The sci-fi community was a-buzzing this week after Paramount finally lifted the veil of secrecy on what JJ Abrams’ take on “Star Trek” will look like with the release of several stills from the upcoming movie. And while there were some real surprises in the mix, what I ended up finding more interesting was what this sudden reveal tells us about Abrams’ film and Paramount’s apparent new viewpoint on their prized Trek franchise.

For those of you who have already seen the pictures, I’m sure you’ve had your share of other peoples’ descriptions of what minutiae can be dissected from these images, so don’t worry this won’t be more of that. Besides, in all honesty, I don’t spend my time over-analyzing stills looking for some hidden secret just as how I don’t look for images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary in oil stains. In other words, I do have a life, thank you very much. All I will say is that looking at this shot featured above of the new Enterprise bridge, I can’t help but wonder if the production designer got some sort of discount deal with a light bulb manufacturer as there are a LOT of lights in that layout, some of which make no sense at all – those halogen-spotlight circle lights running along the top of the stations are a good example. Oh, I’m sure this design has got the geek “SO Cool!!!!” vote sewn up, but from my viewpoint, it just seems a tad too cluttered. Put it to you this way, would you buy an iPhone or other electronic device if it had that many bells and whistles decorating its housing? It’s clear as technology gets more advanced, we’re moving toward not only smaller devices, but also simpler interfaces, something this image doesn’t quite bring to mind. In any case, now that I got that out of the way, let me get to the point that is surprisingly being overlooked surrounding the release of these various images. Click here to continue reading »”JJ Abrams’ Trek XI Flick – It’s Not Your Daddy’s “Wagon Train to The Stars””

As some of you may have noted from my list of other blogs I write, in addition to blogging I also work on the creation of an original, dramatic series called “Star Trek Unity”. At the beginning of this month, I was informed about a major achievement for this production, something that we’ve now been able to share with the public. Our first audio dramatic presentation “Disunity”, which I directed, co-wrote and even acted a few roles in, has landed one of the five coveted nomination spots for the 2008 Parsec Award for “Best Speculative Fiction Audio Drama – Short Form”. On our project’s website and blog, we’ve made this news public along with our obvious pride and elation at landing this honour. But I wanted to use this outlet to speak about this accomplishment on a more personal level.

But before I do that, let me provide some background for those of you who are not familiar with this dramatic series. “Star Trek Unity” is an amateur series production set in the time period between the TV series “Star Trek Enterprise” and “Star Trek”, the Original Series. Our series will be a full CGI animation series, but for now, we’re releasing a set of audio-only episodes that serve as a prequel to our animation series, to help introduce and establish our original characters and some future story plot lines. Our premiere episode, “Disunity”, which was released last December, is a mystery story that centers around a terrorist attack on a Federation construction yard. The episode was written as an allegory to our ongoing conflicts with those who use acts of terrorism for political/social gain, with certain character actions mirroring the posturing of some world leaders on this issue as well as the fallout that events like 9/11 have had on our collective society. Although the main cast consists of amateur actors, we have been fortunate to land the talents of professional actor Kurt Carley, who quite effectively breathes life into the part of the leader of the terrorist organization. Click here to continue reading »”Landing A Parsec Award Nomination – It Doesn’t Get Any Better Than This”