Spoilers Star Trek: Prodigy General Discussion Thread

[The Overlord]

Glad I stopped watching Nickelodeon after 1991. You Can't Do That On Television, Double Dare, Hey Dude, and Clarissa Explains It All. That's where it was at. And they had a cartoon called Count Duckula. Also Nick At Nite with old shows from the '50s and '60s. They even made their own original sitcom called Hi Honey, I'm Home with a '90s family living next door to a '50s sitcom family. Hilarity ensued.

Good times.

EDIT: I remember them showing TAS on Nickelodeon too.

I think Nickelodeon has changed a lot since 1991. Now I live in Canada and I got most of the Nickelodeon content from a channel called YTV. But I like animation (not as much as I used to) kinda stay knowledgable of stuff going on with animation in general.

There were some interesting videoes about Nickelodeon's rise and fall, you do not have to watch them, but I think are interesting.

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I think after 1991, Nickelodeon had a big heyday from the 1990s to early 2010s, but have fallen off in the last decade. But I do think Viacom has realized that and is trying to right the ship:

https://www.latimes.com/entertainme.../nickelodeon-brian-robbins-viacom-awesomeness

In 2005 Nickelodeon made the best cartoon they have ever had, Avatar the Last Airbender, an epic fantasy series with an anime like style that has real stakes, likable heroes, menacing villains, morally gray characters, etc which changed things up as much as Batman TAS did in the 90s. If the new Star Trek cartoon is even close to being as good as Avatar the Last Airbender, you would have a lot of new Star Trek fans right away. Avatar the Last Airbender is the thing that is closest to Star Trek that Nickelodeon has made.

However, I think this Star Trek cartoon might want to take some notes from the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoon, that cartoon was able to take the mostly off-screen Clone Wars and expand upon it in animation, that show took what works for the movies and made it work in animation.

I think kids animation has changed a lot in recent times, stuff you would never see in the past in kids animation in the past (LGBT representation) is more common now. I think Star Trek can make its mark in animation better now than in the 1970s, there is more competition, but its easier to tell great Star Trek stories in kids animation now than in the past.

 

[BillJ]

I think the deal is for new original programming and not something that has been (or will be) on Nickelodeon. Also the owner of this Trek series is still CBS. I don't think Nickelodeon has any rights to sell it somewhere else.

I think putting the Nickelodeon Trek outing on Netflix in the US would make for good advertising for CBS All-Access.

 

[The Overlord]

I actually think Avatar the Last Airbender has some Star Trek-like elements despite being fantasy rather than sci-fi. They are 2 different franchises, but there is stuff to learn from the past when making an adaption of Star Trek into animation.

The main villains, the Fire Nation, is a fascist, xenophobic, genocidal empire. There is a character, Prince Zuko, who starts off as a villain, but slowly develops into a hero over time. Not everyone in the Fire Nation is evil, but the Fire Nation is ruled by evil men.

The Avatar, Aang, wants to bring peace and balance to the world, rather than solve his problems with violence. The series finale involves Aang, wanting to defeat the main villain, the Fire Lord, without killing him, before the Fire Lord can enact a plan to kill millions of people.

Nick and CBS have some ideas on how to make a great Star Trek cartoon if they put a real effort into it.

 

[DaveyNY]

Didn't I read somewhere recently that The Last Airbender is being remade?

The live-action movie a few years back certainly didn't do it justice.

 

[The Overlord]

Didn't I read somewhere recently that The Last Airbender is being remade?

The live-action movie a few years back certainly didn't do it justice.

There is a live action TV series coming to Netflix, I would rather Nickelodeon leave it alone.

 

[Christopher]

There is a live action TV series coming to Netflix, I would rather Nickelodeon leave it alone.

I'd rather see another animated sequel, but at least the live-action remake is from the original creators (and even the same composer), so that's something.

 

[JD]

They announced that Nickelodeon shows will be coming to CBSAA, so I'm think there's a pretty good chance we might end up with Prodigy on there with the other Trek shows.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Every time I read Prodigy I think Untitled Keith Flint Star Trek Project.

 

[Relayer1]

Every time I read Prodigy I think Untitled Keith Flint Star Trek Project.

I'm a Twisted Space Explorer...

 

[The Overlord]

With the animated Short Treks, ''The Girl Who Made the Stars" and "Ephraim and Dot" released on CBS All Access last month, would either of the animation styles of either Short work for this cartoon?

Also I hope the fact that CBS and Viacom are now merged and Star Trek is one of the major franchises CBS is promoting and Star Trek is one of the biggest franchises Viacom/CBS controls, will mean Nickelodeon will treat it with more respect than other shows that they mistreated like Harvey Beaks, Rise of the TMNT and Welcome to the Wayne.

 

[JD]

Since it sounds like this is going to be more of an adventure series than a comedy, I would say the style used on The Girl Who Made the Stars would probably fit better.

 

[urbandk]

Since it sounds like this is going to be more of an adventure series than a comedy, I would say the style used on The Girl Who Made the Stars would probably fit better.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people involved in that short trek are involved in the new Nickelodeon show.

 

[The Overlord]

Apparently the name of this show has been confirmed:

https://stevivor.com/news/star-trek-prodigy-nickelodeon-show/

That is certainly a more complex name than most of the fare on Nickelodeon nowadays.

 

[F. King Daniel]

*sound of John Eaves squirming*

 

[The Overlord]

While I like Picard and Discovery, I am looking forward to the Nick cartoon because it may have content more in line with the TNG era, while Picard and Discovery try too hard to be adult at times. Really Star Trek's themes can be made into something kid-friendly with a little clever writing. Star Trek often involves situations where problems are solved with words rather than violence, which is a good lesson for kids.


I think the original aminated series attempted this sometimes but was betrayed by its low production values.

 

[Danja]

Apparently the name of this show has been confirmed:

https://stevivor.com/news/star-trek-prodigy-nickelodeon-show/

That is certainly a more complex name than most of the fare on Nickelodeon nowadays.

It may be a working title (Picard's working title was "Star Trek: Destiny").

 

[Christopher]

I think the original aminated series attempted this sometimes but was betrayed by its low production values.

If anything, while TAS did have to tone down the sex and violence somewhat for Saturday mornings, it mostly did not try to write the show any differently than TOS. It had none of the tropes that were typical of kids' cartoons at the time -- the characters didn't turn to the camera at the end to lecture the audience on the moral of the story, they didn't have teen sidekicks or cute animal mascots, they didn't form a garage band and perform pop songs, etc.

True, a lot of its episodes did follow the Filmation pattern where the problems were solved with talking and understanding rather than violence -- but then you got "The Slaver Weapon," the only TAS episode and one of the very few Filmation episodes ever where characters actually died violently onscreen, with no effort being made by the protagonists to talk or reason or negotiate. It's a startlingly ruthless, amoral ending both for Saturday morning TV and for Star Trek in general. I think that would've been a better Star Trek episode if it hadn't been so slavish an adaptation of the original "Known Space" story -- if instead of just letting the Kzinti mishandle the weapon and get themselves killed, Spock et al. had warned them of the danger, saved their lives, and paved the way to a peaceful resolution.

 

[The Old Mixer]

they didn't form a garage band and perform pop songs

Ooh, now I wanna see that!

 

[fireproof78]

Ooh, now I wanna see that!

Missed opportunity there.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I'm picturing an Archies-style music sequence, but with the TAS characters...how wouldn't that be glorious? Hell, they could've actually had Shat, Nimoy, and Nichols do the singing...!