Who wants to see a TAS Remasered project?

They're sitting on a "lost" animated episode. I think anyone who is even remotely interested in TAS, and quite a lot of Trek fans in general will want to pick it up just to see the Original cast in a new adventure, no matter whether its done in in the old Filmation style, anime or computer animation. Anyone recall the recalled video game the Secret of Vulcan Fury announced back in the late 90s? It had the entire cast doing vocals for it. The plotline was even written by D.C. Fontana, so you know she adhered to canon. It centered around the Vulcan/Romulan schism and an attempt by the latter to retake Vulcan. Take that vocal track and animate it!!!! I would buy (rebuy) the Animated Series again in a heartbeat if this was included

 

But who has those tracks? I don't think anyone at Paramount or CBS has them. Probably sitting in the basement of some former Interplay employee.

 

Well if Fontana wrote it, I'm sure she would have some pull in regard to how its used. Interplay games is still in business. I'm sure the tracks are accessible.

 

I doubt Fontana would have any pull in that regard. I pretty sure Interplay folded or declared bankruptcy a few years ago. There is still an Interplay but I don't think it has any connection to the Interplay of the late-90's.

 

I suspect the stuff recorded for the videogame would need the gameplay itself to have he correct context.

 

part of the reason why the game was cancelled was that it was too complex. there are probably several contingencies as to how the story develops but I don't really see how the story would be that dependent on gameplay.

 

Storytelling for videogames doesn't simply transfer over to television storytelling. You'd probably have to do a major re-write, which would negate the value of the original cast recordings.

It would be fun to have that game completed, but that's probably a fantasy.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBx-kqrm_zg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZT_qg0jH0U

Here are two trailers from the game. You can get a definite feel for it, especially in the second one. The computer animation for the game wasn't bad, more so in light that it was done 15 years ago.

 

Having worked in video and computer games since the late 80s I can tell you that:

1. Stuff gets lost all the time, especially old files for abandoned projects
2. Writers rarely have any say in how the work is used. Most of it is "work for hire". We pay you once. You do it. We do what we want with it (within the restrictions/approvals of any licenses).
3. Since the game was never finished and the Trek game licenses are with other companies, to do anything with this material you'd have to
   • find it
   • pay whoever owns the recordings to release it to you (unless the rights to the actual data lapsed back to Paramount, depending on the contract)
   • get a new license to use those tracks and story in a new product

 

Thanks for that. I really appreciate it.

Interesting that they botched the opening monologue ("discover" instead of "seek out"). I can see why this project was canceled. It's pretty obvious that they were reaching for something that was beyond their grasp, cf "two-thirds of the crew are on shore leave" and not a single demonstration of mouths moving for speaking, except one of Scotty which was obviously rotoscoped.

 

Exactly.

And in answer to the original question, I don't want a reimagined TAS. If they're going to animate something new, then give us a new story, new material.

 

I "slam" George Lucas for being a hypocrite. An interesting read is this: http://savestarwars.com/doasisay.html

Read about the fuzz created by Mr. Lucas regarding the colorization of his beloved "Three Stooges": "By putting it in black and white, it puts it in a context where you can appreciate it for what it was."

Well, Mr. Lucas could just reduce the color saturation to zero when watching the "Three Stooges" and he would instantly get the original context.

Each time I try this with his Special Editions, the color goes away but the revisions remain. WTF am I doing wrong?

Again, nothing wrong with alternate editions as long as there is still a choice to watch the original version in equal state-of-the-art quality and resolution (correction: colors, brightness and contrast are horrible in SW on Blu-ray, so there is still room for plenty of improvement for both the SEs and the theatrical editions).

Bob

 

I'd just be happy if DC would release a novel of Vulcan Fury.

 

TAS would've worked for me if the animation was done in Japan by the same studio that did Science Ninja Team Gatchaman (aka Battle of the Planets in North America and Europe) or the same studio that did Macross (Robotech in North America and Europe) and shown in prime time on a TV network; as it is, it works slightly for me, but not much.

As I've said before, I want to see an animated series using the same CGI work and character design as the Internet fan show Star Trek: Aurora; I believe that that's the only way an animated Star Trek would work now (and the acclaim for the show seems to back me up.)

 

^^ Nix to those examples.

 

CG attempting to ape RL never works. Even if they could pump £100,000,000 per episode into Creepy Young Jeff Bridges From Tron-style CG's of the TOS crew, I'd prefer my animation stylized.

 

Stylized is fine with me as long as body parts aren't ridiculously out of proportion.

 

Have you even seen Star Trek Aurora? Or any anime? The art styles shown on the anime shows I've mentioned fit Star Trek like a glove, even more so than the hot artist that you guys and gals think could and should do a Star Trek animated show. The styles shown in said hot artist's blog look way too cartoony for me and aren't even as good as the ones made by some of the posters here on their own.

 

You're entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to mine.

 

A lot of TV anime is nearly as much "illustrated radio" as Filmation's stuff was, so I don't see how that would be much improvement other than embracing an art style that some people happen to like.

As to Aurora, it's pretty but fairly robotic in the animation.