resurrecting Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury as a animated TOS story

[jefferiestubes8]

Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury is a [unfinished 1998]1999 unreleased PC game from Interplay. It was written by D.C. Fontana and featured the voices of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takei, Walter Koenig, and Nichelle Nichols in their original roles.

Yes the same Interplay that made Starfleet Command, New Worlds, Starfleet Academy: Strategic Command, and Checkov's Lost Missions expansion pack for Starfleet Academy.

The voice recordings of the actors were done in 1998. The project put on indefinite hold October 1998.
Most of you have seen these two videos on Youtube but I'll link them here for reference.
Trailer 1:
Trailer 2:

To be able to use the recorded voices of all the actors would be awesome for a animated episode or special for a TAS blu-ray as a major feature to purchase TAS.
I looked around the net.

Apparently because they only completed 5% of development and most of that was story and all the original crew having their dialogue recorded (De Kelley did all his but they had to re-record a few lines with an impersonator when the story changed slightly as he was sadly too ill...). The lead artist also left but even before that they had started from scratch twice so the budget was well over $10M for only 5% so Interplay canned it and have yet to revive it.

SOURCE

they have constructed all of the characters in 3D, as well as new guest characters, the Enterprise, Romulan warships, various space stations, the planet Vulcan

A friend of mine working for the company has stated that no plans are being made to complete this project in the light of Activision getting the license from Viacom as of 2002, and the voice recording of all the main stars of the TV series will not be used in any upcoming project.

-Gary Seven of Eleven
aintitcoolnews 1998

- [from the no longer working link]: http://gaming.trekpulse.com/secretofvulcanfury/faq.htm

2005 source

Yosef Lindell wrote:

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I was told by a former member of the Interplay staff that if the voice recordings still exist, they are probably on magnetic tape and being stored in one of the many storage facilities that houses the sorry remains of Interplay's stuff. The stuff in these storage facilities is not organized apparently, and it's unclear if anyone would even know how to find the tapes. I once tried to get the contact information of the guy who apparently organized some of stuff being stored, but I was unsuccessful. Maybe I will try again.

There is a 2007 dead TrekBBS thread for reference
Vulcan Fury - Is it out there anywhere?


A recording script has been seen floating around the Internet

Interesting bit of Vulcan Fury happenings...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Star-Trek-Secret...-/290512989358

dead ebay link.

startrek.com forum thread:
What ever happened to The Secret of Vulcan's Fury?

Memory Alpha entry

an archive of the official website:
TrekCore: Secret of Vulcan Fury - pictures, trailers, FAQ, plot, etc.


Yes shall we discuss the possibility of resurrecting the audio recordings and creating a Trek TAS CGI episode rather than our experiences of playing Trek videogames?

[Captaindemotion]

It would be lovely to have one last adventure with the original cast, be it an audio drama or some sort of animated feature. However, if they can't even find the recordings, it really does look like a long-shot, doesn't it?

If they could find them and could sort out licensing issues (big pair of 'ifs' there), you'd imagine that there would be a market for the last adventure of the original crew, not least of all now that Kelley and Doohan are no longer with us. I don't usually buy animated movies or audio dramas but I'd shell out for this in a second.

[AviTrek]

I'd love to get this if it was made. But, I'm sure there are a lot of licensing issues. The actors were paid to record their voices for a video game. If you were to use the voice recordings for a TV/video/streaming release you would have to renegotiate with all of them/their estates.

[Brian]

A clip that showed up in related videos from the second trailer...

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



(Note: it says it's for a CGI test for a TV show, but it clearly seems to be from this game.)

[Harvey]

The big questions are:

(1) Do the original voice recordings still exist?
(2) Could they be adapted from the PC game format to a movie format?
(3) Would Interplay -- or whoever owns the material -- be willing to license it?
(4) Is the material even worth resurrecting (i.e. is it any good)?

Assuming the answer is yes to each of those, neither Paramount nor CBS is in the business of producing Direct-to-DVD animated features under the Star Trek brand name. Assuming they were to get into that business (a big assumption), why would they undergo a project that would entail so much hassle rather than develop their own original material?

It's a fun idea, but it'll never happen.

[jefferiestubes8]

Harvey wrote:

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(4) Is the material even worth resurrecting (i.e. is it any good)?

from 2007:

CaptJimboJones wrote:

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There was a plan to novelize the script that Dorothy Fontana wrote. But I'm not sure if it ever got off the ground.

Earlier this year, Fontana had this to say about it:

[Harvey]

That Fontana, the original author, likes the material isn't an indication of much of anything. That CBS hasn't answered her requests to novelize the material isn't promising, although that could be due to any number of reasons.

From a fannish perspective, "one of the moons of Vulcan?" From the same writer who was annoyed that TAS added a moon to "Yesteryear?"

[Ronald Held]

Is the TV/movie climate favorable for a project like this?

[Temis the Vorta]

TV: no.

Movies: already has a perfectly good Star Trek series underway.

[Captaindemotion]

Realistically, I think the best one could hope for is a release as an audio adventure. At very, very, very best, if the Gods smile on Trek fans, a direct-to-DVD animated adventure in the vein of the DCU movies - which have been released despite the live action Batman, Green Lantern and Superman movies. But we're probably not really comparing like with like.

[Danlav05]

I suggested this years ago - so I'm glad this is being talked about.

I was told by a former member of the Interplay staff that if the voice recordings still exist, they are probably on magnetic tape and being stored in one of the many storage facilities that houses the sorry remains of Interplay's stuff. The stuff in these storage facilities is not organized apparently, and it's unclear if anyone would even know how to find the tapes. I once tried to get the contact information of the guy who apparently organized some of stuff being stored, but I was unsuccessful. Maybe I will try again.

I'd spend weeks trawling though the archives for NOTHING to trawl through those archives. Least tehre may be hope. If it exists and doesn't get destroyed, then there is a chance something could be done with it.

Somebody said when Interplay went bust the recordings were destroyed, BUT that was just one person on the forum, so hopefully someone snuck it onto a disc and its in a file somewhere. It's possible.

I really wanna see this as an animated DTV movie or TV special, a BRAND NEW adventure with the original cast and Mark Lenard, just that one last time. Also on Trekcore is all the imagery of the amazing new stuff like Vulcan, the satellite, Kirk in the shuttle and stuff too advanced for 60s TV.

There's also the otehr two Interplay games which would be EASY to take the audio and make them into episodes, IF yoou cut out the horrible midi music. It could even be the same project - SOVF could be like a multi-part story. Of course the characters would be CG versions of the Original cast.

As a second best to a revival would be a remake, I emailed Cawley and one of the Farragut guys separately to ask if they considered contacting DC Fontana about an adaptation for one of their fanfilms, neither replied. It's interesting that a script is out there - a couple of unmade Doctor Who screenplays occasionally do the rounds on Ebay.

Has DC Fontana got a webspace, jsut to ask her opinion at presen regarding SOVF? That talk in 2007 was around the time she wrote the IDW comic.

[CaptainMatt]

Captaindemotion wrote:

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Realistically, I think the best one could hope for is a release as an audio adventure. At very, very, very best, if the Gods smile on Trek fans, a direct-to-DVD animated adventure in the vein of the DCU movies - which have been released despite the live action Batman, Green Lantern and Superman movies. But we're probably not really comparing like with like.

It would be great if we could get something made like the DCU animated features. I don't know a thing about the copyright and other marketing issues, amd frankly, I don't care. I just know I would pay real money for one last adventure for the crew of the USS Enterprise as voiced by the original cast!

[Danlav05]

CaptainMatt wrote:

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It would be great if we could get something made like the DCU animated features. I don't know a thing about the copyright and other marketing issues, amd frankly, I don't care. I just know I would pay real money for one last adventure for the crew of the USS Enterprise as voiced by the original cast!

LOL we need someone to do a bit of detective work...

[Danlav05]

I've just been thinking about this (obsessed much? Yup, this may be the holy grail of Trek) IF the audio tracks still exist and can be found, then that's that. If it can be found and preserved, then even if it's 10/20 years down the line there is always a possiblity something can be done with this, be it an audiobook or CG movie.

I think a movie might be more viable than an episode (or a game I guess, funnily enough I never thought of that?!), given the material. It would give SOVF it's own platform. But imagine it? A brand new full-length adventure with the original cast. And Mark Lenard as Sarek. Obviously any new production would have to go through CBS Studios now rather than Paramount, and the actors/estates, writers and make sure the rights to the story are secured.

James Doohan, Mark Lenard and DeForest Kelley are no longer with us, so that would make the project extra special. Hopefully Kelley's lines would be good enough to use.

I know I'm reading into things a bit here, but I am an optimist. We just need someone in LA (presumably) who can track stuff down and go to CBS with it.

[clark054]

The Gospel according to Newt.