It seems that the people of Canada are yearning for some awesome. There are renewed calls for William Shatner to return to his native land and take on the role of Governor General. But is Bill willing to heed the call? All the latest on that, plus a great new photo of Bill and LeVar Burton.
From April 30th to May 2nd Europe’s biggest Star Trek and Sci-Fi convention will take place in Bonn, Germany. Around 5,000 fans will meet over 20 guests, including Trek stars Michael Dorn, Terry Farrell, and Nicole de Boer. There will also be another attempt to break the Star Trek fans in costume record (on the same day as the attempt at Vulcan Con in FL). Details below.
Later this month Pocket Books will delve into Captain Pike’s time on the USS Enterprise, with the novel "Star Trek: The Children of Kings", by David Stern. And if you want to get started early, you can read the first chapter below. This will be the last new Trek novel for a few months, we have an updated schedule of Trek fiction for the rest of the year.
In February a promotional event in London for the European roll-out of Star Trek Online set a Guinness World Record for the “largest gathering of people dressed as Star Trek characters”. However, with only 99 costumed Trekkies, the record was begging to be broken. And that is exactly what will be attempted on Saturday May 1st in Tampa, FL. Details below.
If you want your new Apple iPad to really feel like a Star Trek PADD, you are going to need a Star Trek style LCARS interface. Earlier this week we reported that the much talked about "Captain’s Log" iPad application was pulled from Apple’s iTunes. Now this weekend a new Star Trek-ish application has been released called the "LCARS Internet Media Reader". Check it out below.
For years Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s son Rod Roddenberry has been working on a documentary titled "Trek Nation". Roddenberry has finally finished the film and today Roddenberry Productions has launched a new promotional website along with a new trailer. Learn more about the film and watch the trailer below.
Anton Yelchin, Star Trek’s new Chekov, is having a big week. Yesterday it was announced he was providing voice work for the new 3D Smurfs movie. And today it has been announced the actor is in talks to star in a remake of the 80s vampire movie Fright Night.
Today in Star Trek future history is "First Contact Day". Regardless of your timeline, on April 5th, 2063 Dr. Zefram Cochrane is to became the first man to break the warp barrier (with a little help from the crew of the NCC-1701E), which will catch the notice of some passing Vulcans who initiate the ‘first contact’ between humans and aliens…and the beginnings of the United Federation of Planets and all that came with it.
It appears that some people are having some fun with their new US Census forms, including thousands of Trekkies telling the government they not exactly human. However, the government doesn’t think it is very funny and you could end up getting fined (unless you can prove your non-terrestrial ancestry). More details below.
When Star Trek meets technology you get Treknology, and there are a couple of examples of that to share with you about some new pieces of tech. One is a special fanmade Star Trek-themed promotion for the Google Nexus One (from the futuuuuure). And the other is the inevitable PADD application for Apple’s new iPad.
The small town of Vulcan, Alberta, Canada has been capitalizing on it’s Trek-ish name for the last couple of decades, and now they have made it official. Vulcan has now been deemed the ‘Official Star Trek Capital of Canada.’ The town is planning a number of events to celebrate, including a visit from Leonard Nimoy. All the details below.
The Queen’s Guards at Buckingham Palace in London are famous for their elaborate ‘changing of the guard’ and their unflappable demeanor, but did you also know they have a band? The band accompanies the changing of the guard and often plays popular music, and one day last week they did a medley of Star Trek themes, check out video below.
With all the debate over how big new Enterprise is, here is something from the other side of the spectrum. There is cool Trek-themed image that is making its way across the blogosphere. The picture depicts the world’s smallest Enterprise at just a few microns across, check it out below with more details.
Each year the Glo Global Language Monitor releases their list of the most influence "HollyWords", or words from Hollywood that most influenced the English Language in the past year. Topping this list this year was "Pandora" from Avatar, but there is also a contribution from Star Trek on the list this year, with "Her" coming in at #8, see below for details and explanation.
Trekkies don’t tend to be a scary bunch, but what if they were less interested nitpicking your brain with Trek triva and actually wanted to eat your brain? That is the premise of a just announced satire novel "Night of the Living Trekkies" from Quirk Books (publishers of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"). More info on this new Trek mashup novel below.
There is a video that has gone viral in the last couple of days after being unearthed by EverthingIsTerrible.com, and it is by far the worst Star Trek Parody of all time. There is no attributed source, so not sure who to blame, but it seems to be some misguided attempt to use Star Trek to send some kind of Christian message, but it doesn’t even do that well. Check it out for yourself below.
The two big cons this Summer are already shaping up to be chock full of Star Trek stars. Both the Creation and Dragon*Con have announced their initial confirmed guests lists and big stars from all five Trek series will be appearing. More info below.
Could you recite the name of every original Star Trek episode in airing order (without the aid of a cheat sheet)? Well a Trek fan in New York took on that challenge (given to him by TrekMovie) and he not only did it, but did it in record time. Watch the video below.
Today the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films has announced the nominations for the 36th Annual Saturn Awards. JJ Abrams Star Trek movie picked up a total of 6 nominations, including Best Science Fiction Film. And TOS Star Trek movies picked up a DVD nomination as well. We have all the details below, including the full list of Saturn nominations.
Yesterday New Scientist posted an article titled "Starship pilots: Speed kills: especially warp speed." This article is getting a lot of play across the web on other sci-fi sites. Debating the science of science fiction may be dubious, but TrekMovie would at least like to point out how Star Trek has already addressed the issues presented by New Scientist, and that there is some back-up from real science.
On Sunday we reported on the record setting gathering of Star Trek fans in costume in the UK. Today we have videos from the event, which include who won some of the prizes at the event and some interviews. We also have video of a gathering of Star Wars fans also held in the UK over the weekend.
Today is Presidents Day in the USA, a day to celebrate the nation’s past leaders. The world of Star Trek has also given us some ‘Presidents’. Today we celebrate those fictional future presidents, and ask you to pick your favorite.
The annual MacWorld Expo wrapped up yesterday and the celebration of all things Apple Mac included a couple of interesting Trek connections. We have video below of the Star Trek rock performance by the band Warp 11, plus a surprise guest appearance by LeVar Burton who stood in for ‘Steve Jobs’ in a play.
Today in London, Namco Bandai organized a world record attempt at the largest gathering of people in Star Trek costumes. The stunt was done to promote Star Trek Online in Europe and according to the people at Guinness, they set the record. TrekMovie has a full set of pictures from the event below.
Last night’s episode of Operation Repo on TruTV had the repossession team on the final frontier. The show portrayed the repossession of a car that was owned by “Spock”, and his girlfriend “Uhura” wasn’t too happy about it. Watch the clip below.
In September 2008, the Trek-themed attraction Star Trek: The Experience closed at the Las Vegas Hilton, after running for a decade. Since that time CBS has been working on developing a new Star Trek: The Experience at a new location, and that work is still ongoing. However, they have decided that most of the assets from the first attraction wont be able to be used and so they are going to be sold off. More details below.
Today was the long-anticipated introduction of Apple Computers new Tablet device. Apple’s new ‘iPad’ is being touted as a revolutionary device that will shake up the industry, just like the iPod and the iPhone. And when Apple CEO Steve jobs made his big announcement and showed off the multimedia capability, he showed the Star Trek movie as an example. Of course, the notion of a PADD computer is nothing new to Trek. [UPDATE: Brent Spiner weighs in on the iPad/PADD connection]
Recently the Tech Museum announced it was extended its engagement of Star Trek: The Exhibition, and today they have announced a contest where a lucky couple will get a Star Trek wedding packing to get married on the bridge of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701, no A, B, C, or D). Details below.
If you are in the Bay Area, then this is your reminder that this weekend is a big official Star Trek convention. On hand will be the two big captains, William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, along with a number of other celebrities. And today it was just announced that Cryptic will be holding a Star Trek Online event close to the con as well . And if you are in NYC, there is a free showing of the ‘Start Trekkin’ improv show.
As he does every once in a while, over the weekend Star Trek co-writer Roberto Orci jumped into a talkback comments thread here at TrekMovie and did some impromptu fan Q&A. Orci talked time travel, cameos, nitpicks, the sequel, Keenser and more. See below for an easy to read transcript in Q&A format, to see what he had to say.