Star Trek: Picard is a hot topic again, thanks to the recent release of the final season on Blu-ray and DVD and the upcoming Picard Legacy box set in November. TrekMovie had a chance to talk to Picard production designer Dave Blass about those home video releases and his work on the series in an All Access Star Trek podcast interview we will post closer to the Legacy box set release. We also talked to Blass about another “Legacy,” the Star Trek: Legacy series idea that showrunner Terry Matalas has envisioned as a follow-up to Picard. Blass had some thoughts on how he would approach production design if such a show ever happened, and he was quite frank that with the WGA strike now over, the time is right for Paramount to nail down Matalas.
Designing for Legacy would be like Picard, but “bigger”
The subject of Legacy came up when All Access Star Trek co-host Laurie Ulster asked Blass if he would change anything with regards to the production design if Star Trek: Legacy went into development, specifically with the USS Enterprise-G (formerly USS Titan) sets and if he would adopt the AR Wall tech used by Discovery and Strange New Worlds. Blass said he would take a bit of a hybrid approach:
“I think we would keep the same style [as seen on Picard]. And I think we would be able to do things bigger, better, cooler. I appreciate what they what they do on the on the other [Star Trek] shows. I also look at something like The Mandalorian as a good touchstone because The Mandalorian looks like it belongs in the Star Wars universe. The technology is the same. Just because they have the “Volume” (AR Wall virtual set) and the technology to do big cool things, you don’t need to change what the look of it looks like. So I would do what we did in Picard in Legacy. It should look like Star Trek. It should look like what an evolution of what Star Trek: The Next Generation would look like. Going into it, knowing that budgets are going to be tight and we’re going to do things and make use of the technology in ways that would benefit the show. So if you have to go to a new planet, maybe that’s the best way to use the Volume AR wall and expand sets. Maybe our engine room is more of a classic, Next Generation, Voyager, First Contact engine room that is a physical set that’s got height and does something like that, not a virtual set.”
Michelle Hurd as Raffi Musiker, Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut as Ensign Sidney La Forge, Mica Burton as Alandra La Forge, and Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine in Picard‘s “The Last Generation”(Paramount+)
Sign Matalas for Legacy before he is “gone”
Blass made it clear that as of now, there is no work being done for Star Trek: Legacy, adding “my phone has not rung.” He did point out that fans have responded very positively to season 3, inspiring a fan petition calling for the Legacy follow-up series. He also noted that now that the WGA strike is over (which started just two weeks after the Picard finale), Paramount is free to talk to Matalas about the show and indicated they may have limited time:
“Season 3 really knocked it out of the park with what [showrunner] Terry [Matalas] did. So I think there’s probably a lag time in terms of doing [Legacy], because you don’t just throw millions of dollars at a new show. There is budgeting and all that. I know they are working on the Starfleet Academy show and the Section 31 movie. So how that all works out, I have no idea. But at least now that the writer strike is over, they can call Terry and have a conversation. And hopefully they do. It’s insane that they have not signed him to a deal for Star Trek. Like “What is Legacy? … Go and give us a pitch and come up with something and we’re going to pay you to go do that.” So hopefully they do that because he deserves the opportunity to do another series. But if he doesn’t get that offer soon, he’s going to be gone because everyone in the world saw what he did. With all these franchises and all these things, to do what he did, to see the minutia and to set the tone right on a legacy product is the most valuable thing in the world right now. We’re seeing it with all these other franchises. To do what he did is amazing. So I hope he gets the chance to do it with Legacy and I hope to work with him again.”
Matalas has made it clear there have been no talks and there is no active Star Trek: Legacy project in development. CBS Studios and Paramount+ have made no statements about the show and it isn’t among the list of Trek projects officially in development. But in April, executive producer Alex Kurtzman, who oversees Star Trek television for Paramount, said he heard fans’ calls for a follow-up to Picard “loud and clear.”
The end of the WGA strike is a time for reassessing streaming content
If CBS and Paramount wanted to capitalize on fan interest in Legacy and ensure no other studio taps Matalas to replicate his success with Picard with another franchise (or even a new IP), then Blass is correct that the time is right to ensure Matalas stays with the Star Trek family. But with Paramount Global committed to cutting spending on streaming content, can they greenlight another live-action Star Trek series on top of Strange New Worlds, Starfleet Academy, and the Section 31 movie (which is reportedly the first of a series of made-for-streaming Star Trek movie events)? According to a report in Deadline today, streaming company slates of planned shows “underwent close examination during the strike, and industry sources expect portions of them to be released, especially projects that were in early stages.” One could speculate that with budgets tight, CBS Studios and Paramount+ may end up faced with a choice to put aside (or pause) one of the active Trek projects, like Starfleet Academy, to make room for Legacy.
There is another practical consideration as well: Matalas has made it clear that while the show would star Jeri Ryan as Captain Seven of the USS Enterprise (along with Michelle Hurd as Raffi and other “next next generation” characters), Legacy would feature a number of supporting guest stars from the various Star Trek shows, much like in season 3 of Picard. So if Star Trek: Legacy is ever going to happen, the sooner the better.
Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine, Patrick Stewart as Picard, Gates McFadden as Dr. Beverly Crusher and Jonathan Frakes as Will Riker in “The Bounty” (Paramount+)
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There has never been any indication CBS had interest in Legacy. This push for the show has all been in the fans’ heads, yet many keep acting like this is something that has been on the table and might go away. It’s not a real thing and never was, outside of online fan discussions and Matalas’s “this would be cool” interview comments. And honestly, I’m kind of glad. Let Picard season three be how that story ends.
Agreed, it’s a pipe dream.
More like a pipe bomb 💣
Disagreed, it’s a wonderful dream of an idea.
Why? You’re that desperate to see more Raffi or Sidney LaForge?
Yeah, I think the nostalgia train can only go so far – and I wonder if some folks pushing this assume TNG, Voyager and DS9 cast members will play a big part.
I’m assuming it will be Seven, Raffi, Jack, and a few guest spots here and there.
I think you’re right though. At some point you have to create some new characters.
Isn’t every modern Star Trek series a nostalgia train apart from Discovery seasons 3 and 4.
I’m interested in seeing Terry Matalas run another Trek show, because he gets it. If that’s Legacy or anything else, I’m in. It’s not the specific concept… it’s the show runner’s understanding of Trek that I endorse. Hell.. let him take over SNW and that would be enough for me.
100% agree
Genuinely curious… strip away all the nostalgia, all of the fan service, all of the easter eggs, references and cameos like Ro, Shelby, Tuvok, the Borg Queen. Get rid of all that, so it’s just a story about a Starfleet crew taking on the Changelings/Borg.
How is that any different in style to what, for example, Discovery is doing?
Matalas may very well “understand” Trek but his only method of showing it appears to be to give fans so many feels via the cheap fanservice mentioned above. Matalas knows what how to get ratings and buzz that’s for sure. Does he know how to genuinely push Trek FORWARDS instead of constantly looking back to a time when Trek was good? I think not.
The whole thing about the fan service and nostalgia is that it’s done with purpose. There is a reason, and it feels earned. When he brought back the changelings, he gave them a purpose and used their unique features to drive story. He didn’t set aside things about the Borg that were canonical just so he could use them. It all felt organic. It made sense that when they got to Daestrom Station, that all that fan service stuff would be there. What he didn’t do, was take a species that we had seen before, and alter them to the point that they don’t resemble what had been established. He didn’t put said species into a place in the story that makes no sense for them to be there because Trek history tells us it doesn’t make sense. He didn’t come in and use the Borg and change them to his vision simply because he wanted to. Goldsman and Meyers did exactly that with the Gorn. There is no reason they couldn’t have made the Gorn in SNW a whole new species. THAT is why having a show runner that knows, understand and respects Trek and it’s canon is important. Terry used Canon to enrich the story being told.. precisely why you wouldn’t strip those things away. They matter to the story being told. In many cases, they’re essential because you can’t tell the story as compellingly as without them. Strip away all that from SNW’s Gorn stories (among others) and you can tell the exact same story, and it won’t matter.
PERFECTLY stated.
Your point on the Gorn, I agree with, but bringing back Shelby, or Tuvok, or Ro Laren was neither done with a story purpose, nor felt earned. They were all in a handful of scenes that didn’t advance the story in the slightest. It was all done for cheap fan service, like 99% of the rest of the season. I ask again, take all of that away and what’s left? A poorly thought out story that flip flops between two baddies for no reason and idiotic action scenes like you saw in the finale.
those characters being present gave gravitas to much of those circumstances. Ro could have been a different legacy character, perhaps, but make that some random new character and you don’t have as clear an understanding of why she’d make her sacrifice. Her relationship to Picard was key.. Tuvok was there for Seven to be able to have enough familiarity with him to figure out he was lying. They have history. Shelby could have been a rando, but is better for having her there. The only true cameo, but one thst still makes sense.
You can find reasons for any legacy character to appear. Obviously they’re going to have *some* purpose that fits in with the story. It doesn’t mean it’s good writing. I forgot Moriarty and Lore. Abandoning Data’s “for real this time” death, or the Borg Queen showing up yet again, abandoning Q’s death which literally happened a season ago. The whole season was a mess. Fans love it because all of the nostalgia, but it was a mess. One that will age terribly in years to come.
Couldn’t agree more, aside from the fourth episode, which I thought a clear winner.
“Idiotic action scenes…” You mean like on Discovery?
Not sure if you are defending the new Trek shows over PIC s3 or if you are just being hyper critical about PIC s3 but this season was a send-off for TNG. It was advertised as such.
In there, we saw the birth of the Farpoint aliens (in the nebula) and harnessing that power to break free of the gravitational field of said nebula… That was a very Star Trek idea as opposed to Discovery where characters stand around and wait for Michael Burnham to save the day with rotating camera angles and empty dialog. -Or SNW, where Pike can’t ever be assertive and Spock is comic relief…
In the latter, the showrunners cherry pick past Trek episodes that were “good” in their day and then insert their shallow stories over those past ideas & concepts.
That’s I think why Terry Matalas’ s3 resonated with Trek fans so well, he tapped into the rich and wonderful reservoir of established Trek and worked ‘from it’ as opposed to the other modern shows that simply refer to past Trek and rely on it.
And yes I see how that might seem ironic to say as s3 of PIC had a lot of nostalgia in it… But s3 felt like it was pushing a story forward to the next level (to Star Trek Legacy perhaps) instead of wallowing in past references the way SNW, Discovery and Lower Decks have done.
I feel very sorry for people who are watching something like star trek and unreasonable have to see (well known and beloved) star trek characters/actors – Must be a true shock and really bad feeling for some people.
I prefer not to see senior citizens pretend to be action heroes
Then I guess there are two solutions here; 1. Everyone who’s 60+ (if you not consider this to high) should stop acting in roles they, and many fans, like and love, in order to fit into your age-behavior-pattern.
Or second: If you don’t want to watch that – don’t watch that.
I think we need a ‘Logan’s run solution’. You know what I’m talking about. 😏
No I actually don’t know what you r talk about 😅
@emily and @heyberto, you guys are two of the most insightful posters on Trekmovie.com recently, so a big “thank you” for posting this substantive debate.
On the narrow question of nostalgia worked in P3, I agree with Heyberto. A degree of nostalgia was appropriate for the swansong of a much-beloved series. (That said, in the second half of the season, Matalas laid it on far too thick, and there’s just no way that the “Enterprise” was anything other than its sister ship overlaid with some hull plating recovered from Veridian III and some recovered furnishings from key places, like the bridge.) But they did justice to the TNG characters, and they handled Picard getting his mojo back masterfully. He deserves a happy retirement.
However, on the broader question of whether P3 serves as proof of concept for “Legacy,” on balance, I vote no. True, Matalas is the most promising candidate for showrunner (other than Chabon, in fairness) to come along recently, but beyond getting the band back together, the plot made little sense. Amanda Plummer was wasted as a mustache-twirler. Her gang of changelings behaved nothing like changelings — and while there *might* have been explanations for that, Matalas proffered none.
I’m just wholly uninterested in a “kids of Star Trek” show. Jack Crusher was a fine foil for his father in P3; I think he’s a lot less interesting as a stand-alone character. Ditto, more or less, for Sydney LaForge, and her on-screen sister was only there for stunt casting. I do like Seven as captain, and I liked the character of Raffi, but a captain should never, ever have an ex as first officer; yes, sometimes you break real-world rules for good drama, but this is another example of a carrying that a bridge too far.
I loved Kestra from P1, but like Jake Sisko, I don’t see her as carrying on her family’s Starfleet service. Soji, the one really compelling “Star Trek kid”, appears to have been discarded.
The only way this really works is for Seven to build a new crew up from scratch, maybe with Riker filling in as the new captain’s CO, in the way Nechayev did. And admittedly, Matalas did create some solid new characters, like Shaw and T’Veen, but mostly killed them off.
Now, I agree that LEGACY would be a finer contribution to Star Trek than the academy drivel we’re likely to get; but “it’s better than the alternative” isn’t exactly a compelling case for an expensive streaming product.
The TNG playboook — move a century in the future, jettison the nostalgia — is the way to go.
Great post. I do not mean to suggest that every choice was perfectly executed.. but I do think its overalluse is supported and the source material honored. It treats nostalgia with reverence. It was great fun for a swan song of the TNG cast. If we are to get Legacy, it would need to use less of it, for sure, and develop the new characters and spring forward. It’s a good basis for that.
I couldn’t disagree more frankly. And it’s funny you use Daystrom Station, because that was the least organic use of nostalgia in all of modern Trek, including every episode of Lower Decks. Moriarty especially was only used so that they could put him in the trailer. All the legacy characters outside the TNG cast come back to make a cameo in the season, then die once they’ve outlived their usefulness (but not REALLY die, just give us the emotions of what that might feel like without actually doing it). There’s no reason to bring back Data other than so that he can have a goodbye with Geordi.There’s no reason to bring back Q, other than to undermine the end of season 2 (basically the part of it that was good) for no reason. The Changelings essentially disappear to defer to the Borg, which on top of being overused, on top of essentially ignoring the canon just created with them in the previous season, exists for no other reason than to create a final resolution between Picard and the Borg, for nostalgia.
I’m fine to ignore seasons 1 & 2 of Picard. They were some of the worst television I have ever seen… Sir Patrick Stewart is a great actor but wow- does he NOT understand Star Trek or it’s impact. He’s egotistical and seasons 1 & 2 were blatant vanity projects for him.
And Alex Kurtzman & Akiva Goldsman positively share in that. -Michael Chabon as well…
Talk about shows not aging well, seasons 1 & 2 will fade into nothingness.
I do agree that season 2 especially was really bad, but I’d prefer shows move forward than spend time trying to reverse bad things, and this entire season felt so preoccupied with doing that it became distracting.
Also I’d be better receptive to that if it replaced those things with anything good, but I didnt like season 3 either (and in some ways liked it less) so it just makes the entire series fall on it’s face. If seasons 1 and 2 did things poorly, then season 3 reversed half of them and it’s additions were just nostalgia, then the entire Picard series is a genuine waste of time to watch.
I happen to agree with all of that, yet it’s not a deal-killer for me, as I’m not one to capitalize ‘canon,’ signifying on my list of priorities as to what constitutes great Trek or even effective storytelling. So far, SNW for me has been a fun ride, certainly capitalizing on its charm at the expense of other things it should be doing better. But strip away the nostalgia and Matalas’ genuine love of franchise lore and so far I haven’t seen any reason to assume that he would do any better.
Take away all the Avengers of an Avengers movie, take away all the cars from a fast and furious movie, take away superman from a superman movie.. I think there’s a logical error on how you understand why something like – fans- are even existing.
You can’t be serious. What a terrible argument. Deep Space Nine barely has any fan service or references to past Trek and it stands on its own two feet. Does Picard S3? Or does it rely almost exclusively on past Trek? The answer is obvious.
You seem to have forgotten that DS9 literally brought over a series regular from TNG and made him part of the crew (Worf). The character background for two of its main characters was rooted in the events of Best of Both Worlds (Ben and Jake Sisko).
It’s true that DS9 and VOY both told separate stories but they certainly referenced characters and events from the other TNG era shows and also from TOS (like the TOS Klingons brought back in DS9).
The amount of callbacks was certainly not comparable to Picard season 3 but that was basically another season of TNG just made almost 30 years later.
Ok, so the ds9 uniforms are star trek style heavily influenced by the tng designs and also offsprings from the original series of course. The ships are design offsprings of star trek tng designs. The spirit is an offspring of tng and tos star trek. Two main characters (Obrien and Worf) are from tng. Things like phasers, tricorders etc are offsprings of tng and tos. Alien races are heavily from tng and tos. The list goes on… BUT for sure ds9 is standing FULLY on it’s own feeds 😒 … It’s more then obvious that ds9 is heavily influenced by trek that came before even if it’s a “own” show! And you are criticizing a – TNG- follow up show like PIC S3 was that it’s obviously influenced by.. well.. TNG. Alright. 😌
The idea of Star Trek as being about a bunch of characters and not as being about a universe is extremely depressing.
I mean the universe would be pretty boring without any characters in it. But I do agree that Star Trek does not need to centre around the same characters (or offspring of characters) again and again. It’s not the Skywalker saga.
I know you’re a serious person, so I ask this with respect: what, based on his work on Season 3, is it that you think he ‘gets’?
I felt what he did was put together a good, fun Star Trek novel but for the screen.
I think that’s a lot different from producing the episodic stories Star Trek is really known for and I don’t think it’s a reliable predictor of how well a Matalas-run show would do that.
I love em both. This would be a great new series!
Pretty much, but Strange New Worlds came about much the same way. With the strike, the idea hasn’t really had a chance.
I expect its not going to happen, but I don’t think it’s a pipe dream either.
Also, SNW was greenly during an unprecedented growth for the streaming platforms. That’s all over now. I don’t expect it will get greenly unless it replaces something already running or in development. I think there will be 2 live action shows going forward, and those are already earmarked.
Greenlit. Not “greenly.”
The exact same thing could be said of Strange New Worlds, and that fan push ended wonderfully.
Exactly!
I don’t think it ended so wonderfully. Anson’s portrayal of Pike in D2 was indeed wonderful. In SNW, particularly SNW2, it’s much less so. The character is Johnny-One-Note with his cooking, his hands-off leadership style,and his walking around everywhere with a dopey grin.
The same is true of Spock; he’s mostly descended into hijinx, light sitcommy material, and superficial relationship drama.
The whole thing looks more and more like a textbook example of why fan input ought NOT to drive decisionmaking at the studios. As Steve Jobs said, you don’t cater to fans; you produce products that no one knew they wanted.
SNW Season 2 was definitely a step down from Season 1 (though it certainly wasn’t bad, just not great like S1), but I certainly wouldn’t chalk that up to fan input. SNW came about as a result of a fan campaign, but beyond that I doubt the writers took to much fan input into consideration when they wrote show. If anything, S2 seemed to go against a lot of what fans wanted (an emotional Spock, a musical episode – which was great BTW, more Gorn nonsense, etc.)
It’s possible season 3 might end up benefiting from the strike. I think now writers are back at work they might get more time to finesse, rather than trying to keep up with production as they do normally. That assumes the studio doesn’t try and delay until everyone is back to save money.
SNW season 2 with it’s wonderful soap opera relationships and witty sit com genius. Could it get any better, you bet, they nailed it with the Disney musical with some of the greatest pop music and dancing we could hope for in a science fiction series.
Who would of thought Star Trek could get this good.
Sarcasm aside the writers have no idea why Spock is such a loved character played wonderfully by Nimoy over the years, they are destroying him, the less said about what they are doing to Pike the better.
Completely agree.
And we should move on from the showrunners simply “catering to the fans,” it’s totally ok to blame them and their schlock sensibilities… Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman don’t actually “create” anything. Their work is always based on someone else’s established works. They don’t have the capacity to come up with original ideas.
Just look at their filmographies and credits. Neither of them come up with their own stories, they always take someone else’s.
So… Star Trek as a franchise was always about forging forward, rarely looking back, unless there was reason to.
Today’s Trek can’t stop acting like that old Chris Farley character… “remember when Kirk stole the Enterpise from spacedock…?
……That was SO COOL….”
(Like SNW ep1 or 2 when goofy Spock steals the Enterprise to save Khan’s great great niece from a Klingon thing… oh who cares…)
This is what modern Star Trek is: a self referential snooze-fest focusing on past Trek story beats framed in a soap opera who’s effing who setting.
It’s just not that good. Period.
More fans loved Picard Season 3 compared to ANY previous Kurtzman era shows to date. If Paramount want to lose those fans again and in turn their money. So be it, they won’t get another chance to jump on the positive momentum generated by the universally praised S3. They will not with SNW or a Discoverse Academy show.
*Shrug* Paramount’s loss.
Duplicate – please delete
More fans loved Picard Season 3 compared to ANY previous Kurtzman era shows to date. Even with those that had washed their hands of the franchise. That’s truly amazing.
If Paramount want to lose those fans again and in turn their money. So be it, they won’t get another chance to jump on the hugely positive momentum generated by PIC S3 and Matalas et al (I think the petition is now over 62,000?).
I bet all the latinum in the quadrant, the new Discoverse shows S31 or Academy will not galvanise the fanbase like a Legacy series headed by Matalas and his team.
Makes you wonder if it’s jealousy from Akiva Goldsman and Team Kurtzman stopping this??? 🤔
*Shrug* Either way, Paramount’s loss.
Well. SNW is putting up just as good of numbers as Picard S3 did on the streaming ratings. So there is no reason for them to upend their current slate in favor of a new show. Ratings, not petitions, drive decisions.
Duplicate – please delete
SNW came about to take away the bad taste of the overly pessimistic Discovery. Shame it’s becoming TOS 2.0 more than an actual Pike and crew show.
Also SNW was a petition show – with to note, far less signees than Legacy:
https://trekmovie.com/2023/04/26/star-trek-legacy-fan-petition-surpasses-one-preceding-strange-new-worlds/
The problem now is timing. Back then, they had a built in spin off on a franchise they were trying to grow, and had been empowered to do so by the studio. Now, it’s contracting. SNW shows us that Picard’s numbers weren’t exactly an anomaly, that all Trek shows probably all do about the same. A petition alone is not going to be enough in today’s environment. All a petition shows is that enough devotees love it, and it’s going to take a wider general audience to justify making. It’s that simple. It doesn’t hurt, if all other market research holds up, but you can’t use a petition as the sole metric, you have to look at the overall situation and market right now, and its just not favorable for green lighting it, I’m afraid.
They also presumably had a pitch they felt would work with Strange New Worlds. There is no guarantee of one for Legacy – right now they have a setting and some characters fans like (and who knows if those actors will necessarily sign on?).
I genuinely think this is a big reason Legacy wont be happening. If the entire fanbase of Legacy is trying to have an adversarial relationship with the rest of modern Trek, saying they wont watch or support anything else, it probably makes more business sense to continue with a consistent fanbase that has broader taste than one that is essentially asking you to stop everything and completely start over the franchise (which is a common take in PIC S3 circles) and making up rumors of showrunners being jealous of each other just so that they will watch.
That and it’s probably expensive to pay for all the inevitable cameos
I expect $$$ is one of the reasons the Academy show is more attractive on Paramount’s side of things. Younger actors can’t command as high a salary, they’ll likely be doing less in the way of travel to strange new worlds, so simpler sets, etc.
If this were back when SNW was being called for by fans after Disco S2, it would happen. I don’t see CBS green lighting additional content right now for Trek. Disco was cancelled.. it was not a planned ending. No one is saying it, but there is probably a 2 live action show limit at this point, and it’s going to be SNW and the Academy show. That’ll be it for awhile. I’d settle for a Legacy movie on P+, though. That might make some sense.
That’s just not true. Matalas has discussions with Kurtzman about a Legacy series, and there was momentum before the strike. That’s a fact.
Sure it is old fella.
Star Trek: Legacy doesn’t have to be about the continuation of the TNG Characters, but rather new adventures of legendary offspring, from TNG, DS9, and Voyager, in addition to the legacy starship bearing the name Enterprise.
actually, I think it’s mostly about the crew of the Titan (ne’ Enterprise), with some appearances by older legacy characters.
Sounds boring
No thanks. Overwhelming numbers of fans want this. You don’t have to watch
Good!
Why?
Because I want Star Trek, not Star Wars pretending to be Star Trek.
Picard Season 3 was Star Wars pretending to be Star Trek for you? Interesting take.
The last two eps were essentially a Trek version of Return of the Jedi.
Eh, to each their own. I very much enjoyed PIC season 3 and would love for a Legacy spin-off. We’ll see what happens.
I liked it when Data flew the falcon into the death star and the whole thing exploded with just a couple of shots at its most vulnerable design flaw.
That whole sequence was idiotic. Including the bit where the Enterprise literally flies above their heads to save the day. Nostalgia/fan service overdose. Brent Spiner’s performance was pretty cringeworthy too.
Yeah I felt the same way every time he opened his mouth. Season three was such a disappointment to me. I just finished the season last week because of how cringey it was. The first two seasons were the best.
That entire sequence was indeed completely absurd. I think I even mentioned to my friends I was watching it with at the time that Star Trek just had its very own Star Wars moment. But it was a moment, and nothing more. And despite its absurdity, it was a very fun sequence, and dare I say even a bit earned for the TNG crew.
It was a pretty big moment though. You put that next to the absurdity of the fleet firing in sync with each other and the whole last episode was ridiculous in its entirety. “Fire. Fire. Fire. Fire.” *facepalm*
The same could be said for Top Gun Maverick
And the point of bringing that up is?
LOL
Lol, exactly!
That and there’s this channel, mollie and the old man, pointing out close similarities to the RDM’s Battlestar Galactica, especially how the changelings act like Cylons
Thanks I’ll check it out
I would have zero problem with them cancelling/halting the 32nd century Academy show to make room for Legacy. Zero!
The only way I’m interested in any Academy show is if it’s in the Next Next Generation era. They could even make it part of the Legacy show. No easier way to bring on board Legacy characters than to do it as professors of Starfleet Academy.
This is the way.
I don’t know.
I have to agree. The Starfleet Academy show seems like something an executive dreamed up to “appeal to younger viewers,” while not understanding that young people who watch shows just because they’re full of other young people generally aren’t the sort who watch “Star Trek” in the first place. It’s just not going to draw in that demographic.
Meanwhile it sounds like “Picard” season 3 has been the highest rated streaming Trek series so far. Are the execs at Paramount so “damn the torpedoes” on their current slate that they don’t want to capitalize on its success?
Maybe it’s time for an actual old-school letter-writing campaign?
Someone, somewhere in the Trek universe, obviously has a thing for this, since it keeps coming back. But even before this new iteration of the idea, whenever the “Academy” concept — just the basic concept — comes back around again, I’ve never heard anyone on this side of the TV screen express any real enthusiasm for it.
Never? Seriously?
Huh, I just looked backed on a couple past Trekmovie articles on this topic and I saw a number of people who were enthusiastic on it? Not many, but nevertheless well above the zero number you claim.
Pay attention!
About the highest rated streaming Trek series: I think that might actually be SNW. I’ve seen more articles about it reaching the top 10 in streaming. Also a slightly higher position. Correct me if I’m wrong though.
I don’t mind them wanting to appeal more to younger viewers, because that is what is also needed. They can do that without going 100% CW. But they would have to be smart about that.
If it’s set in the 32nd century then Saru is the character I would prioritise re-using. But I’m not terribly optimistic about the idea. There’s always the possibility they have something better than expected up their sleeve though.
Yes, that’s a great idea.
Same. The Academy show does nothing for me. This is what many fans seem to want but Kurtzman has been pushing this idea for years. I’ll take this over the Adolf Section 31 show. So glad that’s just a movie now.
I believe it’s also aimed at younger viewers. They’re trying to capture a demographic, not scratch a creative itch. It’s not going to work.
A show that hasn’t even been filmed yet does nothing for you. Alert the press!
Agreed wholeheartedly. I was super excited about the 32nd century, but it’s been a bit of a bust. Unless we get very different show runners and production designers, best to just forget about the 32nd century and move on.
Nah, I can’t wait for the 32nd century Academy show, and I’m hoping for a lot of DSC guest stars on it.
Sarcasm?
No, I love DSC and have been wanting an academy series ever since Harve Bennett contemplated an academy movie in the late 1980’s/
Interesting, as based on your PIC season 3 Star Wars comparison, I would argue DIS shares far more in common with the Star Wars than anything PIC did. The spore drive would first much better in Star Wars than it does in Star Trek. And Michael Burnham has a chosen-one-esque vibe far more akin to that of Luke or Rey than anything else seen in Star Trek.
Picard S3 ripped off the storyline of Return of the Jedi and the characters all acted in similar roles in the final two eps, with a similar storyline and a damn similar ending that’s almost character for character an act for act the same . You’re just talking about surface comparisons, i’m talking about completely ripping off Star Wars.
I’m doing this against my better judgement – but please explain to me how PIC S3 ripped off the storyline of RotJ. In detail please, not just surface less stuff (like the big D destroying the Borg cube form within, or the Borg Queen sorta, kinda, acting like the Emperor).
-The Emperor in the Death Star = Borg Queen in Cube
-Luke and Vader’ struggle with each other and then overcoming Palpatine = Picard and Jack’s struggle with each other and then overcoming Borg Queen.
-The supporting mission on Endor occurring in parallel with the Death Star ending events = the supporting mission near Earth by the Titan crew
Jacks and Picards dark powers they must overcome as father and son = Vader and Luke’s dark powers they must overcome as father and son
It’s nearly the same freaking movie
This is a hilarious take and sums up exactly everything wrong with Star Trek at the moment. Fans don’t want a new, fresh show pushing the universe of Star Trek forward.
They just want nostalgia, fan service and legacy characters.
It’s so sad.
No need to ridicule other people’s wishes or wants Emily. Not a good look. You do you, but respect the fact other people may not want the same thing as you.
If all you want is nothing new, and to constantly look backwards and past Trek instead of pushing the franchise forward, then I’m sorry it’s hard not to comment.
Sorry, I commented on another one of your comments here elsewhere and I may have made assumptions about your thoughts on the franchise…
Do you feel that any of the new Trek shows has actually pushed Trek forward in any way? Because I don’t.
I would like a new show to push the franchise forward while respecting past Trek designs and historical events… And that said, I don’t want to hear or see the Gorn or Borg being retconned or brought back for a long, long time. I have no problem with stories referencing past events but with a purpose of discovering something new and different.
I liked PIC s3 because it was a farewell to TNG and because modern Trek has been a sinkhole of shallow stories and an over reliance on retelling past Trek stories or retconning characters/event for credibility… Instead of just writing good Trek stories that look forward.
There’s plenty of galaxy to explore and I feel that modern Trek shows haven’t done this at all.
Anyway, curious to hear your thoughts.
It’s not ridicule. It’s fact.
Agree with Emily, if you strip away the nostalgia overload of PS3 it was basically…not a great season; weak writing, inconsistent characterisation and a plot that didn’t quite hold together. Star Trek needs to push forward, expand and do something different and fresh if it’s to survive.
It was the weakest season. I loved the first two seasons. The third was just a remixed rehash of what I’ve seen before in the past.
So you would then prefer an Academy series based in the future, correct? It will have everything you want… a series in the future with no ties to past Trek. Pushing the franchise forward with new aliens joining Starfleet… new baddies… no areas to explore. Basically starting fresh.
Yes please. That would be great.
Seems they want cheesy sitcom relationships and cringe pop music that SNW season 2 is producing. Lighter Trek and who cares about good storytelling or destroying good legacy characters.
The vocal obsessive fans on the internet are everything that’s wrong with Star Trek.
The majority would rather see Academy or S31 scrapped, Hell! I’d even scrap SNW. Sick of prequels and the future of the franchise should be the 25th Century.
Yep.
A fringe minority fan speaking for the majority of fans. Thanks for the laugh 😆. Sorry to tell you but we want Academy and Section 31.
Same.
I was going to say almost exactly this. The 32nd Century Academy show holds no interest for me (but of course, I’ll watch). I don’t think that timeframe has been shown to be a compelling place, and they only have 3 years of Discovery’s last seasons to build upon. (Seasons 3 and 4, and eventually 5.) Compare that to 525+ episodes of lore and characters from TNG, DS9, and Voyager… so many options for cameos. Professor O’Brien? Guest Lecturer Barclay? Commandant Janeway?
And yes, I know: any show, be it Legacy or the Academy show, needs to stand on its own, not just twirking for nostalgia. But why not build on that rich legacy while those actors are still with us?
Won’t happen. Stick with watching reruns.
Blass is a terrific interview, so I expect to hear some good stuff. He also knows how to do the zero-budget thing, which is what they had to do when to certain sets late in ps3, and I admire that tremendously. If this or any other Trek show goes forward, he’d probably be my pic for PD, just because he knows how to do the ingenuity thing as well as the big molded sheets of plastic that everybody else passes off as design in recent years on Trek. (I think I’d like his work more if he was doing something like FIREFLY, which really needed a smarter head to do the junk-ship look with respect to instrumentation.)
Star Trek has ALWAYS needed someone with a vision to lead it, and here he is. If The powers that be don’t see that then they are blind. If they don’t act on it before someone else snags Matalis up then they are fools.
What “vision” does Matalas have? Apart from sledgehammering in as much fan service and nostalgia as possible? Let’s be clear, that’s all he did in Picard S3 and that’s why fans love him. The actual production itself was a mess.
Truth
LOL 😂 His vision is 30 years out of date.
I want it to happen but I’m not sure it will. It doesn’t feel like CBS has it in mind. I miss classic Star Trek. I miss the way Rick Berman, Brannon Braga and others told sci fi stories. I want to see a continuance of that universe. However, if it never happens, I’m OK regarding S3 Picard as the official end of the Star Trek story.
Interesting. I personally am now considering DEMONS the official end of the Star Trek Story. The JJ films (and I actually enjoyed them) & Secret Hideout stuff are merely reboots. The original Trek universe has ended.
Berman Trek wasn’t Classic Star Trek.
The sad truth is Paramount Global is hemorrhaging money. If the streaming service, which is about to raise its fee again according to Bob Bakish yesterday, can’t grow revenue, the odds are against adding an expensive show like LEGACY. I think Paramount should look at adding LEGACY to its primetime schedule on CBS. That way it can live on a network, get ad revenue there, and also run on Paramount + for those who have cut the cord.
That won’t get subs to P+. Most who cut their cords still have antennas. If Legacy is on the traditional over the air CBS network most cord cutters will still see it there rather than add yet another streaming service.
Your LEGACY fan w**k show would be canceled the next day after it aired on CBS.
I would be up for a Legacy show but i don’t want Matalas anywhere near anymore Trek shows. The work he did on 12 Monkeys was great but with Picard S3 he failed imo as the season imo was nothing great and used way to much nostalgia as a crutch to keep it from completely failing.
Don’t get me wrong it was great having/seeing the TNG crew again and the Enterprise D but story-wise it wasn’t great and in a lot of parts it didn’t make sense.
I was tired of the Borg being the big bad again and the Changelings while at first were interesting didn’t feel menacing as they did in DS9. Then at the last 2 episodes they were basically forgotten about until the last few minutes of the series final and they’re threat was dealt with in a single quick scene.
Maybe Matalas might do a better job in a Legacy show if he makes the show stand on it’s 2 feet instead of heavily relying on referencing the past nearly every episode but we will see.
Well said!
Therein lies a huge problem with Secret Hideout Trek. The only shows that have even made it to the level of hit or miss with fans have been ones that relied very heavily on Classic & New Trek. Because of this it is super unlikely CBS will even attempt anything Trek related without a connection to the past woven in.
This actually says a lot about the competency of their production staffs. They just are incapable of making a new Trek in a new situation with new characters who rely 100% on themselves. And it started all the way back on Star Trek Discovery when they built in their Spock safety net. A huge lack of faith in their own work.
The ‘spock safety net’ is a great way of expressing it … although for me it worked more like a prison cage.
Assuming the idea they had to tie-in to the past was a mandate from management that creatives could not ignore, they could have gone a way in that would have illuminated without overwriting. So even though I’d have preferred a series with no callbacks to TOS at all — except for a general respect for continuity — a DSC where the only known entity going in was a very young Scotty could have worked because it wouldn’t have to traipse all over what we already knew.
I have no idea if the Spock safety net was management mandate or a decision made by people writing and creating the show. Either way it was an obvious “break glass in case of fire” situation. The hope was they wouldn’t have to use it probably but it was obviously there as a “go to” plot device should the show not get the traction they were hoping for. And they went there really fast. From then on every Trek production relied very heavily on what came before. Moving Star Trek Discovery to the future still had callbacks and still maintained the problems it had before the setting change. Picard obviously and even then the one episode many fans liked in it had Riker & Troi in it. Eventually they just knew what they had to do and brought the entire band back together. Lower Decks is nothing but a fangasm. Strange New Worlds keeps adding classic characters. And even Prodigy went out of their way to bring in Voyager people. Thus far there is no nu-Trek production that has no callbacks – except for being in the same universe, of course – to existing past Trek productions. To me at lease, and from what I can tell I’m not alone in this conclusion, the people writing and conceiving of these shows simply don’t have the skillset to make stand alone Trek. And is a large reasons why I strongly endorse cutting ties with Secret Hideout, holding off a few years and starting anew with hopefully more talented people.
Frankly, at this point, that looks to me to me to be the best option. They’re killing the golden goose.
Same thing happened to Star Wars and probably many other franchises I don’t follow. They’re stuck harking back to past glories. Fans don’t want anything genuinely new. They want comforting familiarity, legacy characters, easter eggs and continuity references. The very things that tend to repel potential new viewers (and the general public already tends to find Star Trek inaccessible as it is). It doesn’t bode well for the franchise creatively or commercially.
Paramount’s stated strategy was to
milk franchises for every last easy dollarfocus on franchises. If so, would make sense for them to hire Matalas who really knows the ST franchise. While they’re at it, give a development contract to Mike McMahan too.Knowing the trivia and minutia of Trek isn’t proof of being able to write good Trek (in fact, I am hard pressed to point to exactly what does, though it seemed having military experience helped in many early cases.)
I’m one of the folks who really liked most of ps3 first-run (and I’m not even a fan of TNG), but now, a couple months out from it, I can barely remember much of what I did like (mainly eps 4 & 5), just that over half of the cinematography was a mushy disaster of unprecedented proportions. The ‘what ep or film are they pilfering from tonight? game grows tiresome pretty pretty pretty quickly; even when riffing on CRIMSON TIDE, these actors are not Hackman and Washington and their characters are Starfleet, not contemporary US Navy.
I might conceivably someday rewatch select part of ps3, which is more than I can say for the first two seasons, or any of DSC, or SNW bar maybe three eps in 2 years. But giving somebody the reins on a new series should be a reward for work well done, not a desperate Hail Mary pass that might push an already-worn out nostalgia button yet another time.
Shocking, isn’t it? Star Trek is a show about a future military.
Except when the ‘creator’ sez it ain’t, like GR during his version of THE DEADLY YEARS. (insert emoticon of choice here.)
If Roddenberry had said phasers and photon torpedoes weren’t weapons would that make it so?
It’s very clear the structure of Starfleet is adapted from contemporary navies, particularly that of the US. It’s not a coincidence. The main difference is the skew towards research and exploration more than war, but even navies have scientific expeditions.
Good. All we need is yet another series looking backward. Let’s move forward with new characters, actors, concepts and stories!
That worked very well for Discovery.
I think that it is very unlikely that Legacy is going to happen. One of the biggest roadblocks has not been talked about. Salaries. The TNG cast cost a lot more than they did back in the 80’s.Especially, Patrick Stewart.
Jeri Ryan wouldn’t be cheap either.
Honestly, I’d rather see Ryan reprise her character from early (s2?) BOSCH, mainly cuz she has a major comeuppance long overdue.
The pitch for Star Trek Legacy is a show about the Enterprise-G crew shown at the end of Picard S3. None of the TNG cast would be in it. Jeri Ryan would be the most high-profile actor on the show
Legacy show is my dream!!!
I’m still very hopeful but Paramount doesn’t really have tons of money these days and Paramount+ isn’t exactly pulling in tons of people so not too surprised if it doesn’t. They can still do streaming movies. Will take that a hundred times over JJ verse.
Matalas Trek has been some of the best Trek since the 90s and what so many fans miss.
We’re not giving up yet guys! 😎🖖
I would be all for it. A show with a killer premise that looks ahead while embracing its past. Give the man a development deal to workshop it! Picard and SNW put Paramount+ in the game and frankly are cheaper than Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstones shows.
While the TrekMovie comments section is by no means representative of fandom at large, even in this small sampling one can see there’s no agreement.
Do we want a retread nostalgia show with aging (and expensive) actors? Or do we really want a new show with new actors?
Paramount gave us a new show with new actors – in fact, a cast stacked with RSC alumni, Juilliard grads, Broadway multi-award winners, and one genuine global superstar, that pushed in very different directions for Trek, aimed to become more of a grown-up serialized drama, and catapulted way past the TNG era, avoiding prequelitis, and really embraced IDIC in its casting.
While it wasn’t perfect by any means, it was pretty good, and catapulted TV Trek into the era of the prestige, cinematic look. But to read what some people say here, it was some sort of Ishtar-level disaster.
I was not a fan of Picard S3 (though it did make me miss the 1701-D’s set design), because:
So, I’m not really pining for a Star Trek: Legacy show. I’d rather see a post-Discovery show about the galaxy knitting back together after the Burn, and/or exploring beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Something that’s doing the classic Trek thing:
“Do we want a retread nostalgia show with aging (and expensive) actors? Or do we really want a new show with new actors?”
Yes!
bahaha
So, I’m not really pining for a Star Trek: Legacy show. I’d rather see a post-Discovery show about the galaxy knitting back together after the Burn, and/or exploring beyond the Milky Way galaxy. Something that’s doing the classic Trek thing.
100% agreed!
Star Trek Discovery was absolutely horrible – why throw good money after bad with a 5th season? Redirect that money to get Star Trek Legacy moving ASAP!
The fifth season of Discovery has already been shot, so whatever you think about it, it’s still coming out.
The problem with prequels / sequels, particularly when characters overlap, is that you’re limited to filling in the dots between the stuff we know happens.
The current Star Wars TV series are trying to thread that needle; Ahsoka and The Mandalorian take place about 11 years post-ROTJ, but 23 years before the Sequel Trilogy. The challenge for showrunners and writers is how to avoid a purely plot-driven mechanical series of “and then this happened, and then this happened, and then somehow, Palpatine returned.”
How do you insert characters into a historical period, that you care about, if you know they’re doomed or that nothing bad happen to them?
I think they’re doing an OK job, but you really only get the full impact of the shows if you watched The Clone Wars and Rebels, to understand character motivations and evolution after the time gap between when we last saw them and today. And it’s hard not to see this all as an attempt to redeem and add depth to the Sequel Trilogy (particularly the hash that Rise of Skywalker became, vs what it could have been).
Where the current SW series are really succeeding is with Andor, because it dares to do something different, with very few legacy characters (other than Mon Mothma), there’s no Jedi, no Sith, no Force powers. The main character is from a resolutely working-class background, he’s not a Magical Chosen One, just a guy pushed to his limits who finds purpose – sometimes driven by revenge, not always driven by higher ideals, in fact. It’s morally complicated, very human, and feels like a 1970s-era spy drama rather than a grand sci-fi epic. And that’s why it works!
For me, there’s no compelling reason for a Legacy show, unless they’re committed to doing something very different than what the Picard trilogy was, and different from SNW as well. I think it’s also because Seven, Raffi and Jack were never really fleshed out as fuller characters, they were always foils for other leads, so it’s hard to visualize them and what their paths would be.
Discovery committed to doing things very differently – different kinds of characters and casting; a different lead who initially wasn’t the captain, and someone who had made problematic choices; in telling serialized stories; and escaping the prequel trap by jumping 900 years into the future.
In that respect I think they succeeded, for whatever other things we could criticize them about, and the DMA storyline built up to a truly wondrous, almost Close Encounters type of ending, a first contact situation, that was Trek at its best.
How would Trek do an Andor?
Be a toughie, no ifs, andor buts about it …
real response coming later.
My old idea for a GEN followup limited TV series would also work as a small feature, where it would be the E-b having its lettering burned off after Harriman gets Kirk killed. Crew are scattered, in disgrace over association with Harriman, who knows no matter what he does to redeem himself in the future he will always just be The Guy Who Got Kirk Killed to most. S31 didn’t even exist when I came up with this idea, but it would probably be s31 in collaboration with remaining TUC-era fascists and hardliners who come to Harriman with a particularly dirty mission that they promise will at least get his crew off the sh__ list. They even use the E-b, since it isn’t even a named or active ship, just a naked hulk, but Harriman and crew realize they are being used as patsies and also determine the enormous immorality of their orders, so they wind up defying them (while serving the greater good) and it ends with the logo going back on the ship. Harriman still gets spit on after the rechristening, but hey, what’s perfect in life?
That would be interesting. Could be a riff on Serpents Among The Ruins, which was the story of the Tomed Incident?
Don’t know it, but if I come across it secondhand or on 99c kindle day, will check it out.
I hope they pay the electric bill for the Legacy show.
Lol, yeah. Let’s get a few more light bulbs on those starships, right? LOL
Sucking out the bits of smoke/atmosphere on the sets would help too, it isn’t like this is the bridge of a K’Tinga.
That was Amanda Plummer’s fault ;-)
Well it was her idea to have the character smoking, but actually I meant the Federation ship stuff, which in addition to tons of diffusion on the lights also had some smoke on the bridge and other sets, further messing with the established look of SF ships (back on TNG s1 the first DP wanted to smoke the sets but GR, during what I guess was a rare lucid moment, killed that idea stone dead — Justman probably would have etched the same line in the castrodinium/cast rodinium/neutronium.)
Outside of Picard being compromised by the Borg TNG just isn’t any good.
What could be interesting is the young Starfleet officers that were used by the Borg to kill their commanding officers, blow up Earth spacedock and kill civilians and have to adjust to learn to move on.
Not quite sure having an Enterprise with a Captain who can’t move past her attachment to her time as a Borg / engaging in xenocide combined with a Picard who’s rashness set them all up to be assimilated is a good move, might be signs of a Starfleet Command completely out of touch setting up the events of the Burn.
That being said, love how the ENT-G is something out of TOS motion pictures, what the real next generation should have been with Saavik and the Titan. Just wish they gave her a functional bridge.
I’d like to see Matalas’ take on an original Trek show but I’m not too keen on ihm just continuing from where Season 3 left off. Set it towards the end of the 25th or 26th century and get rid of most of the legacy stuff.
Actually I be up for that as well. 👍
But I love Seven so much!
This Academy idea has been around since the early 90s and was I believe one of the early pitches for the Undiscovered Country. I wonder why they keep bringing it back up like its some sort of contractual obligation or something. I think if they really want to they could merge the ideas of legacy and academy show into one and set it in the 26th century with the TNG cast guest starring from time to time.
They can’t halt “Starfleet Academy” as early development work has been done on it, and it’s been announced.
Perhaps if THE ORVILLE comes back (There’s another long shot) Seth could bring in Matalas over there.
The pastiche trek approach of his would be perfect for Matalas on ORVILLE … assuming there is any more ORVILLE to be made, that is. The last season kind of poisoned me on the show, the gigantic space battles are something I grew entirely numb to during s2, along with all those fireballs in the vacuum of space. As much as I enjoyed ‘think’ episodes early on, I think the visual excesses of ORVILLE coupled with the anachronistic humor means that I wouldn’t lose any sleep over missing new eps (or even not getting to rewatch old ones.)
The problem is, the chances for The Orville were not very good BEFORE the strikes. Now…
Matalas would be perfect over at Oroville, or Galaxy Quest, if the strike didn’t kill it.
“It should look like what an evolution of what Star Trek: The Next Generation would look like.”
Picard S3 looked NOTHING like an evolution of what TNG would look like.
Devolution more likely. Take a look at the crisp unfiltered look of FARPOINT shot by Ed Brown and compare it to the visual mush of ps3 and it is like doing a taste-testing with cheese with chalk.
100%. These people think they’re living up to the ‘spirit’ of past Trek just because the saucer section on the Titan is old school and they cram in as many references and easter eggs as humanly possible.
For the record, I adore the old Federation starship designs, right until the point where Eaves came on board. The Titan saucer is a beautiful, but it’s not only incongruous with the rest of the ship, it also doesn’t fit in-universe either.
I’m a little torn on Eaves, because he did good work on miniatures and props in the 80s and early 90s plus when I met him on a studio visit he was immensely helpful (and with a couple of interviews as well.) But I gotta admit, the tiling he did on the -E just looked like somebody K’tinga’d it.
There’s a consistent look to his work, but it just isn’t an appealing look IMO, and given he was a modelmaker, I’m kinda surprised there is so much detail and grooves on the designs, because he must have known they could build a smoother miniature and still had it photograph great owing to the developments in mo-con shooting (right about the time everybody gave up on miniatures was when shooting miniatures reached its zenith quality-wise, which is why the VFX on GEN/FC generally look tons better than what followed.)
It may well be that having to work for approvals from Berman blunted some of his sensibilities too … that’s in contrast to Andy Probert, who stuck by his guns and his designs while facing Berman’s inflexibility with regard to imagination.
I really would like to see just how good or bad the new designs look when rendered in a proper ‘object in space lit by a single star’ approach that doesn’t rely on murk and lens flares to soften everything up. It could be they would look worse under sharper and more contrasty conditions, but at least the overall image would be easier on the eye (contrast any E-e orbiting Earth shot from FC with everything except BEYOND in the last decade.)
Great post. It’s nice to see someone else recognise how the standard of ship visuals has taken a nose dive since Insurrection.
Eaves just over-designs, constantly. Way too many pointless little details or cutouts or textures. His ships end up looking a mess because of it in my opinion.
Then you throw in the murky, terribly lit visual effects of these new Trek shows and it’s just not a pleasant look. There was a shot of the 1701 in spacedock in the opening SNW episode, being blasted with light, except you wouldn’t know it because the ship itself felt like it was in shadow. It’s not the writing or over-reliance on nostalgia and references that disappoint me most of these new Trek shows, it’s the terrible space shots.
Part of the reason they introduced the E was because the D’s 6-foot studio model required a heavy steel internal armature (plus, its internal lighting system was glass neon tubes, adding further weight), making it very difficult to work with.
There were only a couple of mounting points on the armature for doing motion-control shots, and aesthetically, they claimed the D only had a few angles where it looked good.
The swooped ovoid of the saucer made it hard to convey where the ship was actually pointed, particularly from the “under the saucer, from the side” angle often used on the show for the at-warp insert shots; in reality it would be pointed downward.
That said, the wonderful thing about the D was that its organic shapes extended from the outside to the inside. If there had been budget to do new rooms and corridors instead of redresses of the Motion Picture walls, we might have seen more of those swoopy curves. (Interesting that with modern fabrication techniques, SNW is able to do a more unified internal look.)
The E does have more flexibility for shooting and more “good” angles, but I would have liked to see Probert do a final pass on it to give it the organic unity that the D had.
Now that most ships are 100% digital, it should be liberating designers to move forward again (and they did, on Discovery), but the Picard trilogy gave us a lot of blocky and angular ships, when they weren’t explicitly borrowing from STO.
And yeah, I’m not a fan of the Space Haze. Give us some NASA quality crystal clear, sharply lit scenes please!
Purple Haze isn’t just a Hendrix song anymore, it’s shorthand for exteriors in KurtzTrek!
I’m no fan of the -D, but I think there were a couple of sketches where it had longer nacelles, and that seemed much more balanced to me. In fact, I remember buying the model kit and assembling it with the nacelles on backwards, which made the ship seem longer and to my eyes, look better! Then again, I think it looked better if you left the saucer off completely and flew it inverted. Yeah, definitely not a fan of the exterior, though the lines are nice like you say.
Ok, UpperDecks… er, I mean Emily.
Mods, please note that this person is accusing me of sock-puppeting
It would be nice to have a series that feels closer to a progression / evolution of Berman era Trek. Happy for all the fans of Kurtzman Trek to have their version but I would be ever so grateful to have the type of Trek Matalas and Blass wish to offer.
Yeah, this is what most fans want. Haters can hate Berman all they want, his era is the best version of Trek. We need to take the franchise into the 25th century.
He wanted to go back in time to the first Romulan war for the unmade trilogy films that were in the works before his ouster, so I don’t see how 25th century relates to Berman at all. Plus, I think he was horrible for TREK, with DS9 maybe my only good takeaway from his stewardship (outside of hiring Piller, though even that isn’t a total win, as Piller gutted Snodgrass’ 3rd season stories and caused her departure.) If your notion of ‘best’ includes terrible music and a general lack of dynamics and smarts in storytelling, then you’re welcome to Berman.
I read that Berman was never attached to Star Trek The Beginning. Is that wrong?
I thought he hired Jendersen for it. Was I mistaken?
Jendresen did pitch it to him, you are correct in that. What i’m talking about is whether or not Berman would produce the film and that has always been in doubt. I think the JJ film was decided upon and the first draft of Star Trek the beginning was delivered later in the same year. I have no idea why they paid for two separate pitches, i suppose that happens all the time, to be clear i don’t work in the industry. My assumption and it could be just an assumption based on all available info is that the IMDB producers credit was a placeholder.
Its crazy they decided on the JJ movie in the Spring and the Beginning script was submitted in Aug.
A film trilogy about the Romulan war sounds great from my fan perspective but I think far too niche from a business one. It probably should have been the basis of a large chunk of Enterprise rather than all the convolutions they went through.
I really hope the NY Comic Con is where they announce ST Legacy is greenlit.
only thing i would ask the production design to change is the lighting its way too dark on the sets. i watch with all the lights turned off in my house and still struggle to see things.
i also think Kurtzman and company resent the success of Picard S3. they’re trying to do new things like DSC and S31 and Academy and the fans only react well to known things like SNW and PIC S3 and LDs. i get it that for the sustainability and longevity of the franchise you can’t keep doing nostalgia stuff, but all streaming services are hurting, so I think Paramount is thinking short term and the need to have hits. i still think it was a big mistake to rename the Titan-A the Enterprise-G, its tough to have two shows about a starship with the same name. I would have preferred they kept it the Titan-A, but honestly when i watched the finale i thought they were gonna rename the Titan-A the USS Picard NCC-94013 (a play on PS’s bday), which thematically would have been a nice conclusion to the show IMO
The TNG era got their send-off with season 3. We don’t need a season 4 spinoff to clean up the mess…
Like SNW is cleaning up Discovery’s mess?
If that makes you feel better, sure, why not?
Terry is the key to making Legacy work. If he’s not involved, I don’t want it. Sadly, with the streaming world so in flux, I feel like there may not be the good will to add it. In my view, they should replace the Academy show with Legacy. Much safer bet. But the bottom line is I’d be ok with putting Terry on any Trek show they choose. He just gets Star Trek in a way the other show runners do not.
I loved Picard S3 and really was excited about the idea of Legacy. Now, less so. Do something else in the 25th century and let the Picard S3 story be a great ending.
I absolutely want a Legacy show show-ran by Matalas! While PS3 was far from perfect, it still had some amazing bits that can be held to highest standard of other Star Trek episodes and movies. This is the best versions of Riker, Dr. Crusher, Geordi, Ro, and Seven that we have ever seen. That I am positive. While there were some better Picard, Data, and Worf stories in the past, they were also treated well in this season. Most of the characters had arcs, the story points seemed organic enough that it worked! I agree the Borg have been over used lately (like the Klingons were in the TOS movies), but to me it’s not a big deal. My biggest gripe with PS3 were the use of the Changelings and the low light levels.
I am also not a fan of the Raffi character, but I love Seven so much that I willing to deal with Raffi. I also thought Crash (Sydney) La Forge and Jack Crusher are great new legacy characters. Here’s hoping for Legacy!
Kurtzman must really hate being upstaged.
He’s probably laughing all the way to the bank, since his position seems impervious to criticism or critical analysis.
I would sack the lot, starting with him, and then start from scratch (after wrapping another season of a seriously revamped SNW.)
Funny how in the one behind the scenes video, Kurtzman stated that Season 2 was important to have Season 3 to be so successful. I very much disagree, one could just watch season 3 with watching the previous two at all.
Finding out halfway or three-quarters of the way through s3 that your lead character’s physical body died a couple years back and he is now like something out of what Sargon had intended in RETURN TO TOMORROW would be pretty bizarre for folks who hadn’t seen the end of s1.
Regardless, I really wish in retrospect that I’d skipped seasons 1 and 2 because I found them lousy Trek and just plain lousy entertainment. S3 was way too drawn out, but it did at least have its moments. I don’t think there is anything I would ever choose to revisit from s1/2 (though I’d like to see more of the actress playing the Rom woman.)
If they wanted to make him human again it would have only taken Q to snap his fingers.
Good news. Keep Matalas far away from Trek.
It’s pretty unsurprising to see the dozen or so scorned Discovery superfans in here doing everything they can to trash Matalas. The days of Kurtzman and his cult are numbered. Better find something else to latch onto and leave Star Trek alone.
Wait…is it really a dozen Discovery fans here? That’s…surprising. 😂
I used to be a huge Kurtzman hater but these days I’m finally warming up to him. I haven’t called him a hack in over 5 weeks. That’s a record kids.
At best I can see a Star Trek Legacy movie like Section 31 instead of a TV series.
Star Trek Picard had some fine memorable moments but those peaks and glimpses were few and far between. The writers – producers just didn’t seem to be in it at all.
They had a lot of aimless running around rehashing tired or old storylines that just was ultimately excessive and quite tiring.
That romance between that women who was going to the Daystrom Institute had no business on this show. Apparently she jumps in the sack with any fool. Episodes had too much fat and enough relatable – believable content. The Admiral who wore the Sunglasses 🕶️ all it needed was Jimi Hendrix along with some weed and rock gut wine straight from the bag and bottle. Sir Patrick Steward is that a BK crown 👑 you’re wearing. I say that because he promised something vastly different and grand
He made us think we would be getting the grandest dish only to find out it was Spam
Season 3 did rehash Wrath of Khan, Best of Both Worlds and First Contact. And also reminded of Tapestry with Picard’s son being brash and reckless like he was. Vadic was the Khan like villain just like the JJ movies. Borg as the big bad again, why? I can understand why people liked the 5 minutes of fan service of the crew on the Enterprise D again, but is it a good story. It made even less sense than Scotty on the TOS Enterprise on the holodeck. Because at least that was about him wanting to be useful again and not a fish out of water, or a man out of his own time.
I also hate how they handled ships. No Enterprise E, the F wasted. Titan refit not even Riker’s ship or even the right type of ship yet they pretend a refit. Then it becomes the Enterprise G. And it looks like a ship from Kirk’s era just more spiffy. None of it makes sense to the canon. Canon went out the window for bizarre fanfiction.
“And I think we would be able to do things bigger, better, cooler.”
Turning on the lights so you could actually see those glorious sets and envision yourself serving on that ship for years, as opposed to living and working in a dungeon, would be a good place to start.
I’m 62. I would love to see a Legacy show, particularly if it featured some DS9 characters, before I’m too senile to enjoy it.
hit it
If the drop the ball with this one it will be hell to pay
Could they bring back phasers, not the blaster guns they’ve had since JJ Trek. Its something that bothered me on season 3 of Picard, i also miss the classic sound of the phaser from TNG.