Articles by Anthony Pascale

Guardian Premise Selected for Kirk v Picard ‘Fanisode’ Contest

The votes are in and the ‘Guardian of Forever’ premise is the clear winner and will be the jumping off point for the Star Trek Kirk vs Picard fan fiction contest (I am sure it was the endorsement from TrekMovie.com). Now that they have the device that brings Kirk and Picard together in conflict, mission director Andre Bormanis has set up the first ‘scene mission’ for the writers. The scene starts on the Guardian planet with Kirk and crew dealing with a freaking out Guardian causing serious problems in the space time continuum…and soon enough Picard and the Enterprise D show up. On the official blog for the event, Bormanis explains why he chose to have it start with Kirk. I sincerely hope there are some TrekMovie.com readers who are participating in this event as writers, and even as reviewers (either way you can win some prizes). I should note that after I covered the event in my previous article and interview with Bormans, I got to talking to the FanLib people they asked me to build and run the official blog for the event.



Orci: New ‘Star Trek’ Film To Bring In New Generation – May Lead to New Trek on TV

Yet even more on Star Trek from Mr. Orci’s press tour for Transformers. In the second part of the IESB interview with Orci there is one Trek question related to the future of the franchise and if it will ‘re-establish’ the universe. Orci replied: Absolutely, it’s gotta bring in a whole new generation, it’s gotta bring in people who don’t know Trek so it absolutely trying to re-establish what this universe should be…


Star Trek Reference/Cameo in Tranformers

[MINOR SPOLIERS]Transformers is sure to be one of the big blockbusters of this summer. The mainstream action movie is full of pop culture references including one nod to Star Trek.  The reference comes from the character of Bumblebee (pictured right). Bumblebee is probably the most realized Transformer in the film and certainly gets the most screen time. He befriends the movie’s hero Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf). One of the running gags is that the radio in Sam’s Camaro (aka Bumblebee) tunes into all sorts of things all on its own.


Orci: Big Budget – Maybe Not Big Stars [UPDATED]

In addition to talking to TrekMovie.com, Roberto Orci also talked to other members of the geekosphere at the Transformers event. The Star Trek co-writer opened up on Trek a bit more to IESB saying that he and writing partner Alex Kurtzman were ready to write the film because they "been researching that [Trek] all our lives…we read the novels, we just had it down cold." Regarding which series were favorites he said that he was partial to TNG and that Kurtzman favored TOS. The co-writer and executive producer also said that they wrote the script with a ‘big’ budget in mind. However Orci said they are not yet set on having big named stars and felt that you do not need them…: I don’t think so, because the star of the movie is Star Trek, you know,so another way to think of it is we feel confident in what the material is and what the paradigm of the movie is that we’re not trying to shove an Academy Award winner down your throat to sell it. Which doesn’t mean that we might not end up there but its not our first place to go there with that. more excerpts from IESB, IGN and SciFi Wire below…



Roberto Orci Talks ‘Star Trek’ and Fandom with TrekMovie.com

TrekMovie.com had a chance to sit down with the co-writer of the new Star Trek film Robert Orci at a promotional event for his latest film Transformers. The event was mainly for Transformers, but I was able to ask some Trek questions. Regarding his and (writing partner) Alex Kurtzman being fans of the franchise Orci stated “obviously we have been fans of Trek forever." The writer said he couldn’t really talk about the plot for the new Trek film, except to joke “we trek through the stars…and it’s in the future.” (I guess that rules out another Star Trek IV style time travel plot). He did mention that the character of Kirk is in the film (which was already announced by Abrams last month). When asked if Kirk had a big part in the film he wryly smiled and said "maybe." Orci (who also shares an Executive producer credit) did offer a status report saying that they are currently in pre-production and casting with shooting planned for November (which is a month later than previously reported). He also confirmed that the working title for the film is just ‘Star Trek’ and that he is "pretty sure" the simple title will end up to be the final title, saying "how do you deny it?…they might pretend it is not the official title but what else is it going to be?” 




Frakes Skewers Paramount – Praises Abrams

At last weekend’s FedCon 16 in Germany Jonathan Frakes let loose on Paramount and the last Trek movie, but then had some nice things to say about JJ Abrams and the next movie. Regarding the box office failure Star Trek Nemesis, the director of two previous films joked "there was a perfectly good director available." He then used a couple empty seats reserved for Paramount to poke some fun at the studio. Holding up the chair signs he yelled out "this is a perfect example, see who is not here…Paramount…need I say more? That speaks volumes." To cheers from the audience he continued, "Paramount doesn’t show up. Paramount doesn’t know what to do with the franchise."


Premise Choices for Kirk v Picard Revealed – Include Khan and Guardian of Forever

The official site for the ‘fanisode’ writing contest ‘Kirk v Picard’ when live this afternoon. ‘Mission Director’ Andre Bormanis has laid out four choices as a possible premise for what has brought Captains Kirk and Picard together. One has Kirk appearing in cryongenic chamber in Picard’s time, another has Kirk and Picard both meet in present day Earth, another has Picard discover Khan (from Star Trek II) has destroyed the UFP in an altered timeline. The most intriguing (and the one leading the polls) involves the Guardian of Forever (from TOS "City on the Edge of Forever") malfuctioning/going crazy and sending out time quakes that bring Kirk and Picard together. The conflict rises from Kirk wanting to destroy the Guardian before it causes more damage and Picard defending it because it is a sentient life form. This set up is clearly made to show character differences between the action oriented Kirk against the cerebral Picard. For more details and voting check out the official site, or watch the premise videos with Wil Wheaton and George Takei. The winning premise will be chosen by June 19th, leading to the first ‘mission’ for potential writers.



Filmation’s Lou Scheimer Talks TAS

Star Trek The Animated Series has a bit of an odd place in Trek’s history. It is still not officially considered ‘canon’ but it was the only Trek on TV in the 70s. Although it was aired along with other children’s cartoons, many of the scripts were well written with somewhat adult themes (some by TOS writers and even one by Walter Koenig). ST:TAS was produced by Filmation who did a number of licensed properties (including Ghostbusters and He-Man). In a new interview Filmation founder Lou Scheimer reflects on his career…including Trek. Although Filmation’s animation did leave much to be desired he Scheimer feels that they were able to more alien aliens on TAS than they could on the live action show: "All they could do was put ears on guys. They had their money problems. But it was as easy for us to do a monster as it was todo a human being." Even Trek was somewhat toned down to make it appeal as a children’s cartoon, Scheimer does deny the rumor that there were plans to give the Enterprise crew teenage sidekicks.


New Official Fan Fiction Contest Pits Kirk and Picard

Star Trek fans have been creating their own stories since as far back as the 60s. Some of these fan writers have even got their work published. The first of these compilations was "The New Voyages" in 1976. For the last decade Pocket Books has issued a series of fan fiction compilations starting with "Strange New Worlds" in 1998, but that all comes to an end next month with the final planned book "Strange New Worlds 10."  However, CBS have just announced a new deal with FanLib.com for web-based fan fiction contest called ‘Kirk v Picard.’ The contest will have fans collaborate to write a script for an ‘episode’ of the ultimate captain showdown with the help of a virtual showrunner in the form of VOY/DS9 science adviser and ENT writer and story editor Andre Bormanis. The contest site goes live Wednesday June 13th [UPDATE: Site is now Live] and TrekMovie.com talked to Bormanis about the project.


Star Trek Wins At Spaceys

Star Trek may be off the air and still a year away from being back in theaters, but it still manages to show up at award shows on Sunday. At Canada’s Spacey Awards Star Trek The Original Series won an award for Favorite Classic TV show, beating out Batman, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica (Original) and The Twilight Zone. George Takei accepted the award on behalf of the show in a taped segment where the award was ‘beamed’ to his home. Veteran Star Trek make-up designer Michael Westmore also picked up a Special Achievement Spacey for his lifetime of work. Star Trek XI director JJ Abrams’ movie Mission Impossible III had five nominations and his show Lost had three, but neither picked up any awards.





Ron Moore Supports Abrams – Thinks Trek Should ‘Start Over’

There was a Battlestar Galactica special screening in Hollywood on Wednesday and TrekMovie.com was there. BSG co-creator and executive producer Ron Moore had a quick moment to chat about the next season of BSG and Star Trek. On the subject of the new Trek film Moore tells TrekMovie.com that he is a fan of JJ Abrams. "He is tremendously talented and I think he is going to do a really good job," said the veteran Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine writer/producer. I also had a chance to ask the man who killed James T. Kirk (Moore co-wrote Generations) about the the the plans to bring Kirk back in the new film.





New Podcasts from Kelvington and Dochterman

A couple friends and contributors of TrekMovie.com have put up new podcasts and I say check them out. First up is Daren Dochterman who has a commentary for his Doomsday Machine Efffects video. Podcast at TrekEnhanced.com Next up is Rick Kelvington who has launched a new podcast show along with Jessica Menn called ‘Talking Entertainment.’ More info at Kelvington.com …and yes eventually TrekMovie.com will have its own podcast 


This Week In Trek

Trek XI: Comic-Con have just released a preliminary list of panels and Star Trek XI is on it. TrekMovie.com had reported before that Paramount planned to attend for Trek and we have re-confirmed that there will be a panel, but they have not yet worked out the details. DS9 showrunner Ira Behr told TrekMovie.com he thought Abrams plans for a return to TOS was ‘the safe thing’ but expressed concerns about ‘going backwards to the future’ Heroes actor Zachary Quinto again expressed a desire to play Spock



Time To Form Starfleet?

In the world of Star Trek we know that eventually the Earth is united both with a single government and a single space agency. This agency called ‘The United Earth Space Probe Agency‘ and ‘Starfleet‘ even predates the formation of the United Federation of Planets. To date in the real world there have been many forays into international cooperation between agencies, but they are still fully independent. Now comes news that some of that may change. This week thirteen space agencies (including those of the USA, Russia, Europe, China and Japan) have agreed to co-ordinate future exploration – including the Moon and Mars. They have agreed to a (sadly non binding) document called "The Global Exploration Strategy: The Framework for Co-ordination." It is said to help with the exchange for information and most importantly "identify gaps, duplication and potential areas for collaboration."


Review “Shore Leave” Remastered

From the opening moment of “Shore Leave” you can tell this will be a different type of Star Trek episode. Kirk’s mistaking a backrub from the lovely Yeoman Barrows to be one from Mr. Spock shows the whimsical and subtlety sexually charged nature of one of the more fun outings for the Enterprise’s crew. Down scouting out a rest stop Sulu exclaims “no animals, no people, no worries,” seemingly shocked to find a planet that isn’t overrun with gangsters, Indians, or Nazis. What they have found is an idyllic planet full of misadventures that looks ever better now fully remastered in living color. It is a good thing that Kirk ignored McCoy’s report of spotting a large white rabbit, not a Florida White Rabbit, a human-sized one (with Alice of Wonderland trailing) or we would never get to visit this “Shore Leave” Planet.