Vic
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For fans waiting for the third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation in Blu-ray, mark your calendars for April 30th.
In addition to TNG S3, another Trek Blu-ray release will happen on that date when Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Best of Both Worlds is offered.
Season Three includes all twenty-six third season episodes, including the acclaimed Yesterday’s Enterprise, Sarek, and The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1. Extras include audio commentaries, the Inside the Writers’ Room featurette, a blooper reel and Resistance is Futile: Assimilating the Next Generation, a multi-part documentary that “examines the making of Season Three.”
Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Best of Both Worlds takes the two-part episode and “re-edits it into a ninety-minute feature-length experience.” Extras for Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Best of Both Worlds includes audio commentary, a gag reel, and Regeneration: Engaging the Borg, which tells the story of the creation of the Borg and includes interviews with cast, writers, producers and more.
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season Three includes six discs and will retail for $129.99. Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Best of Both Worlds will sell for $28.28.
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The next batch of Star Trek: The Original Series art prints by Juan Ortiz has debuted.
This seventh set of Trek prints includes: Operation: Annihilate, Amok Time, Is There in Truth No Beauty?, and Day of the Dove.
Ortiz spoke about the latest posters, telling fans what inspired him when it came to the artwork for each poster. For Operation: Annihilate, “I never know where the ideas are going to come from,” said Ortiz. “This one was inspired by crate labels for oranges. A lot of the stylizing was done so that the phaser would be highlighted, almost framed within the illustration. Kirk’s collar, the phaser fire and the hand all draw attention towards it.”
The Amok Time poster was the first art print created by Ortiz and a favorite. The dragon in the print is a metaphor for “Spock’s ‘burning’ need,” said Ortiz.
The Ortiz prints sell as a set of four and cost $34.95. To order the prints, head to the link located here.
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Star Trek into Darkness actor Benedict Cumberbatch is in talks to play an English mathematician.
If Cumberbatch does sign the deal, he would take on the role of Alan Turing in The Imitation Game.
Turing was a mathematician and a genius who worked at Bletchley Park, where codebreakers worked to decrypt ciphers and codes including the German “Enigma Code” during World War II. He is considered to be the founder of computer science.
In 1952, Turing, who was gay, was arrested for homosexuality, which was then a criminal offense in the UK. To avoid prison, he accepted chemical castration, but the entire ordeal led to his suicide in 1954.
The Imitation Game will be directed by Morten Tyldum.
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For actor Benedict Cumberbatch, he didn’t have to look far to find inspiration for John Harrison.
Although he looked at past terrorists, there was plenty of inspiration from modern day events, said Cumberbatch.
“[Look at] real social history and present history, everything that’s going on: uprisings, people who are trying to spread democracy or fight their cause, not necessarily through political means,” said Cumberbatch. “[Harrison] is a terrorist, and sadly, that’s part of the fabric of our modern world. You don’t need to look far to research that one.”
Cumberbatch did look at “certain terrorist groups in the past,” however, to see how those groups worked and carried out their actions.
Cumberbatch may have used modern day events to figure out how to play a terrorist, but he was mindful of the need to have Harrison’s character ring true in Harrison’s own time frame, the Star Trek future. “It was important to me to ground him in a reality that’s based more on his story than, say, a parallel in the real world,” said Cumberbatch.
“What should certainly be chilling are the parallels to the modern world.”
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Zoë Saldana was in two ads shown during last night’s Super Bowl; the Star Trek into Darkness ad, and one for Bud Light.
Saldana paired up with Stevie Wonder in the Bud Light ad, which was set to Wonder’s Superstition.
In the ad, Wonder played a witch doctor, and Saldana was his assistant. Set in New Orleans, the ad begins with two friends who have brought a “lucky chair” belonging to another friend to the witch doctor to have its good luck removed from it.
The witch doctor has no interest in the job, but Saldana says, “I’ll do it.” She removes the luck from the chair.
The next time the owner of the lucky chair sits in it, his team does not fare so well. Cut to a scene of Stevie Wonder laughing, while a football game can be seen mirrored on his glasses.
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Two things were offered to fans who downloaded the Star Trek into Darkness app and used it during last night’s Super Bowl.
Fans were treated to a slightly longer Super Bowl Star Trek into Darkness ad, and the news of an early IMAX release for the movie.
The ad on the app is five seconds longer than the official one, with the only real new thing being an extra shot of Kirk.
The big news was that fans eager to see Star Trek into Darkness who have an IMAX theater nearby won’t have to wait until May 17th, but can see the movie on May 15th at 8 PM.
“As we saw with the reaction to the first nine minutes of the film, which debuted in our theaters in December, fans are clearly excited by the opportunity to see this epic film come to life in Imax,” said Imax Entertainment chairman and president Greg Foster.
Tickets can be ordered through the app. For those who don’t have the app (like this reporter on whose phone the app refuses to work), just head to Fandango’s website and order tickets to the IMAX showing there.
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A new movie trailer for Star Trek into Darkness debuted last night during the Super Bowl, showing several new items.
The ad shows that those on board the Enterprise may be in for a rough ride.
The new Trek ad opens in London, with the flag of the Federation and two Union Jacks flying over a building. Above, two small ships of some sort are hovering above the area.
The new elements include: an explosion in a large ship storage bay, another one in the middle of London (related to the storage bay?), the USS Enterprise 1701 sustaining major damage that would appear to destroy the ship, and what appears to be a ship crashing into a building.
Additional conversation between John Harrison and James T. Kirk will have the Khan rumors flying again. “I am better,” Harrison tells Kirk.
“At what?” asks Kirk.
“At everything,” replies Harrison.
The trailer can be seen here. Choose “view trailers,” then “big game ad.”
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A changeling tricks Sisko and the crew of the Defiant into taking actions that could start a war.
Plot Summary: At the festivities following Sisko’s promotion, Admiral Krajensky warns Starfleet’s newest captain that a coup on the Tzenkethi home world is threatening nearby Federation colonies. Two days later, Sisko and many crewmembers escort Krajensky aboard the Defiant to check on the colonists, only to discover that a Federation colony has already been destroyed. Problems in the ship’s communications array prevent Sisko from notifying Starfleet, and when O’Brien goes to repair the systems, he hears strange noises and finds Bashir acting strangely in a Jeffries tube. Then he discovers evidence of sabotage. Dax believes she can identify the culprit by scanning for warp particles, but when she scans Krajensky, he transforms into a Founder and flees. The shapeshifter powers the ship’s weapons, activates the cloaking device, and leaves Dax in a coma, putting the ship on course to the Tzenkethi home world, making Sisko suspect that the coup never happened and the entire mission has been a Dominion ploy to start a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi. Realizing that he will have to self-destruct the ship if the Founder is not stopped, Sisko pairs off crewmembers so that the shapeshifter can’t masquerade as someone else and orders a ship-wide search. Sisko, Kira, Odo, and Eddington are all separated and become suspicious that one of them is the Founder, but Odo explains that it can’t be Sisko because an injury has left him bleeding, whereas a shapeshifter’s blood would revert to a gelatinous state to rejoin the whole. Sisko has Bashir draw blood from all the suspects, with results that show Eddington to be a Founder. But when the crew takes him to the brig, they find the real Bashir imprisoned there, while the doctor who did the tests disappears. The Defiant enters Tzenkethi space and Sisko initiates the self-destruct sequence while O’Brien tries to repair the sabotaged systems. Two changelings arrive in engineering with the appearance of Odo, each trying to gain O’Brien’s trust until the Founder attacks the real Odo. They struggle and the Founder is pinned against the warp core, dying from the radiation after whispering to Odo that the Dominion is everywhere. Sisko regains control of the ship and takes it back to the station to face this troubling news.
Analysis: “The Adversary” is one of the best season finales Star Trek has ever done. While not a traditional cliffhanger – it doesn’t leave a specific character in jeopardy or a major crisis unsolved like “The Best of Both Worlds” or “Scorpion”; instead its ambitions are even larger, suggesting that the whole of the universe as we know it may have been invaded by an enemy who can only be traced using a most personally invasive method, which we see for the first time here. Big things happen as Sisko finally becomes a captain, then gets a chance to test the auto-destruct codes while Odo discovers that he is capable of killing one of his own to protect his friends. Small, intimate character revelations occur as well, as we get to see O’Brien’s fear that Bashir has been compromised and Dax’s curiosity about the progression of Sisko’s romance with Yates. Alexander Singer’s directing is terrific, full of misdirection – we’re positive first that Bashir is a changeling, then that Eddington is a changeling, so that we’re not suspecting Bashir when we should and suspecting Eddington when he’s the best person to get to the bottom of the situation – creating the sort of tension that makes it all too understandable when Starfleet later demands blood tests to check for Founders throughout the Federation and on Earth. So much contemporary paranoia is blamed on 9/11, so it’s refreshing if also depressing to get a reminder that similar sorts of suspicion (and similar profiling and testing) were being discussed before those attacks. Again I’m impressed with the astuteness and prescience of Deep Space Nine‘s writers, particularly rewatching an episode like this one with the hindsight of knowing where these events will lead. I have some minor issues with the plot – I find it hard to believe that in two days of preparation for a volatile mission involving the entire senior staff, Sisko did not speak to anyone at Starfleet Command, not even a casual chat about his promotion, that would have made him suspect there was something odd about the Tzenkethi mission assignment, and it’s very odd that a changeling has such specific access to information about top-secret Defiant systems that one individual can run them single-handedly – but such quibbles don’t make a dent in my enjoyment.
Now the crew knows how easily the Dominion can manipulate them not only into nearly starting an interstellar war, but into distrusting everyone around them. If things got this tense on a starship where most of the people have known and worked with most of the others for years, we can already imagine what it will be like for people on different ships or stations. We know it’s going to be bad news as soon as the ambassador announces plans to go along as an “observer,” the sort of thing that has signaled trouble since Kirk took Fox to Eminiar VII and Picard gave Quinn a tour of the Enterprise. After that unsettling start, we get classic haunted house movie scares – O’Brien hears noises he can’t explain, then finds creepy equipment that seems to be injecting worms into the Defiant’s systems. Soon we learn that there is, in fact, a monster in the house, and worse, no one can recognize him, though Eddington never quite believes Odo when Odo claims that he too can be fooled. It’s the start of terror that will feed the next two seasons of the series, when no one can be sure how deeply the Founders have infiltrated the Federation and no one is entirely certain where Odo’s loyalties will ultimately lie. The same could be said for Eddington, whom it’s quite amusing to watch with hindsight knowing that he’ll be revealed as a Maquis agent before the Maquis become irrelevant, swallowed up in the bigger issue of the war with Cardassia once the Dominion finds an Alpha Quadrant ally. What he wants at this point is unclear except his own promotion, but he’s always been portrayed as somewhat adversarial – trying to take over Odo’s duties, obeying Starfleet orders that countermanded Sisko’s – and the command level officers seem more willing to regard him with suspicion, as an outsider, than they do others. We sit patiently waiting for Eddington to shapeshift first when Dax is scanning everyone, then when Bashir is testing everyone’s blood, so it’s quite funny when it turns out he’s just an ordinary guy. Considering his actions the last time he was aboard the Defiant, it’s even funnier when everyone glares at him as soon as Sisko announces that they have a saboteur aboard. All the suspicion just serves to hide the real villain, who at that point can go to sickbay and make sure Dax stays unconscious.
Odo has been behaving more and more like a solid — we almost never see him solve a crime by shapeshifting these days – so there’s real pleasure in watching a Founder demonstrate the range of his changeling abilities, taking on the forms of humans and inanimate objects as well as moving at remarkable speeds, creating nooses that drop out of nowhere and knives that burst out of hands. Huge changes are clearly in store for Odo, who is involved in life-altering events here, as he takes a life for the first time and definitively rejects one of his own kind in favor of saving his friends and the Federation’s interests, though the changeling attempts to force a link upon Odo in a visually disturbing scene that’s akin to a rape. O’Brien, who has one of his weakest showings since he left the Enterprise, can do nothing in the face of this malevolent power; first he’s afraid of ghost noises, then he looks guilty over Dax’s prone form, then he fails the Garth of Izar test by not realizing that when confronted with two Odos, the smartest thing to do would be to stun them both and sort them out afterward. Dax is unconscious and Quark absent for most of the episode, while Kira spends most of her time congratulating and backing up Sisko, but that’s all right because this is his moment, first becoming a captain, then acting like one. It’s rare for us to see a top officer look genuinely horrified when he or she realizes that destroying the ship (and crew) may be the only option, just as it’s rare for us to see a top officer with a family or in a romantic relationship that develops slowly and realistically. It’s odd that he isn’t more hands-on in the final minutes of the self-destruct sequence – I’d expect to see him either trying to chase the changeling or trying to help O’Brien, at least standing over him asking questions. He’d have been awesome, and probably very intimidating, playing Find the Changeling while O’Brien worked on the engines.
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The new Lincoln Motor Company car ad commercial in which Wil Wheaton has a part is now online.
The ad also features hip-hop artist Rev Run and the NFL’s Emmitt Smit.
Part of the ad was filmed at the Vasquez Rocks site, a familiar place to fans of the original series. “Vasquez Rocks — or, as I like to call it, Every Planet Ever In The History Of The Star Trek Universe And Most Sci-Fi Movies From The Fifties — has an incredibly rich film history,” said Wheaton.
Four original series episodes were filmed at Vasquez Rocks (Arena, Shore Leave, Friday’s Child, and The Alternative Factor), as well as several shows from TNG, Voyager, Enterprise, and two of the Star Trek movies.
Wheaton is directing a sci-fi movie in the ad, and a Lincoln car “drives through a movie set in Palmdale, ruining the best performance of an alien ever.”
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In a new Funny or Die video clip, random people on the street are asked if they care about Spock.
The answers of most people stopped might surprise Star Trek fans.
Billy Eichner, host of Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street roped in Quinto for a game of “It’s Spock! Do You Care?” in which Quinto and Eichner ran through the streets of Manhattan, with Eichner stopping random people and asking them if they cared about Spock.
Most of those stopped either didn’t know Quinto (or Spock) or didn’t care. One person didn’t believe that it was Quinto. “It’s not Spock,” he said.
Only two people recognized the star. “Oh my God! Hi!” exclaimed one woman. “I’m a big fan,” said another. “I liked him on Heroes too.”
“It’s Spock! Do You Care?” with Zachary Quinto from Billy on the Street
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Chris Pine gave his opinion recently regarding the news that J.J. Abrams will be directing the next Star Wars movie.
As expected, the actor was happy for Abrams, but he had a warning for Abrams. “From my standpoint, J.J. is a science-fiction genius,” said Pine. “To have him over in the Star Wars camp is going to be a great thing. I’m sure it’s going to be a great film.”
But Pine was not so happy about the possibility of Abrams not directing the third Star Trek film. “The only way I’ll be disappointed is if he doesn’t direct our third movie,†said Pine. “I think if that turns out to be the case we’ll have to kidnap him and hold him hostage until he agrees to do a third.”
As to the rumor that Pine as Kirk might appear in the next Star Wars movie? “Now you’re really playing with fire,” said Pine. “I wouldn’t even say that lightly.”
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There will be sixteen conventions, shows or appearances in February and March that feature actors of interest to Star Trek fans. This listing of conventions and shows features actors from all of the televised series and several of the Star Trek movies.
February begins with OzTrek 9 which will take place February 2 at The Sebel Parramatta, NSW. In attendance at OzTrek 9 will be Terry Farrell and Nicole de Boer.
On February 7-10, GalaxyFest II: Wrath of the Con will be held at the Antlers Hilton in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Tony Todd will be in attendance.
The SFBall 19 will take place at The Carrington House Hotel in Bournemouth, UK on February 8-10. In attendance will be Armin Shimerman, Chase Masterson, Max Grodenchik, Lolita Fatjo, Diane Duane and David Gerrold.
On February 9-10, the Sci-Fi Expo will be held at the Irving Convention Center in Irving, Texas. Guests at Sci-Fi Expo include Avery Brooks and Christopher Lloyd.
The last three conventions all take place February 15-17. First up is Farpoint 2013, to be held at the Crown Plaza Baltimore North in Timonium, MD. In attendance at Farpoint will be John Billingsley, Bonita Friedericy, and a good number of Trek authors.
The 24 Hours of Gallifrey One will be held at the Marriott Los Angeles Airport Hotel. In attendance will be Chase Masterson and Julie Caitlin Brown.
Wrapping up February will be the Grand Slam Star Trek and Sci-Fi Summit XVIII. Held at The Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel, this convention will feature: Sir Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Robert Picardo, Dominic Keating, Catherine Hicks, Connor Trinneer, Jeffrey Combs, Bobby Clark, Celeste Yarnall, Armin Shimerman, Rene Auberjonois, Arlene Martel, Aron Eisenberg and Natalija Nogulich (Alynna Nechayev).
March starts off with CifiMad which will take place on March 1-3 at the Hotel Las Provincias in Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain. In attendance at CifiMad will be Deep Space Nine‘s Max Grodenchik.
On the same weekend, the Emerald City Comicon will be held at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington. Sir Patrick Stewart, Wil Wheaton, Walter Koenig, and Christopher Lloyd will be guests at this convention.
Also taking place on March 1-3 will be the Sci-Fi Weekender, which will be held at the Hafan Y Mor Holiday Park in Pwllheli, Wales. In attendance will be Manu Intiraymi and Chase Masterson.
On March 6-9, the Williamsburg Film Festival will be held at the Holiday Inn, Patriot Convention Center in Williamsburg, VA. The original series’ Sherry Jackson (What are Little Girls Made Of?) will be at the Williamsburg Film Festival.
Next up is Oz Comic Con Perth which will be held on March 9-10 at the Perth Exhibition Centre in Perth, Australia. Guests at Oz Comic Con Perth will include J.G. Hertzler, Robert O’Reilly, and William Shatner.
Also on March 9-10 will be the Toronto ComiCon, to be held at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada. In attendance will be Sir Patrick Stewart, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, and Brent Spiner.
DeepCon 14 will be held on March 14-17 at the Hotel Ambasciatori in Fiuggi, Italy. Deep Space Nine‘s Nana Visitor will be at DeepCon 14.
On March 15-17, MegaCon will be held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. In attendance will be Sir Patrick Stewart, Daniel Stewart, LeVar Burton, Denise Crosby, John de Lancie, Michael Dorn, Jonathan Frakes, Gates McFadden, Larry Nemecek, Marina Sirtis, Brent Spiner, and Wil Wheaton.
Wrapping up March will be the Oz Comic Con Adelaide, which will take place March 16-17 at the Adelaide Showgrounds in Adelaide, Australia. J.G. Hertzler, Robert O’Reilly, and William Shatner will be at the Oz Comic Con Adelaide.
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For Kathleen Kennedy, knowing how to approach J.J. Abrams was key in getting him to say “yes” to directing the next Star Wars movie.
Kennedy, the head of Lucasfilm, had known Abrams since he was fourteen.
Even though Abrams had already passed on directing the movie, he was willing to meet with Kennedy last month at his Bad Robot offices. Kennedy’s plea was short and direct. “Please do Star Wars,” she asked.
And then she told him why he should be the next Star Wars director. She told him that Michael Arndt was writing the script, but also that Lawrence Kasdan, who wrote The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi was on board to consult.
Abrams was “flipping out when he found out that Michael and Larry were on the movie already,” said Kennedy. “J.J. was just on the ceiling when I walked out the door.”
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For fans waiting to download the new Star Trek into Darkness app, it has been released in the U.S. and Canada.
The app will include missions with new missions becoming available weekly.
Initially, the app will contain “between thirty to forty missions, with eight to ten available at any given point and the option to skip missions that don’t seem especially interesting.”
Missions include tasks such as scavenger hunts, scanning Star Trek into Darkness posters, visiting an AMC theater or watching Trek content on TV. Rewards include exclusive content, which will become available with bonus content starting on Super Bowl Sunday, where a new Star Trek extended trailer will be aired during the second quarter of the game.
“This app is like the Starfleet Academy,” said Mitch Lusas, who is the product development director. “You start off as a cadet, and you complete these missions. As you complete each mission, it will disappear and a new mission will come up. You’ll advance in your rank, you’ll unlock content and there will be some other exclusive things that will come up as well.
“The higher you get in your rank, the more content you will actually unlock; things like potentially extended versions of some videos we might be releasing. We’ll also have some information that’s exclusive coming to this app.”
Lusas promises that fans will “find hints” using the app regarding the character played by Benedict Cumberbatch.
The Star Trek into Darkness app is now available for iOS and Android at Apple’s App Store ad at Google’s Play Store.
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Star Trek Online is just completing its third year and Executive Producer Daniel Stahl updated fans on the game’s future.
Expect more adventures, new enemies, new events and even more surprises, said Stahl.
“Thanks to your support, the game continues to grow,” said Stahl. “You may have noticed that more than two million Captains are continuing their voyages in Star Trek Online. With sustained increases in daily participation, the game is richer and more alive than ever before. All of the development, advancement, and improvements over the last year are once again thanks to the feedback you provide and the tireless staff that pour their life into this work. What started as a labor of love with improbable deadlines grew into a passion that has yielded remarkable results.”
What can players expect in the fourth year of Star Trek Online? “In the coming months, we will begin to reveal our vision for the future,” said Stahl. “We’ll discuss and preview new adventures, new enemies, new events, and even more surprises that will define the roadmap for the years to come. We’ll answer some long standing questions about how we view existing and future factions in the game, and we’ll give details about how we plan to advance the overall storyline and resolve outstanding issues in the game.”
Starting tomorrow, a new Feature Episode, Temporal Ambassador will be released, where players will encounter Tasha Yar (Denise Crosby). “All players who complete the new episode between Jan 31st and Feb 14th will receive a free Ambassador Class (Fed) or Kamarag Class (KDF) starship as a reward,” said Stahl. “You won’t want to miss out! This is going to be fun.”
More details on the third anniversary celebration can be found here.
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For fans waiting for May’s Star Trek into Darkness, the release of the Star Trek video game in April will help pass the time.
The game is not just the typical shoot-’em-up, but a Star Trek story, according to Paramount’s Brian Miller. “We want you to feel like you just watched a Star Trek film.”
Paramount was eager to get the game done right. “We wanted to break the trend of movie based games,” said Miller. “Usually, when a company like Paramount wants to make a video game based on one of their film properties, they contract the work out to an outside studio. And over the years, the results have been decidedly mixed. In order to do it the right way we had to do it ourselves.”
The story begins shortly after the last Star Trek film and the characters have evolved a bit since the ending of Star Trek. “They have a lot of bumps in the road as they are sort of finding their way,” said Miller. “But at the same time, Kirk has now spent some time in the captain’s chair and players will notice that change.”
As for the story, Kirk and crew are sent to “investigate a space station under duress. The station has been tasked with research on the New Vulcan colony project, developing a new home world for Spock’s species, whose home planet was destroyed in the last film.
“But as Kirk and Spock explore the station, they learn something has gone very wrong. The Starfleet commander in charge of the station has attempted to exploit a risky new technology that has ripped open a wormhole in space, which serves as a doorway for the invading Gorn, a violent and imperial species first seen in the 1967 episode Arena from the original Trek TV series.”
The Star Trek video game will be released on April 23, and it will be offered across multiple platforms, including Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC.
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Esurance, a direct to consumer personal car insurance company, has a new promotion running for Star Trek into Darkness fans including a sweepstakes for U.S. fans.
The Esurance Star Trek into Darkness Facebook page features several items; the sweepstakes entry form, an inside look into the movie, a “Vulcanizer,” and some fun downloads.
“Much like Star Trek Into Darkness takes movie audiences to exciting new worlds, Esurance, as car insurance for the modern world, is taking car insurance to the next level,” said Esurance Chief Marketing Officer John Swigart. “This film is one of the most widely anticipated movies in years, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to offer fans a chance to see the premiere and enjoy a unique Facebook experience that they can share with their friends.”
U.S. fans can enter the sweepstakes on the page for a chance to win two tickets to the U.S. premiere of Star Trek into Darkness and $2,500 travel money.
The “Vulcanizer” allows fans to upload a photo from either Facebook or their computers, and turn themselves into Vulcans. “Remember, Vulcans never smile,” fans are reminded.
The “Inside Look” section features an “exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the movie.”
The downloads include the movie poster, several icons and two wallpapers; one featuring Kirk and Dr. Carol Marcus, and the other featuring John Harrison crashing through a window.
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For Tricia O’Neil, playing the first Star Trek female captain of the Enterprise in TNG’s Yesterday’s Enterprise was something special.
O’Neil had not been trying to get the role of Rachel Garrett when she got the call to come in and audition for it. “I’d auditioned for other roles on the show. I didn’t get those, but they called me in to play Captain Garrett,” she said.
The actress was ecstatic when she got word that she had won the role. “…When I got the part, I was at home, and I jumped up and down on the coffee table in my living room. I was just elated.
“I knew what that captain’s chair was and when I, Tricia O’Neil, sat in that chair, I understood the importance of it,” said O’Neil. “A lot of people work on these shows — people who build the sets and the props and make the costumes – and the work is so good you can absolutely suspend your disbelief of things. Everything becomes very real and, if you let go of not believing, you can sail right into a whole world. Sitting in that chair as captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, that’s who I was for a week or so. It was an extraordinary experience.”
“So I had the experience of being the captain of a starship,” said O’Neil. “I wear it as a badge of honor that I played the first female captain of the Enterprise.
Rachel Garrett was not the only role played by O’Neil on Star Trek; she later appeared as a Klingon scientist on the TNG episode Suspicions, and as a Cardassian on Deep Space Nine‘s Defiant.
Last fall, O’Neil was a guest at Destination Star Trek London, but her first convention experience was in Los Angeles where she was not a guest, but just there to see what a Trek convention was like. “One time, actually, there was a convention here in Los Angeles,” she explained. “I thought I’d go and look and see what it was like – as a fan, as a person, because I’d always been a fan of Star Trek. I was standing in line to get a ticket and I got almost to the box office and someone behind me said, ‘Captain Rachel Garrett! Captain Rachel Garrett!’ People turned around. I turned around. People just came toward me, and the next thing I knew, the people who were running things there came and got me and took me away. I was mobbed with enthusiasm, and I was so overcome.”
For Destination Star Trek London, now O’Neil was up on the stage in front of the fans. “…I just loved the camaraderie of it and being a part of it,” she said. “And the fans were amazing. They knew more about the characters, especially Rachel Garrett, than I remembered.”
Some U.S. conventions may be in O’Neil’s future. “Richard Arnold came while I was signing some cards and said that there were other ones here, in the U.S.,” said O’Neil, “and would I be interested? I said, ‘Yes.’ It’s a fantastic experience to be part of all of that, part of a legacy like Star Trek. It’s about people’s hopes and wishes, for people all over, everywhere, and they’re joined by their love for Star Trek. It’s almost magical.”
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Star Trek‘s George Takei will be seen on The Neighbors this season.
Takei will be taking on the role of the father of Larry Bird (Simon Templeton).
In The Neighbors, new residents Marty (Lenny Venito) and Debbie Weaver (Jami Gertz) move into Hidden Hills, a gated neighborhood where their neighbors are rather different, in fact they are aliens, straight from the planet Zabvron.
Takei will be seen in the season finale of The Neighbors. His character comes “bearing a big announcement for the alien clan.”
The Neighbors airs on Wednesdays at 8:30 PM on ABC.
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J.J. Abrams will join Gabe Newell for a keynote discussion at 2013′s DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit.
The D.I.C.E. Summit is a “video game conference which honors interactive entertainment culture and all creative culture in [a] rapidly changing global theater.”
Abrams and Newell will lead the “Storytelling Across Platforms: Who Benefits Most, the Audience or the Player?” panel.
“From TV to film and now award-winning mobile apps, there’s no question that J.J. has his finger on the pulse of the entertainment industry, and we’re thrilled to welcome him and our 2013 Hall of Fame inductee, Gabe Newell, to the DICE stage,” said Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president Martin Rae. “J.J. thoughtfully weaves together suspense, action, emotion, and fun into every one of his projects – elements every game developer aspires to capture as well.”
The D.I.C.E. Summit will be held from February 5-8 in Las Vegas.
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Fans upset over the news that J.J. Abrams will be directing the next Star Wars movie, worry not, he’s not leaving Star Trek behind.
Paramount Vice Chairman Rob Moore reassured fans that Abrams would still be involved with Trek and with Mission: Impossible.
“J.J. will continue to develop projects for us including a new Mission: Impossible, and he is committed to produce another Star Trek,” said Moore.
So at the very least, Abrams would be producing the third Trek movie, if not directing it.
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Jadzia asks her friends to take on the personalities of Dax’s past hosts for a Trill rite of closure, but once Odo gets Curzon inside him, he doesn’t want the ritual to end.
Plot Summary: Dax asks the crew and some friends to assist in her zhian’tara, a Trill ceremony in which the current host “meets” the previous hosts by having their memories transferred into another body. A Trill Guardian arrives to facilitate the transfer of Lela’s witty memories into Kira, Tobin’s quiet scientific interests into O’Brien, Audrid’s maternal instincts into Quark, Emony’s athleticism into Leeta, and Torias’s regrets into Bashir. An encounter with the murderer Joran embodied by Sisko leaves Jadzia unnerved since he insists that she is a weak, unworthy host. She resolves to ask Curzon why he originally had her removed from the symbiont program, but once Curzon’s memories are joined with Odo’s, Curzon is far more interested in enjoying corporeal life and resuming his friendship with Sisko than he is in discussing Dax’s past. When Curzon claims that he supported her readmission to the initiate program only because he felt sorry for her, Jadzia says she doesn’t know how to reintegrate his memories without losing her self-esteem. Curzon tells her not to worry about that because he doesn’t intend to reintegrate with Dax, since he and Odo are much happier joined together and plan to stay that way. Meanwhile, Nog fails a crucial test for admission into a Starfleet Academy training program, but Rom realizes that Quark rigged the holosuite so that Nog wouldn’t pass and would remain on the station. While Nog retakes the test, Sisko convinces Jadzia to confront Curzon, who reluctantly admits that he forced her out of the initiate program because he was i love with her. He does not want to reintegrate and share his feelings of shame, but she insists that they are meant to be together and share love through Dax. A newly confident Jadzia goes to the party celebrating Nog’s admission to the Academy preparatory program, where Odo apologizes to Dax for his behavior as Curzon.
Analysis: “Facets” is an episode that’s enormous fun to watch and provides some delightful glimpses at all the series regulars playing alternate personalities, though it’s kind of a shame that Jadzia gets so little to do by comparison in a story centered on Dax and that in the end we don’t learn anything new about this host’s priorities and values. It’s not the first time she’s credited her scientific nerdiness to Tobin even though Jadzia had several advanced degrees before she was a joined Trill, nor the first time she’s fretted over what it means that Curzon initially rejected her from the symbiont program, so I’m completely confused at this point how Trill joining is supposed to work. When we met Odan on Picard’s Enterprise, he led Crusher to believe that the symbiont’s personality overwhelmed that of the host to such a degree that Odan stayed in love with Crusher despite being transferred first to Riker, then to Kareel (who sought to maintain a romantic relationship with Crusher despite the not-yet-explained rule against rejoining). Now we’re told that symbionts are so completely separate from their hosts that Dax was able to hide Curzon’s secrets from Jadzia. Does this suggest that Dax is, in fact, less integrated with the symbiont than, say, Joran was, since the symbiont apparently maintains even Joran’s worst characteristics? And how come Jadzia doesn’t need to include Verad, who briefly stole and joined with the symbiont, in her zhian’tara? Every time there’s a Dax episode it becomes clear that the writers don’t have Trill society nearly as well thought out as that of Romulans, Klingons, Vulcans, Ferengi, Bajorans, et al, which is a shame now that they have a Trill series regular. It’s flabbergasting to discover that Curzon has managed to hide such a huge secret from Jadzia from beyond the grave considering that he’s the previous host whose memories seem most present to her; she and Sisko reminisce all the time about what Curzon thought.
I’d expect Sisko to want to be Curzon for the zhian’tara, but what a pleasure instead to see him give full rein to the aggressive, manipulative side we so rarely get to see. I’m not sure whether Joran is scary or if he’s only capable of such inspiring such fear because he can use Sisko’s voice, even his sense of humor, to create the sense that they’re one and the same. This Joran is nothing like the one with whom Dax made peace on Trill, so I wish there had been more discussion of how Jadzia copes with having such a violent personality as part of her. Cackling Kira, nail-biting O’Brien, melancholy Bashir, and ambitious Leeta aren’t nearly as much of a stretch, though watching Quark alternate between Audrid’s cuddly grandmothering and his own spluttering embarrassment is pretty hilarious. I understand the writers need a gimmick to show us the previous Dax personalities, though the same-faces-different-people scheme was already used in “Distant Voices”; even if Terry Farrell has the range to become a skittish engineer and a bouncy gymnast, it would probably get boring to see her keep switching characters (though how entertaining would it be to see Sisko interacting with a beautiful young woman who has Curzon’s shameless, lecherous personality, especially since we know from “Fascination” that some aspect of Dax’s personality has a crush on Sisko?). On the other hand, that would deprive us of the really emotional aspect of the episode. I’m sure the writers think it’s all about the tragedy of Curzon’s destructive love for Jadzia – his terrible behavior gets excused because things turned out all right in the end when she was readmitted to the initiate program – but that focus on Curzon takes away the other tragedy playing out, Odo’s desperate wish to experience joining. Merging his personality with Curzon’s may not be like the Great Link, but it allows him to enjoy feeling fully humanoid, to relish wine, women and tongo as well as to appreciate the sensation of shapeshifting from the perspective of someone who’s never been able to do it before.
What Odo thinks of as a curse, a mark of his difference, is a source of great enjoyment for the sensualist Curzon. Who can blame Dax’s last host for not wanting to dwell on the past but to imagine a future joined with Odo, delving into pleasures of the flesh not possible in his own lifetime? (And who can blame his old friend Sisko for thinking this is a terrible idea for a long list of reasons?) Rene Auberjonois appears to be having a grand time acting drunk and changing his clothes Q-style, and if it’s hard to see much of Odo with Curzon’s personality coming to the fore, that doesn’t mean Odo isn’t experiencing just as much delight. But it’s troubling that neither Jadzia nor the Guardian guesses that a changeling might be particularly vulnerable to joining with a host, and that it’s the forceful Curzon rather than, say, the timid Tobin chosen for Odo to embody. Since Quark proves that a host’s gender is irrelevant, think how much fun the gymnast Emony would have had in a form without physical limitations. It seems odd that Dax would choose newcomer Leeta – a friendship established in a single expository sentence, since we’ve never actually seen them become friends – and a shame that Rom is busy elsewhere, because how much fun would he have had taking on another personality, getting to relish the ways he’s not a conventional Ferengi instead of being made to feel ashamed of them? If any character has a life-changing moment in “Facets,” it’s not Dax but Rom, who is finally pushed into standing up to his brother when he realizes that Quark has tried to sabotage Nog’s chances of getting into Starfleet Academy and threatens to burn down the bar if Quark tries anything like that again. Sure, it’s a big deal for Nog to get a step closer to the Starfleet career he wants, but it’s an even bigger deal for Rom to stand up to Quark like that. So all the major players arrive at a satisfying conclusion except Odo, who finds himself alone once again.
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For Klingon fans, good news, as Diamond Select Toys has released their Klingon Bird of Prey model.
The Klingon Bird of Prey ship is twelve inches long and nineteen inches wide, and comes with a display stand.
The ship features: light-up engine and weapons, adjustable wings and dialogue from General Chang (Christopher Plummer).
The Klingon Bird of Prey will sell for $70, and can be ordered here. Click on ships and then on Star Trek Klingon Bird of Prey Ship.
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X-Men co-stars Sir Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen will be starring in two plays this fall.
The plays are Harold Pinter‘s No Man’s Land and Samuel Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot.
The duo starred in a production of Waiting for Godot in 2009.
No Man’s Land is the “story of two writers, Hirst (Stewart) and Spooner (McKellen). Do they really know each other, or are they performing an elaborate charade? The ambiguity intensifies when two other men arrive. Does the quartet inhabit a place between reality and fantasy?”
In Waiting for Godot, Vladimir (Stewart) and Estragon (McKellen) are two men who “distract themselves by joking, arguing and clowning around while waiting for the elusive Godot.”
Both plays will be directed by Sean Mathias. More information concerning other casting, theater and dates of performances will be announced soon.
Star Trek #17 Preview
in Trek News
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Fans can see a preview of the latest issue of the continuing Star Trek series, Star Trek #17. now.
Star Trek #17, written by Mike Johnson, with art by Claudia Balboni and covers by Tim Bradstreet, hits stores today.
In Star Trek #17, the “never-been-seen origins of the Enterprise crew in the new movie timeline” is explored. “First up is Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy: find out how the cantankerous miracle worker found himself on a shuttle to Starfleet Academy with James T. Kirk.”
Star Trek #17 was overseen by Star Trek writer/producer Roberto Orci. The thirty-two page issue will sell for $3.99.
Click on thumbnails to see the full-sized pages. More preview pages can be seen at the referring site.
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