David Mack Hired as Consultant on Star Trek: Lower Decks and another series

Hopefully Toon Trek is the breakout venture that allows western animation the same freedom as anime to be serious or frivolous as it chooses (often in the same show!)

 

There are plenty of Western animated shows like that for kids -- action-dramas balanced with humor, like Avatar/Korra or Voltron: Legendary Defender or Trollhunters. What's weird, as I said, is that the only adult animated shows on US television are pure comedy. Maybe because American adults don't take animation seriously, so they'll only watch it if it's comedic.

 

Anybody else remember Invasion America? I'm not positive, but I believe that was a serious animated action series aimed at adults. It was TV-PG according to IMDB and it aired during prime time.

As far as I can remember it was a total flop, so I guess it probably just proves your point.

 

Hm. The art style kind of reminds me of the Men in Black cartoon. Well, that and the raygun making the neuralizer sound effect near the end.

 

Yes, that's just the example I had in mind -- an attempt at an adult non-comedy animated series that totally failed to catch on. Adults will watch a dozen Simpsons clones but have no interest in animated drama/action.

Looking at IMDb, they have at least a couple of designers in common, conceptual designer Gary Montalbano and character designer Frank Paur. Different production companies, though.

 

Uh, I rather like TAS. I haven't bought the DVD set yet, and I didn't buy any commercial VHS cassettes, but I did enjoy it.

True, it was Saturday morning stuff, little more than "illustrated radio," but it was very good Saturday morning stuff. My understanding is that "Serpent's Tooth" even had a few scenes animated in the "ones and twos" of theatrical animation, rather than the "fours, sixes, eights, and even twelves" that are the norm in Saturday morning stuff.

 

Oh, I own TAS on DVD and Bluray. I've got the Clone Wars Blurays, I've got the Doctor Who animations and I''ll no doubt pick up the new Trek ones.

 

Sorry, yes, I forgot the word "adult". I meant the freedom anime has to be serious or funny as it likes while telling stories for adults. (I'm biased, I love anime and manga - I like the way the Japanese tell their stories)

 

It was written with the intent of skewing to an older audience than usual Saturday morning fare, to appeal to the whole family and not just kids. Aside from reduced sex and violence, it was just as adult in writing as TOS, and different from most of the other stuff on Saturday morning (e.g. no cute animal sidekicks, no characters turning to the audience to repeat the moral at the end, and the crew didn't form a garage band and perform songs, though that would've been kind of awesome).

Normal theatrical animation is on twos, i.e. 12 distinct images per second at a 24 fps film frame rate. CGI animation is usually on ones, a full 24 fps. TV cel animation was often on threes, 8 fps, which is about the minimum frame rate that allows the mind to perceive the illusion of motion. Maybe occasionally in some cheap '80s animation, you might see it done on fours (6 fps), but anything slower than that could hardly even be called animation, and I don't recall any show doing that, except for the occasional brief slow-motion action shot.

 

Do we know yet if Lower Decks will be CGI or traditional animation? There seems to be a pretty even mix when comes this kind of stuff these days.

 

Uh, how is it that you find animation "an extraordinarily bad fit for Trek," and yet you shelled out money for commercial recordings of TAS?

It seems contradictory. Kind of like the "having tea and no tea" puzzle in the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Infocom game.

 

I buy Trek stuff. I have everything on Blueray or DVD, sometimes both. Even Voyager.

I've been collecting Star Wars on VHS and disc since the 1980's too. And Doctor Who. It's part of my fandom - it would feel very odd to me to have everything but TAS, or everything but The Clone Wars for instance.

I don't collect models, toys, figures or other memorabilia. I don't even like that stuff, but I like to own the actual shows.

 

Ok.

Personally, about the only thing I collect is dust. Everything I acquire, I acquire to read, watch, use, eat, build (or kitbash), give away, or hang on my wall, or on a Christmas tree.

 

Fortunately, I suspect Lower Decks is aimed at the under-30 demographic, so what us older folks think shouldn't hurt them one bit.

 

Nic Trek is CGI, but I don't think they've said about Lower Decks, yet. We'll know by Saturday.