455 Films, the team behind the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind, are currently working on a new project, this time focusing on Star Trek: Voyager. Production began in March 2020, and after taking a hiatus due to the pandemic, resumed later in the year. And now 455 just announced the next step for the Voyager documentary.
Pre-order crowdfunding campaign kicks off in March.
During the Virtual Trek Con yesterday, 455 Films announced a new crowdfunding campaign in support of the Voyager documentary is coming on March 1st. Just like with the DS9 Documentary campaign, you will have the opportunity to pre-order the documentary and get additional supporter rewards. Watch the video announcement from Voyager star Garrett Wang below:
Appearing on TrekMovie’s Shuttle Pod in November, Voyager documentary producer David Zappone gave an update on the production:
We have interviewed several of the main cast separately. We just did an interview with Brannon Braga, a very extensive one. We plan to interview Jeri Taylor and Rick Berman and get each one of the cast members individually. It is going to take a little longer than it normally would have, but we will get there.
He also talked about why they’re interested in crowdfunding:
Absolutely, I would love to do [including remastered HD footage] again, but I have a feeling it would take another crowdfunding campaign. The people need to approve. I can’t convince CBS 100% they want to see. They need to help us to show CBS the desire is there. I would love nothing better. We have the team, we know how to do it. It is time-consuming, but it’s not impossible.
Producer: “COVID be damned, we’re going to make this film.”
Yesterday Zappone and Joe Kornbrodt participated in a panel during the Virtual Trek Con. They talked about their work on Star Trek documentaries, including briefly discussing the upcoming Voyager doc. Zappone gave an update on how they are continuing to work, doing both in-person and Zoom interviews during the pandemic.
Documentary launches official site and social media
For more, you can visit the new site at voyagerdocumentary.com, or follow VOY Documentary on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Keep up on all the Star Trek documentary news and reviews at TrekMovie.com.
This one is interesting to me, even though I’m not really a “Voyager” fan (watching it back in the day it always felt inferior to “Deep Space Nine”), but the behind-the-scenes stuff would be interesting to delve into especially all these years later.
-The problems between Jeri Ryan and Kate Mulgrew.
-Looking back at Chakotay. I know Robert Beltran had issues with the way the character was handled. And looking at it now, the character is VERY problematic. It’s arguably a case where an attempt at diversity now looks really outdated and borderline offensive, since the characterization of Native Americans sets them apart from humanity, says their origins are quasi-alien, and ascribes special powers to an entire ethnic group.
-I believe Garrett Wang has had his own issues with how Harry Kim was developed by the show.
Good point about Chakotay. Even crazier when it was discovered the ‘consultant’ for the show about Native Americans admitted to making a lot of it up years later lol. How does something like that happen?? But I would love to hear Beltran’s issues with the show and character too and I LOVED Chakotay. But it’s no doubt that character would be done very differently today for sure.
This isn’t a question of hindsight being 20/20. The problems with Chakotay were obvious from day 1: the lack of any tribal enrollment, the “Hollywood Indian” trope, the softening of Maquis settler colonialism with a patina of Native American culture, the Maori tattoo being passed off as Native….it just goes on and on. They should have hired a Native actor.
Yeah this is something Hollywood has done for a long long time. In TOS they hired a white Mexican actor to play Khan and darkened his skin to fit the role more. It is funny how iconic Khan is now but it’s no way that would’ve happened today (and we won’t even get into Cumberbatch playing Khan lol) but this is a long held tradition that has been around a long time. None of it is right but sadly part of a very common tradition.
Again I loved Chakotay and I liked the idea of a Native American character in the role, but they should’ve started with hiring a real Native American actor and made the role more accurate in general.
I don’t consider this “alien” origin as problematic at all since it has been established on Trek that all human(oid) life in the galaxy is basically alien in origin. The First Ones planted the seed millennia ago (just like the Engineers in the Alien universe) as it was established in TNG’s “The Chase”…
According to Trek lore, we are all made of stardust and all humans and humanoids deserve dignity. That is Trek’s basic message. An extra portion of alien origin for the Native Americans does not take away any of that.
I do wonder how much of that they would actually explore. As lovely as the doc was, What We Left Behind didn’t really dig into many negative behind the scenes drama. Even Terry Farrell’s departure is milked for some tears, but no depth. Having Behr be so involved may well have made participants be a little more reserved in that regard.
Mulgrew, Beltran, Wang and Ryan have all been fairly forthright in discussing the downside to their times on the show, so I would think they’d have plenty of material to pick from. But the show does seem to have had a very positive influence on a whole new generation of fans, so there’s plenty of nice things for them to be able to tout.
HOW DARE YOU SAY VOYAGER IS INFERIOR!!!! ;)
So exciting they are making the Voyager documentary!!
And it’s the same team behind What We Left Behind. I do think it will be a lot different from that because Ira Steven Behr had so much influence on that documentary himself. It was very much about his POV of the show as the show itself. He was actually interviewing other actors and writers on the doc as well. As far as I know, we haven’t heard directly about Rick Berman, Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga or Kenneth Biller. These were either all the creators of and/or show runners of Voyager at some point. I’m sure some will be part of it and at least interviewed like Rick Berman was for WWLB, but it doesn’t sound like any will be directly involved like Behr was.
I always loved Voyager. In fact Voyager, to this day, was the only Trek spin off I completely loved after its first season (until Lower Decks, but I view that a bit differently). However I never loved the show as much as I did TNG, DS9, etc. It’s a flawed show for sure, but watching the newest Trek shows, it’s in great company lol.
Anway, thanks for the article TM. This is going to be another fun thing to keep track of like we have so much of in Star Trek today. Maybe it’ll get a small theater run like WWLB did!
I LOVE VOY and this sounds exciting BUT do we really need crowdfunding for something like that? It’s a shame we haven’t seen DS9 and VOY in HD on Blu-Ray and it’s a shame they don’t even bother producing offical documentaries like that. DS9 and VOY deserve better. I’m grateful Trek is back with new TV shows but they really shouldn’t forget about the rest of the legacy. Interesting: Netflix seems to aggressively advertize VOY after watching DSC. They know what a gem that show was (though not nearly perfect).
I agree. I don’t think Voyager rises to the level of getting my fan donation.
”Interesting: Netflix seems to aggressively advertize VOY after watching DSC”
It’s because of the Borg. People are nuts about them especially Seven of Nine. They bring plenty of eyeballs.
YES WE DO GARTH!!! YES WE DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And maybe later they will both the HD treatment but that is probably still years away!
Apparently Voyager, as a non-serialized show, is streamed more frequently than DS9, even though DS9 did get a boost from the current binge culture. I’ve not seen metrics that prove any of this, but it’s been pointed out to me here.
I would certainly think DS9 is a better follow up to Discovery based on tone and content, but I’m no algorithm!
I think 7of9s appearance in Picard brought some attention to the show.
Love Voyager. This is going to be fun.
Long live Voyager
I’m in.
I wonder what they’ll choose as a starship name this time.
I hope they interview Ron Moore about his very short time on the Voyager, the fall-out he had with Brannon Braga, and the post-interviews he did that bashed the concept of the show. That is some juicy stuff.
I am looking forward to this. I hope it gets made.
It would be nice if we could get just one episode of DS9 and Voyager on blu-ray, I guess that will never see that after the cost and low sales of TNG.