Trek on TV

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Conventions/Events/Attractions, TOS | August 9, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 23 comments so far

VegasCon07 – Justman Embraces Change

From the Las Vegas Creation Star Trek Convention (Thursday)Original Star Trek (and early TNG) supervising producer Robert Justman came to Vegas to show the crowd to show a rare documentary and take some questions from the crowd. Justman said that his work on Trek was the ‘emotional best’ ofhis long career in television, but the workload was ‘debilitating.’ The producer was asked if he thought Gene Roddenberry would have approved of the ‘more militaristic’ Deep Space Nine series (the first Trek series created after the creator of TOS and TNG passed away). Justman said that he didn’t know, but noted that “things change…rapidly at times.” Regarding change Justman said that he was “thrilled” about the new J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie. He declared the premise or returning to the early years of the TOS crew ‘enticing and exciting.’ He was also very happy to hear that Leonard Nimoy was returning to play Spock.

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Interview, TOS Remastered | August 9, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 56 comments so far

Billy Blackburn Talks Life on The Trek Set and Home Movies On New HD-DVDs

Billy Blackburn spent three years as a background player on Star Trek, playing Lt. Hadley (pictured right) along with a number of other characters. Blackburn appeared in 61 episodes of the series and while he was there he shot some 8mm and Super 8 home movies. Blackburn ended up with a little over an hour of behind the scenes footage which has kept in a box for forty years. Some clips were used in a BBC documentary a few years back and it was the YouTube version of those that got the Trek Remastered producers interested. It turns out that Ryan Adams who works on the Trek Remastered project is Billy Blackburn’s neighbor. After watching the clips on YouTube he went to over to Billy’s house and asked if they could take a look at the stash…and now they are on the new HD-DVDs. I had a chance to chat with Mr. Blackburn at Comic Con.

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Books, Review, TNG | August 4, 2007 | By: Robert Lyons 42 comments so far

Review “Death In Winter”

August 2007 features the re-release of "Death in Winter" a paperback release of a 2005 hardcover TNG novel.  This release sets up a series of post-Nemesis TNG novels starting in September (just in time for TNG’s 20th anniversary). "Death in Winter" by Michael Jan FriedmanI’ve been reading books for nearly thirty years and reading Star Trek books for about twenty-two years. In all those years, there have only been a few novels that I couldn’t finish. The only reason I finished Michael Jan Friedman’s "Death in Winter" was to write a review. 

Spock in This Side of Paradise - Star Trek

Review, TOS Remastered | August 2, 2007 | By: Mark A. Altman 52 comments so far

Review “This Side Of Paradise” Remastered & The First TOS-R ‘Season’

PARADISE LOST: LOVING THE ALIEN After watching last weekend’s ‘remastered’ version of “This Side of Paradise,” it’s not hard to imagine how Philip Kaufman got the idea to cast Leonard Nimoy in his 1979 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, one of the most underrated genre films of the 70’s (re-issued in a the new  Invasion of the Body Snatchers DVD (Collector’s Edition) next month and definitely worth buying, BTW). Re-imagined as a paranoid sci-fi film noir, Kaufman’s film is sheer genius (which doesn’t taken anything away from the original which is also a superlative film) which managed to showcase Leonard Nimoy in a role that we seemingly had not seen him in before in which he goes from an emotional psychoanalyst to a cold, logical pod person in a heinous corduroy suit transformed by alien spores.  It was while watching “This Side of Paradise” again that I realized what a debt of gratitude this wonderful episode owes to Jack Finney’s classic “Body Snatchers” tale, but not in a goofy, body switching piece of sci-fi theatrics like The Next Generation’s “Power Play” in which Data, Troi and O’Brien go all Kryptonian on the crew of the Enterprise D, but rather using the body snatching motif to illuminate character nuance.

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Interview, Nimoy, ST09 Cast, Star Trek (2009 film) | August 1, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 154 comments so far

Interview With Leonard Nimoy – Part 1

In a TrekMovie.com exclusive, Leonard Nimoy talks for the first time about returning as Spock in the J.J. Abrams new Star Trek film. In this first of two parts the original Spock talks about the script and new team, why he didn’t appear in Generations and why he decided to come out of retirement for this film. click more for the full interview 

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Comics, Review, TOS | July 30, 2007 | By: Mark Martinez 18 comments so far

Review: Star Trek: Klingons — Blood Will Tell #4

Blood Will Tell #4 is the latest in IDW’s series of famous Trek stories told from the Klingon point of view. In this case: "Day of the Dove."  K’ahlynn accompanies her grandfather, Kahnrah, to the Museum of Military Triumph and Conquest. They meet Morglar, an old comrade of Kahnrah’s, and former security officer aboard the Voh’Tahk, commanded by Kang. Morglar recollects the events of Day of the Dove.

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TNG, TOS Remastered | July 27, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 124 comments so far

CBS Testing Remastering TNG in HD

I had a moment to have a chat with some of the CBS team behind the TOS Remastered project at Comic Con about what’s next (after TOS). David Grant tells TrekMovie.com that they have "had discussions" to bring Star Trek The Next Generation onto high definition. They have also created an HD test for one episode. One concern is the visual effects which were were done in video and therefore more difficult to translate to HD. The team are seeing if the effects can be ‘upresed’ or if they need to be entirely redone (as they did with TOS). Ryan Adams says "that is part of the tests that we are trying to massage and figure out." No decisions made yet on if, when or how, but TrekMovie.com will keep an eye on this exciting potential project.

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TOS Remastered | July 26, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 198 comments so far

Details on TOS-R HD-DVDs [updated]

CBS has released details for the upcoming 1st season of Star Trek: The Original Series digitally remastered for HD-DVD: Disks: 10 (box)Format: HD-DVD Combo (double sided w/ HD-DVD on one and standard DVD on other)Sug. price: $217.99 [oh my]Release Date: November 20, 2007HD Features (include) a "Starfleet Access” interface picture-in-picture video commentaries,  comparisons of re-mastered vs. original effects, encyclopedic information (science, life forms, technology), episode trivia and more on seven episodes. in-depth tour of the starship Enterprise documentary on making of remastered Trek behind the scenes footage (also on regular DVD side) [related story] more details below…

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Review, TOS Remastered | July 25, 2007 | By: Adam Cohen 86 comments so far

Review “The Squire Of Gothos” Remastered

“What does God need with a starship?”–James Kirk, “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” I know, it’s off the map to mention “Star Trek V” in a review of a TOS-R episode, but in watching “The Squire of Gothos,” I couldn’t help but replay the moment from the 1989 movie through my head where James Kirk faces down a God-like being with some healthy skepticism.  Captain Kirk does not suffer deities kindly, especially those who abuse their power.  Be it an Ancient Greek god or a super-computer, there is a recurring theme that comes up throughout The Original Series and it is best summed up by Mr. Spock in this very episode: “I object to intellect without discipline.  I object to power without constructive purpose.”  Fellow Trek fans, this is the sort of stuff that elevates Star Trek above your average science-fiction fare.  “The Squire of Gothos” is vintage Trek.

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Merchandise, Star Trek (2009 film), TOS Remastered, Trek Franchise, TrekMovie.com | July 25, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 36 comments so far

Star Trek and TrekMovie.com @ Comic Con 2007

Everyone knows that this week’s comic con in San Diego is going to be a big moment for Star Trek. The two biggest news events will be on Thursday the 26th.[all time PST] Thu 12:30 – 1:30 TOS-R on HD-DVD: All about new Remastered Trek on HD DVD. Thu 1:30 – 3:30 Paramount Presentation: Covers multiple Paramount films including Star Trek and 1-18-08. JJ Abrams to attend with other producers…Trek expected to be last TrekMovie.com will report from both as soon as possible…so keep checking back. Later on Thursday I will also be a panelist on a Geek Monthly.com Star Trek Panel.  Plus there are other Trek related panels & events (details on all Trek events below)

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Shatner, ST09 Cast | July 23, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 40 comments so far

Shatner On Tabloid Stories: Not Upset – Not Lobbying For Part

If you just cannot get enough of Shat talking about not being in the movie…here is more from Shatnervision. Shatner says he has ‘known for a while’ that he will not be in the new Star Trek, and that he called director J.J. Abrams after the recent rumors hit the tabloids to tell him he wasn’t upset. The original Captain Kirk did admit to being ‘disappointed.’

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Conventions/Events/Attractions, Nimoy, Shatner | July 22, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 179 comments so far

Nimoy Coy About Part In New ‘Star Trek’ – Shatner Says He Is Not In It [UPDATED]

William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy appeared today at a Creation’s New Jersey Star Trek convention. TrekMovie.com received a con report from Ky-Malairn who reports that Nimoy was pestered for details regarding his participation in the new film, but would only repeat As of this time I don’t have a deal to be in the new Star Trek movie.

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Feature Films (TMP-NEM), TAS, TOS, Trek Franchise | July 22, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 84 comments so far

D.C. Fontana On TAS Canon (and Sybok)

Dorothy Fontana (aka D.C. Fontana) was with Star Trek since the beginning as both a writer and Story Editor for Star Trek: The Original Series. She had the same job for The Animated Series and went on to write episodes for both TNG and DS9 (and even for the recent Trek game and New Voyages fan series). Fontana is interviewed in the new ‘Focus on Trek’ from IDW Comics. The interview covers a number of subjects, but her comments on the often debated issues of canon were noteworthy. Regarding TAS and canon Fontana says that Gene Roddenberry never took TAS seriously. She also does not seem happy with the makers of Star Trek V who gave Spock a half brother (details below)

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TOS Remastered | July 21, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 38 comments so far

TOS-R Producer Explains Remastered Production Process

CBS Digital Executive Producer Toni Pace has a new article at DigitalMediaNet where she gives some behind the scenes insights into the Star Trek Remastered project. She says that so far been over 1,800 shots to do and that  the project "cannot be done without advanced technology that can track and manage the information on each shot.": To that end she has created a special database to track each shot. Pace goes into detail on how this database is used. For those interested in this kind of thing check it out Digital Media Net, but bear in mind it is written for post production professionals.

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Humor, Shatner | July 20, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 87 comments so far

Kissing Goodbye To Shatner As Kirk?

In the last week we have learned that William Shatner is probably not going to be in the next Star Trek movie and a week from now we may very well know who the next Kirk will be. Regardless sometime soon Kirk will be embodied by a new actor and Shatner will be a bit like Sean Connery to the Bond franchise (beloved, but not the ‘current’ star). So for our Friday Night Movie it feels appropriate to give our favorite captain one last big kiss.

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Shatner, ST09 Creative | July 19, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 11 comments so far

Shatner & Lindelof Nominated For Emmys

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced the nominees for the 59th annual Emmy Awards and there are a few Trek connections. William Shatner (TOS: Kirk) was again nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Dramatic Series (for Boston Legal). This is Shatner’s fourth year in a row being nominated (he now has a total of five nominations and two wins: 2004 & 2005). Shatner will be going up against Masi Oka who plays the Star Trek fan Hiro Nakamura on Heroes (Oku’s father is played by George Takei) as well as Lost’s Terry O’Quinn who had a guest spot on TNG. Heroes picked up a total of eight nominations(including Best Dramatic Series), but no nomations for Zachary Quinto (potential new Spock), George Takei (TOS: Sulu) or Greg Grunberg (J.J.Abrams best friend and almost certain Star Trek 2008 cameo). Although he is not nominated for it, the "The Comedy Central Roast of William Shatner" was nominated for Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Special.

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Comics, Review, TOS | July 19, 2007 | By: Mark Martinez 72 comments so far

Review: Star Trek: Year Four #1

Star Trek: Year Four is the latest comic series from IDW. It is set in a notional ‘4th season’ of the "Star Trek The Original Series"  (during "Star Trek The Animated Series"). The Enterprise encounters an immense planetary mass, capable of supporting 800 billion inhabitants, with only twenty life signs. Beaming down to investigate, Kirk finds Dr. Othello Beck, renowned medical researcher and Phlox prize winner [ENT ref alert!], working in a vast scientific laboratory left by a dead civilization. With Beck are the B’nai, creatures he created to assist in the lab. Kirk and McCoy discover that Beck’s ethics are questionable. He’s hiding a terrible secret which ends tragically.

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Humor, TNG, TOS | July 18, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 27 comments so far

More of Wheaton’s Kirk, Picard…and Wesley

The Kirk v Picard script contest is almost over…all submissions are in for all 4 rounds and the last scene will be decided this week. Wil Wheaton now has an ‘Encore performance’ to his previous (and popular) Kirk & Picard impersonations using lines from the contest submissions.   He also does some tongue in cheek Wesley for added fun. Keep track of the goings on at the Official Blog (run by yours truly)

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Review, TOS Remastered | July 18, 2007 | By: Dennis Russell Bailey 58 comments so far

Review “Charlie X” Remastered

Trouble brewingThe Enterprise takes aboard a passenger: Charlie Evans.  He’s spent his life in isolation, never met a girl, and doesn’t know how to dress.  So of course he’s one happy fanboy when he finds himself aboard the Starship Enterprise. He develops what’s politely called a “crush” on Janice Rand, snubbing all the other hotties on the ship.  It must be her unpredictability that he finds so arresting; she’s offended when he slaps her butt yet when he somehow impossibly jams a playing card down her cleavage she’s charmed and impressed.