StillPaisleyCat
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x09 "300th Night" 2 hours ago:
We’ll have to see how the finale lands, but it may be the most successfully constructed live action season arc of this era.
- Comment on Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Sets 7 hours ago:
I recall that feeling!
I also recall that there were many TOS fans my age for whom the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate defined Star Trek.
I never thought that way myself but it’s been a dividing line in the franchise from the start.
I love SNW for what it is but I have to say that I was disappointed that Akiva Goldsman — who said he was himself disappointed when he joined Discovery’s writers room in season one to find out that they originally had no intention to include Pike — turned out to be more focused in telling the pre-TOS backstory of the TOS main characters than in telling the story of the Enterprise under Pike’s command.
- Comment on Which faction you expect to be antagonist in some next Star Trek story? 10 hours ago:
This is another thought experiment that Kirsten Beyer took on in her Voyager Full Circle sequence in the Relaunch Treklit novelverse.
There were a lot of questions about whether their ethics were in fact shared or parallel with that of the Federation as well as whether they really were who they claimed to be on the surface.
Another Relaunch Treklit exploration involved a very different Breen society than Discovered unveiled. Instead of a single species, Breen turned out to be a multiplicity of species with different environmental requirements who all spent all their lives in environmental suits other than in their own homes. In the Relaunch universe, the Breen achieved species, race and gender equality by completely hiding their physiology and masking their voices.
- Comment on Interview: ‘Starfleet Academy’ EP/Director Talks What’s New For Season 2, Why He’s Optimistic About Season 3 12 hours ago:
And his S31 movie was terrific too (based on his comments in other promotional campaigns).
My partner and I are among the seemingly very few longtime Trek fans who really found S31 fun, and have even rewatched it.
That said, however evidently capable Osunsamni is as the executive in charge of managing production in Toronto, S31 exemplifies a personal preference for flash over substance. One therefore has to wonder whether he’s got good situational awareness about where the context is now.
- Comment on They Don’t Make CGI Quite like They Used To 14 hours ago:
This does remind me how few times Star Trek has used the idea of a space elevator.
I kind of feel we need a meme juxtaposing this with a gif from the Lower Decks episode where Mariner and Ransom were fixing an elevator and had to skydive.
- Comment on Which faction you expect to be antagonist in some next Star Trek story? 1 day ago:
Kirsten Beyer’s had a very creepy and innovative follow up to the Schisms aliens in her Treklit Voyager Full Circle sequence of novels.
Discovery borrowed one of her plots for the 4th season. I wouldn’t mind if they adapted some of their alien concepts for SFA.
- Comment on Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Sets 1 day ago:
It seems that CBS senior executives really wanted a show with Patrick Stewart as Picard.
Many attempts to pitch a show were made but it wasn’t until Chabon flattered him into reading a concept that Stewart would even meet with the creators.
CBS and other studios had access to the state grants to incent the major streamers to keep production in California and made the choice to blow theirs on Picard.
- Comment on Which faction you expect to be antagonist in some next Star Trek story? 1 day ago:
The ones in the image of the post are all old, rehashes from classic episodes.
When the Borg first appeared towards the end of TNG season one, all we saw was destroyed colonies. It was a mystery who or what was causing this.
Or, consider how we heard about the Romulans before first seeing them in TOS.
A slow revelation of a new and unexpected opponent, very different from the ones we’ve seen before, would be much more interesting than revisiting old ones repeatedly.
- Comment on Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Sets 1 day ago:
I’d definitely like to see more of Una.
This is where some lower budget (than S31), less action-focused, made-for-streaming movies would be great.
- Comment on Which faction you expect to be antagonist in some next Star Trek story? 1 day ago:
How about more new antagonists?
I’d like to know more about the Vendari Ral and the remaining Emerald Chain in the 32nd century.
However, what I’d prefer over time is to see a build up to and slow unveiling of another unique antagonist as we got with the Borg.
- Comment on Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Sets 1 day ago:
Picard was produced in California, seemingly a condition of Patrick Stewart.
Paramount was able to get a one-time California state grant to defray costs but it was produced on leased soundstages rather than Paramount’s own.
This meant that there was a very short window after production ended before the sets had to be broken down. Some of the set elements and properties were packed and shipped (perhaps to Toronto?) It seems that the Enterprise D bridge reconstruction was transferred to the Roddenberry archive.
- Comment on Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Sets 1 day ago:
The SNW co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers have been chatting up this idea for almost a year it seems.
The announcement that Thomas Jane was cast as McCoy, and appears in the SNW series finale at the end of season five, suggests that, unlike Matalas’ Legacy concept, there was some series buy-in at senior levels prior to the merger.
- Exclusive Update On The ‘Star Trek: Year One’ Series Pitch And Status Of The ‘Strange New Worlds’ Setstrekmovie.com ↗Submitted 1 day ago to startrek@startrek.website | 18 comments
- Comment on On-Set Diary, Ukeck: Inside How ‘Starfleet Academy’ Used Their ‘Holodeck’ To Create The Alien Marketplace 1 day ago:
It’s very cool that Michael Cassabon was allowed to come back to do a second piece.
I have been looking to see if he’s posted a longer piece elsewhere as he did for the U of T library shoot. I doubt this is a TrekMovie exclusive.
He’s now at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario but hasn’t posted anything on his own social media that I can see.
- Comment on Preview ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Finale With 6 New Images From “Rubincon” 1 day ago:
I’ve been wondering about the Emerald Chain too.
While there is a treaty and détente, it seems odd that only the Venari Ral have been mentioned as a threat this season.
- Comment on Preview ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Finale With 6 New Images From “Rubincon” 2 days ago:
I was very relieved to see Lura back
I hope we’ll see much more of her in season two.
- Comment on Preview ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Finale With 6 New Images From “Rubincon” 2 days ago:
Looking again at the production photo of Tatiana Maslany as Anisha Mir, there may be an entirely different long con going on from the Federation side.
Could be a coincidental styling choice but, Anisha seems to be dressed in something close to a Section 31 uniform!
So, speculation…
We know from Discovery that Starfleet and the 32nd century Federation have some kind of shadowy espionage and covert operations organization.
Could it be possible that Anisha, who was known to Nahla Ake, was more than a desperate mother looking to trade her skills to the Venari Ral for sustenance for herself and her child?
Was there some kind of deep covert mission that went profoundly wrong? If so, was Ake read in?
If Anisha is somehow a Federation operative, how will Caleb deal with his being put at risk, then sacrificed for an operation?
Anisha may be less morally culpable for her actions as an infiltrator of the Venari Ral, but as a mother putting her child in the line of harm, there is a completely different calculus.
- Comment on Preview ‘Star Trek: Starfleet Academy’ Series Finale With 6 New Images From “Rubincon” 2 days ago:
The note at the top of the article has got me speculating on the meaning of the word play:
Episode 10 of season 1 of Starfleet Academy is titled “Rubincon,” and no, that is not a typo for “Rubicon.”
The suffix con leaps out.
Brakka seems a full on dark triad kind of villain. With that comes the Machiavellian manipulation and deceit, including cons.
For rubin, the first part of the word, the dictionary definitions I find say that it’s an obsolete word for ruby (alternative spelling is rubine).
So literally, the title of the episode means, well, “ruby + con”.
Which gets us back to a sound-alike for rubicon…
Clearly the writers are making a point here with this double entendre.
My money’s on the red wall of omega-47 being a grossly gigantic con where the isolation of the Federation is not quite the threat it seemed at the end of episode 9.
However, is it only Brakka who is responsible for the con, or is and has Anisha Mir been part of a long con of both Ake and her son from the start?
And, what is it that Brakka and Anisha Mir are really after with all this?
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x09 "300th Night" 6 days ago:
Jonathan Frakes mentions several things in the TrekMovie interview that may impact costs.
Alex Kurztman set the direction style with more close up, tight camera work. More, he specifically ordered special long camera lenses to enable that. This means that despite the enormous sets and UHD cinematography, with long lenses they are able to block the scenes without as much extraneous detail.
Saving the wide angles for when they need them but closing up on the characters, and doing more in set internal volumes must surely reduce a lot of crew time and accelerate production.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x09 "300th Night" 6 days ago:
Well, that’s a lot. I’m not sure why I didn’t expect a cliffhanger, and I hope there won’t be one at the end of the season.
As we saw the wall of omega-47 mines, it occurred to me that Brakka had told Ake what he wanted in episode 6 — a return to the isolation of planets that gave him and the Venari Rahl their power — but neither she nor Vance appreciated the scale of his ambitions to return to the anarchy of past century.
And the Federation should have anticipated this kind of challenge to come from some quarter, even if they’d come to detente with the Emerald Chain. Those who benefited from the systems that were built up over the century of the Burn would have nostalgia for it and distrust against the Federation would not vanish quickly.
I appreciate the narrative structure of the season, Anisha and Caleb Mir represent those who struggled to get by around the powers and forces of the Burn. There is a personal story and a societal story about making choices to take the risk to move towards something better — as found family and as a society.
As it goes on, this show reminds me increasingly of The Magicians, on which SFA showrunner Noga Landau was a head writer at one point. There’s the quotidian developmental, coming of age challenges of students in their undergraduate years juxtaposed with massive and truly menacing events.
- Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x09 "300th Night" 6 days ago:
Bella Shepherd, who plays Genesis, said in an interview that Frakes was originally booked for direct her character’s feature episode in season two, but then he couldn’t be available because of conflicts but was expected to direct a later episode. It sounds as though they couldn’t make the schedules mesh.
- Comment on Star Trek has more to offer or it has to end and stop producing more content? 1 week ago:
I loved the Relaunch novelverse but I also love the new shows.
It’s unfortunate that the IP holder decided that for the books — unlike Star Trek Online — the storytelling in the alternate timeline couldn’t continue.
- Comment on ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Wins Emmy Award For Animation 1 week ago:
These are the 2025 Emmy awards.
Not sure why a July 2024 release didn’t meet the cut off date for that year’s awards. Perhaps since the Emmys were originally for a standard September to June television broadcast schedule, July streaming releases get bumped to the next year.
- Comment on ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Wins Emmy Award For Animation 1 week ago:
I’m so very glad to see that Prodigy’s excellence continues to get the acknowledgment it deserves from within the creative community.
This Individual Achievement award is determined by the animators’ guild not an open Emmy vote. Having the winner for each of the show’s two seasons demonstrates the respect the work has within the animation community.
- Comment on Star Trek ebook deals! 1 week ago:
It would be cool to have an AMA with one of the longtime group of tie-in writers for the franchise.
They’ve seen the evolution of TrekLit from the end of the TNG movie era through the Relaunch book universe and back to standalones.
- Submitted 1 week ago to startrek@startrek.website | 6 comments
- Comment on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy • FlixPatrol 1 week ago:
Flix Patrol just compiles the public rankings from the streamers themselves as far as I know.
Parrot Analytics used to make public their rankings that incorporate everything available, including social media volumes, and presumably ‘alternative views’. They were excellent leading indicators and covered many markets that the other metric companies didn’t. However, they stopped making their top ten streaming shows list available, let alone their show by country details, and we don’t see them reported in entertainment media as we once did.
- Comment on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy • FlixPatrol 1 week ago:
It has its ups and downs but many of us view it as the strongest live action first season in this era.
- Comment on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy • FlixPatrol 1 week ago:
I have no issues with the ‘dots’ given this is the 32nd century. It really puts the fine point on assigning physical labour as a disciplinary measure.
The lens flare is part of a directional code that’s getting dated at this point. I notice that in the premiere - which Kurtzman directed himself - he went for long camera pans with fewer jump cuts, and fewer lens flares.
As long as Osunsami remains the supervising EP and supervising director in Toronto however, I don’t think that it’s likely we’ll see Kurtzman’s own style of direction reflected in the shows.
- Comment on Star Trek: Starfleet Academy • FlixPatrol 1 week ago:
Oh! That is an interesting pair of indicators.
Nemechek tends to draw the old guard. If he’s seeing his reach increase, it would be a leading indicator for a shift.