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New Animated Star Trek In The Works

Posted by Zonk on Thu Dec 14, 2006 02:16 PM
from the sounds-fine-by-me dept.
Philias writes "A new web-based Star Trek Animated Series may be in the works. CBS is considering a pitch by veteran Trek producer Dave Rossi for a 'Clone Wars' style animated series for StarTrek.com. Like Clone Wars the episodes would be just a few minutes long. Unlike the old animated Trek show from the 70s, this one would be with a whole new crew set in a new time period. The setting is to be a war-torn post-9/11-like Trek universe 150 years after the time of Picard." From the post: "The Zero Room team felt that the time was right for a new approach to Trek. The setting is the year 2528 and the Federation is a different place after suffering through a devastating war with the Romulans 60 years earlier. The war was sparked off after a surprise attack of dozens of 'Omega particle' detonations throughout the Federation creating vast areas which become impassible to warp travel and essentially cut off almost half the Federation from the rest. During the war the Klingon homeworld was occupied by the Romulans, all of Andoria was destroyed and the Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation. The setting may seem bleak and not very Trek-like, but that is where the show's hero Captain Alexander Chase comes in."
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  • Dumbest Star Trek captain name, ever.
    • it's about as bad Dylan Hunt :-)
    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Exactly: doesn't even have a "j" in the name: James Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Benjamin Sisko, Kathryn Janeway.

      Maybe they should do a reverse TNG: hire a French actor to play a British captain who's enamored with Voltaire.
    • Why was the parent modded up? Alexander Chase is no worse than James Tiberious Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Kathyrn Janeway, Benjamin Sisko, etc.
  • by Tebriel (192168) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:18PM (#17241916)
    Can we start a pool on when the first time travel episode will be? I'm betting 5th show of the first season.
    • After the episode airs, I'll come back and replace this post with one that wins the pool.
    • Can we start a pool on when the first time travel episode will be?


      It already happened six episodes ago.

      -Grey [wellingtongrey.net]
    • Pilot episode, in the first few minutes. The captain and starship will be from the past and get stuck near a black hole. After escaping the black hole, they find it is the future, and the happy life they had and their precious federation is now gone and has become a rough and tumble place with enemies everywhere....
        • by Daniel_Staal (609844) <DStaal@usa.net> on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:47PM (#17242524)
          Season 1 had promise. Complicated universe, diverse characters, a couple good over-arching plotlines. Some rough edges, but go back and watch season 1 of TNG and it is no worse.

          Then they decided to be an action show.
          • Actually, it was Season 2 that the show really took off. They were just about ready to take the first step in putting the Commonwealth back together when they completely screwed it all up in Season 3. Suddenly and without warning, the Commonwealth is fully organized and funded, and Dylan is playing Hercules in Space with the assistence of a really bad cameraman. It was as if someone took the show and flushed it down the toilet.

            Vedran homeworld plot? Gone.
            Magog plot? Gone.
            Abyss plot? Gone.
            The really cool human technologists who became the Commonwealth's enemy? Gone.

            I mean, is it even possible to do any more injustice to a show?
            • "I mean, is it even possible to do any more injustice to a show?"

              AKAImBatman begins casting Summon Browncoat Army (I)...
              AKAImBatman's spell fizzles.

              • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                Addressing the Andromeda part of your post, I'd have to agree. I didn't like it *too* much but it was tolerable.
                R. H. Wolfe was actually an executive producer. The problem was Sorbo.... They've just gotta start hiring actors that don't insist on becoming producers so they have so much control of the story. Same problem with Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner... My guess is it was their input that killed Nemesis and Insurrection.
          • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

            Yep. We can thank Kevin Sorbo for that one. Apparently Robert Hewitt Wolfe made the show "too complicated" for people to understand. Be sure to read the Andromeda Coda: http://www.rhwolfe.com/Coda/Andromeda___Coda.pdf [rhwolfe.com]
            • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

              Except, you know, in Farscape it was a wormhole, and I am fairly certain there was no time travel.

              Yeah, the setup for Farscape was more like The Wizard of Oz. The lead gets pulled into a swirly storm-like phenomenon, taken from the ordinary world, dropped in a fantastical place where s/he accidentally causes the death of some probably-nasty character. The deceased's nasty sibling then declares revenge and pursues the lead across the region. And for all the adventures the lead has, s/he just wants to ge

        • Except that in the Mirror universe, the Borg wouldn't force all the intelligent species in the galaxy into their collective. Instead, they would offer gift baskets and greeting cards, asking people to join their hippie commune.
  • Cartoons + Star Trek? Man, this is going to be the nerdiest show ever.
  • I would personally rather see something between the first faster than light voyage and NCC-1701. Eric
  • ..... there's a very shapely and sexy female character in tight clothes that makes a nerd like me drool, then I'll watch.


  • Star Trek became closer to Star Wars as time went along. And a new series based after a war? No shit....You'd think they would actually sit down and try to come up with a thought provoking story at some point.
    • From TFA:
      Rounding out the 'big 3 will be Lt. Kaylen Donal, a tough-as-nails security chief whose team of red shirts are all linked with Borg technology implants called 'Biomechanical Utility Grafts or 'BUGs'. The Zero Room team want to see this security squad kick some butt and not just be cannon fodder.

      What the fuck? They have an entire section going trans-human with Borg technology ... VOLUNTARILY any they still miss the implications?

      Instead ...
      "Although the show is set in the future the designs are founded in TOS, it is a throwback that is also looking forward," explains Rossi.

      That makes no sense what-so-ever.

      And ...
      "The Captain is more forward thinking and wants to go out and do some exploring but half the crew will be against that and want to just protect the border," says Rossi.

      Captain's Log, Stardate 2528 point 4. I have beamed half the crew into space during a mutiny. They had forgotten that this was a Star Fleet vessel and not a Democracy. I will ... miss them.
  • Judging from the animation style, it looks like they're trying to do to Star Trek, what Loonatics Unleashed [slashdot.org] "re-imagining" was to the Warner Brothers cartoons.

    It's crap, Alex, but not as we know it,
    Not as we know it,
    Not as we know it,
    It's crap, Alex, but not as we know it, not as we know it, Captain.

    It's worse than that, it's dead, Alex!
    Dead, Alex!
    Dead, Alex!
    It's worse than that, it's dead, Alex! Dead, Alex, dead!

  • by CheeseburgerBrown (553703) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:27PM (#17242118) Homepage Journal
    You know, if Viacom keeps pulling on those teats like that they're eventually just going to break right off. I mean, there's milking it and there's milking it.

    Does new Trek content really have dominion over any part of our cultural consciousness anymore? Go on: quote me a well known line from Voyager. No, no -- the show. Remember? How could you forget? It not only featured the worst series finale of any TV show ever produced, it also made my ears bleed whenever the quavering caterwauling of that shifty-ass captain sounded.

    And let's not forget Enterprise...no, wait -- let's.

    Anyone who sat through Deanna and Riker's wedding in those waiter uniforms knows what I'm talking about: the whole idea has seen its day, and Star Trek should be buried alive...buried alive...buried alive...

    The franchise peaked with "There are four lights!"

    • Go on: quote me a well known line from Voyager.

      "Get that cheese to sickbay!"

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      the whole idea has seen its day, and Star Trek should be buried alive...buried alive...buried alive...

      Not at all; they haven't even meaningfully tapped the universe. What they have done is exhausted the "human space jockey" plotline.

      All kinds of potential new stories still exist, just centered on one of the other major players. What about a Klingon centered series, for example? Or the backstory on the Vulcan/Romulan split? The origins of the Borg?

      Plenty of interesting ideas--too bad no one will do anyth

      • Consider redesigning the premise of the Federation, taking into account the critique [friesian.com] that it's basically a fascist state.

        Wow. Just wow. That was just... horrible.

        The author of that critique seems to be some kind of religious conservative who takes offense at the fact that the Federation doesn't use money and talk about God all the time. Nevermind the fact that they have replicators and thus there is no scarcity and no need for money OR for communistic redistribution of wealth - just throw your garbage into
        • I was first in line to get a signed copy of Dawkins' The God Delusion when he spoke on campus, so I sympathize with your reaction, but I also mostly agree with the critique. I don't think his point is that his religion (whatever it is) was left out, but that it's a bizarre continuity breach to assume, without explanation, that religion has vanished altogether from human culture. I've written a related column [anthrozine.com] arguing that religion should play a greater role in a particular SF/fantasy subgenre, not because I'
          • I'll agree that it seems a far stretch of plausibility, both that religion would be eliminated from human society and that such magical replication technology would be invented, especially in the short time span portrayed in the Trek series. But that didn't seem to be the author's point in that critique. It seemed much more like a political than a science-fictional commentary - not "oh right, like that will ever happen, keep dreaming bud" but instead "this 'glorious future' is only glorious if you're a mili
  • by KrazeeEyezKilla (955150) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:31PM (#17242178)
    Why can't they make the Trek spinoff we really want to see: the late 19th century escapades of Mark Twain and Guinan.
  • by metlin (258108) <narayan@nOsPAM.fas.harvard.edu> on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:34PM (#17242252) Homepage Journal
    There are many other series out there, such as Stargate, Babylon 5, Firefly and so on.

    So, is there a reason that we have to keep coming back to Star Trek - The Search for More Money every damn time?

    The franchise is dead. People just don't seem to get it.
    • by elrous0 (869638) * on Thursday December 14 2006, @03:01PM (#17242828)
      It's called Battlestar Galactica.

      -Eric

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Old franchises never die. They just go on hiatus.

      Consider Battlestar Galactica. The new series is pretty good, but does it really make sense for it to be a remake? From a storytelling point of view, the answer is a definite No: they made so many basic changes, they might as well have started from scratch. But that's not the way Hollywood works. It doesn't like taking chances, and even a remake of a lame Star Wars ripoff is "safer" than a totally new concept.

      That's why Berman was able to retain control of

  • by Jerf (17166) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:42PM (#17242408) Journal
    Vulcans, who were negotiating reunification with the Romulans, pulled out of the Federation.
    Well, at least they're getting the racist aspects of Star Trek correct. This has been predictable ever since it was revealed that Romulans and Vulcans were the same race.

    Star Trek is dedicated to the idea that every species has one culture, one religion, one government, and they all belong together on the same planet (or at least the same star system). Anybody who dares to marry outside of their race, err, species, will have children that are horribly torn between their two distinct and apparently utterly immiscible heritages. "Oh, woe is me, shall I be Vulcan or Human because it isn't possible for me to forge my own distinct identity, I must only belong to one race, err, species!"

    What other reasons would the Vulcans have for re-uniting with the Romulans? The Vulcans may be the same species but in almost every other way they are night and day; their culture, their philosophies, their approaches to problems, everything except maybe general arrogance. They're geographically separated so far apart that there was enough time before they re-discovered each other that they forgot they were related. They share few to no strategic interests.

    But blood will out, apparently.

    I bet Vulcan or Romulus ends up destroyed at some point (probably Vulcan) and all of the Vulcan refugees go live on Romulus, cause the post-TNG Star Trek mythos can't tolerate races living in two places.
    • by imidan (559239) on Thursday December 14 2006, @03:59PM (#17243928)
      This is exactly the problem that I have with Star Trek. Captain Sisko pops down to Bajor, and stops at some peasant's house, and the ENTIRE design motif is the symbol of the planet Bajor. I mean, people have these things hanging all over the place. Their *windows* are bajor-symbol shaped, for God's sake. Where do you see anything like this on Earth? Where do you see this level of ultra-nationalism in our society? It's almost never a good sign. We've had some in the US since 2001, and I'm quite relieved that this blind "patriotism" is beginning to give way to reason. I'll cut that rant off there, but the point is, race is the defining characteristic of almost anybody on Star Trek these days, but the people of the Trek universe never seem to notice what a vast problem they have with racism.

      The explanation for all of this is just that it makes a convenient shortcut for the writers: they don't have to spend any time on character development for minor characters in a given episode. Want a sneaky, conniving bad guy? Romulan. Want a greedy, selfish bad guy? Ferrengi. Want someone controlled by reason? Vulcan. Any race that you care to mention in Trek is characterized by a handful of primary traits that set them apart from everyone else. And almost every member of that race is an exemplar of their racial identity. I find it tiresome that so much of what happens in Trek is based entirely upon racial stereotypes. And I don't find it much of a consolation when they occasionally throw us a demented Vulcan or a noble Romulan.

      The exception to this, of course, is the human race. Humans tend to be more realistic characters because they're not constrained by such narrow stereotypes. The stereotypes are still there, especially for people who are members of particular factions. But they're a little more tolerable.
      • by Jerf (17166) on Thursday December 14 2006, @04:20PM (#17244348) Journal
        Apparently, the symbol of the human race in the real world is the rectangle, with arches sprinkled in for interest.

        I pity the rest of the races of our galaxy, whose architects are crippled by the fact that they can't use rectangles and arches because unbeknownst to them, twenty thousand light years away, humans already claimed them.

        Pity the poor, primitive Kr'zilt'k of Tomporon, as they attempt to build their first primitive mud huts completely out of isosceles triangles.

        Pity the poor, advanced RRRRRzzzzzzRrrz of ZZZZrrZzRz, as they try to build skyscrapers that look like clumps of mud stuck together, but fail due to the simple laws of materials science, and are thus stuck with cities built out of the equivalent of five-story buildings.

        Curse humanity! Curse them and their claiming of the precious "simple, unadorned rectangle"!
          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            But we also consider those goals to be part of Vulcan logic, as axioms. So a Vulcan might say "logic dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". This isn't an expression of truth or falisty, but an expression of Vulcan values. Similarly Vulcans value family.

            Personally, I find it amusing that you can use logic-mathematics to prove that Vulcan logic-popular-perception is fatally flawed, and that it is absolutely impossible to reason from simple first principles up to "The needs of the

  • Bad reference (Score:4, Insightful)

    by spyrochaete (707033) <spyrochaete&hyppy,zapto,org> on Thursday December 14 2006, @03:15PM (#17243096) Homepage Journal
    "The setting is to be a war-torn post-9/11-like Trek universe 150 years after the time of Picard."

    So there will be no liquids or gels allowed on starships? "Tea Earl Grey powdered"

    I'm not even American and it still pains me to see how diluted 9/11 is becoming. Call it war-torn or whatever, but at least reference an event that occurred in a warzone.
  • by masdog (794316) <masdog.gmail@com> on Thursday December 14 2006, @03:33PM (#17243428)
    Come on? Seriously! That is the premise for a new Star Trek series? If TPTB are listening, don't do it! It's bad enough that you ran the franchise into the ground with Voyager and Enterprise. Don't compound your mistake with this idea.
    • by StikyPad (445176) on Thursday December 14 2006, @05:24PM (#17245490) Homepage
      It's not that the creators ran the series into the ground -- it's that the rest of the world made it out of the 80s, which was really the only decade in which it was acceptable for grown men to be seen in leotards.
  • ~OT (Score:3, Informative)

    by belg4mit (152620) on Thursday December 14 2006, @04:15PM (#17244250) Homepage
    Even you're even a minor trek fan and enjoy/can tolerate house I recommend tracking
    down some Star Pilot on Channel K (S.P.O.C.K), a nifty little Sci-Fi Swedish band.
    "Never Trust a Klingon" and "The Trouble with Tribbles" are especially good.
  • by gelfling (6534) on Thursday December 14 2006, @04:37PM (#17244676) Homepage Journal
    Ok so now we're in the 26th Century. Time travel, trading bodies on demand, immortality, whatnot. The further you push this stuff into the future the more it becomes a Science Fantasy Chick Flick Soap Opera. Everything will get magically solved with magic science at the end of every episode. Engines going to blow up? Push the 17th dimension button that supercools them to 1 billion degrees below absolute zero. Then fly through the sun with your sun protector shield. Naturally.
    • Re:Uniforms (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hijacked Public (999535) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:23PM (#17242028)
      Not in the cartoon version, they'll just be made out of pixels arranged to look like velour.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Deep Space Nine was more about politics than exploration. But in my opinion that's okay, because it still made good sci-fi (it was alien politics)! For example, they "explored" the ethical situation regarding the Tosk [wikipedia.org], the dichotomy between science and religion on Bajor, the drug dependence of the Jem'Hadar, biological warfare (Section 31 infecting the Founders with that disease), etc.

    • by Timesprout (579035) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:34PM (#17242244)
      Actually if they start monkeying about with the main deflector dish then for once I would like to see a star trek character say 'What?' instead of 'Yes, that might just work'. 'Run a reverse polarity inverse jellybaby through the main deflector dish!!! WTF are you babbling about???, is that even possible?????' seems like a much more natural response.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        Run a reverse polarity inverse jellybaby through the main deflector dish!!! WTF are you babbling about???, is that even possible?????' seems like a much more natural response.

        Someone always does reply that way. And then someone else says "Yes, it iscrazy... crazy enough to work!"
      • by saudadelinux (574392) on Thursday December 14 2006, @02:54PM (#17242684)
        I know someone will mod this "-5 send him to Gitmo!", but:

        I didn't watch ANY of the spin-offs after they stopped making ST:TNG.

        Why?

        I recognized the horse, as it were, was dead. Sometimes, even most times, it's better to let the thing rot and disperse back into the environment, instead of resurrecting it over and over again. It's looking a bit tatty now.