that duty!
If one of the first transmissions an alien civilization picks up is a broadcast of The Apprentice, we’re doomed.
Broadly, though, congratulations. It’s nice to be recognized for your efforts.
Right! They’d probably mistake us for those silly copper aliens from Journey to Babel!
lol I see what you did there
So he’s insane
Insane? Sending out a message to possible aliens sounds logical to me. Astronomers continue to find more and more exoplanets, so Drake’s Equation may be more true than Fermi’s Paradox. We have been sending out radio waves since 1900, which have reached about 15,000 stars so far. Much less than the 100 billion in our galaxy, but still.
You don’t want to be contacting those guys. Trust me.
I’ll need a sample of your blood for testing now…
They’re already here…!
You say that as if you know something we do not. Do you know of a specific alien threat? Of course, I do not expect you to answer affirmatively if you do. But it is interesting.
But here is my take: aliens have never been to Earth. If aliens within our “radio-sphere” have received our transmissions, I am fairly certain they will respond and that response has not arrived to Earth yet.
Any civilization that has progressed to a point to be able to send and receive radio signals would be more like Vulcans or Bajorans and less like Klingons.
No one uses radio communications anymore. Too slow.
I believe it was the late Professor Hawking who cautioned about being in too big a rush to actually make contact. If an alien society has the ability to get here quickly, it could be a tragic mistake to just assume they are peaceful….
Pretty sure any reasonably intelligent aliens will have their spam blocker turned on. They don’t want to hear about expiring warranties either.
I’ve been watching the 2019 War of the Worlds series (France-UK co-production).
It’s sufficiently grim, to make one hesitate.
When I read the “we’re intentionally sending messages” part of the organization’s mission States, I immediately thought of the scene on WoW where the radio astronomer grieves having chosen a piece of music that the alien attackers play back as they decimate the human population.
Yeah, it would be unfortunate if “We come in peace” loosely translated becomes “We’ll cut you to pieces”….
Stephen Hawking was right. It’s a bad idea to shout into the darkness if you have no idea what’s silently staring back at you.
It’s also naive to assume that intelligence and technological advancement automatically correlate with pacifism and empathy towards those regarded as outsiders and/or weaker. Human history all over the world has a long, tragic track record to the contrary. Along with that, the most intelligent land-based animals on Earth (including humans) are all group-based predators, with the dynamics of hunting apparently being major drivers in the historical evolution of such intelligence, and throughout recorded human history technological advances have repeatedly been accelerated by warfare.
Sure, we may get lucky, and any aliens that we contact will be benevolent towards us or, at least, be so much more technologically advanced than us that they don’t regard us as enough of a hostile threat to wish to harm us. But nobody should take that for granted or make any reckless assumptions about what may be truly “alien” psychology in all senses of the term.
Aliens are out there!
Activating X-Files subroutine… ;)
Very cool! He’ll be such a great spokesman.
No he’s clueless. Whitley Strieber Is the guy you want.
🤦♂️🤦♀️