A 1999 TOS CGI series?

[Botany Bay]

I was just checking out Trekcore's page on the legendary Star Trek computer game "Secret of Vulcan Fury" (it is a crime this game remains unreleased), when I noticed :

Many of the artists who worked on Secret of Vulcan Fury ended up working on Roughnecks: Starship Troopers (a CGI TV series). After Roughnecks finished, Paramount seriously considered making a CGI series based on the Original Series.

Never heard about it before. Does anyone have any more details? Trekcore has a few downloads which were apparently leaked demos if you want to see how it might have looked (Just don't download the Goodfellas/Spock one at work ).

Do you think this series could have worked?

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Unfortunately rumour has it everything created and including all the finished voice over work(Deforest last Star Trek work), was seized, wiped and sold when interplay went bankrupt......and there was also talk of stuff just being dumped in skips......this came from one of the game devs working on the project a few years later...as a matter of fact some here including myself contacted the guy and that's basically what he said......its all long gone.

A true tragedy indeed.

 

[Shatner_Fan]

There is such a hunger for Trek right now (and the popularity of animation is at an all-time high), that I really wish Paramount would take advantage of the animation and direct to DVD markets, as Warner Bros. has done so successfully with the DC superheroes. Awhile back I suggested that they make an animated TOS movie set in the prime timeline with the voices of Shatner, Nimoy, and Karl Urban as McCoy. This would probably be our best chance to see Shatner and Nimoy reprise their roles one more time, and every Trekkie in the world would want to see it!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Rather than CG animation - which I generally like a lot, BTW - I'd rather see a TOS series animated something like the Paul Dini DC Universe shows and direct-to-DVD movies are. It's harder to do something really stylish with CG character animation on a limited budget and time-frame, IMAO, than it is with traditional animation. Use CG to develop a lot of the environments instead.

 

[Ensign Ro-]

I would absolutely love seeing a new animated Trek series. Even though I am a TOS Trekkie from the 60's, I'd welcome a series of this kind set in any century. I have become a huge fan of the series "Archer". Every time I watch that I think the Flash-style animation used in it would translate very well to a very stylish Trek series. I am currently learning new Flash techniques and will be attempting to produce an online motion comic using some of the techniques.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

I agree with both Dennis and Ensign Ro. I would love to see an animated series, but not CG, and "Archer" is a terrific little series that a lot of productions could learn a lot from.

 

[Botany Bay]

Unfortunately rumour has it everything created and including all the finished voice over work(Deforest last Star Trek work), was seized, wiped and sold when interplay went bankrupt......and there was also talk of stuff just being dumped in skips......this came from one of the game devs working on the project a few years later...as a matter of fact some here including myself contacted the guy and that's basically what he said......its all long gone.

A true tragedy indeed.

I find it hard to believe someone wouldn't have made a copy of the audio for themselves. It's also a bit surprising that the liquidators didn't offload such a valuable asset when Interplay was wound up.

But yeah, you'd think it would have surfaced on the internet somewhere by now if it still exists.

Anyway, as for the 1999 series, it's likely Rick Berman would have been involved. By then he was getting a bit stale, so maybe it was for the best that it never got up. It would have been hard to imagine Nimoy signing on to read Star Trek : Voyager caliber scripts.

I agree with your comments guys, that animation is the only chance we've got to see TOS again. Direct to DVD sounds great, and casting unknown voice actors wouldn't cost the earth either.

You'd wonder if the magic would be there without the original cast though.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Unfortunately rumour has it everything created and including all the finished voice over work(Deforest last Star Trek work), was seized, wiped and sold when interplay went bankrupt......and there was also talk of stuff just being dumped in skips......this came from one of the game devs working on the project a few years later...as a matter of fact some here including myself contacted the guy and that's basically what he said......its all long gone.

A true tragedy indeed.

I find it hard to believe someone wouldn't have made a copy of the audio for themselves. It's also a bit surprising that the liquidators didn't offload such a valuable asset when Interplay was wound up.

But yeah, you'd think it would have surfaced on the internet somewhere by now if it still exists.

Anyway, as for the 1999 series, it's likely Rick Berman would have been involved. By then he was getting a bit stale, so maybe it was for the best that it never got up. It would have been hard to imagine Nimoy signing on to read Star Trek : Voyager caliber scripts.

I agree with your comments guys, that animation is the only chance we've got to see TOS again. Direct to DVD sounds great, and casting unknown voice actors wouldn't cost the earth either.

You'd wonder if the magic would be there without the original cast though.

The way the dev guy told it is that one day the door to their offices and building were just closed and locked and the liquidators were in removing everything just after interplay went down the tubes, he said people were in their just picking up everything of value and taking it away, and computers and stuff were wiped and sold on as that was the standard practice of the time.......plus by this time SOVF had been on hold for a while anyway due to behind the scene personality problems and spiraling costs, the game according to that game dev had basically been put on permanent hiatus as of late 1998 and the whole SOVF team were gone prior to interplay going down the tubes.

There was talk at one point that somebody actually bought the recordings of the cast voice work from somebody who bought interplay liquidated equipment, and they were trying to sell it over the net a few years ago.......but that lead never went anywhere simply because nobody could get in touch with the person selling them.

But that's about as much as i can remember.....sad to think that at least the voice work might just be lost forever as it might have went into doing a CGI movie or something at some point now that ST is on the way up again.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

It would have been hard to imagine Nimoy signing on to read Star Trek : Voyager caliber scripts.

Not if one has watched all of TOS, particularly the third year, and TAS...not to mention any number of other projects Nimoy was involved in. If there was a sticking point, it would have been money.

You'd wonder if the magic would be there without the original cast though.

Then hire the actors from Abrams's Trek movie - that one works just fine.

 

[Kail]

New animated Trek, in any form, could be great!

 

[RAMA]

New animated series....where's the "like" button>???

 

[MANT!]

An account at the following..
http://www.itsuckstobejoe.com/interplay.asp

He ( CEO/CFO of Interplay, Herve Caen ) also tried to milk a popular title with cheaply made games that had little to do with the original product, other than a similar name..... In a stroke of utter stupidity, he closed down the game division responsible for some of Interplay biggest sellers, and fired all its personnel only days after it created a working demo of a long requested sequel to one of Interplay's most popular titles.

Interplay was run into the ground like many companies..by poor management..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Software

And then was liquidated...with the results seen above...

With the death of Foundation Imaging in 2002, interest in a TOS based CGI series died...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_Imaging

 

[Botany Bay]

Thanks for the info goldbug.

It would have been hard to imagine Nimoy signing on to read Star Trek : Voyager caliber scripts.

Not if one has watched all of TOS, particularly the third year, and TAS...not to mention any number of other projects Nimoy was involved in. If there was a sticking point, it would have been money.

I'm sure that would have been the case before he was financially set up. We've all gotta eat

But by the late 90's he probably didn't need to work unless he felt like it. I remember him knocking back the director's chair on Generations. As far as I know it was because he had some issues with the script, rather than money.

You'd wonder if the magic would be there without the original cast though.

Then hire the actors from Abrams's Trek movie - that one works just fine.

True that. I'm assuming these guys are now priced out of any animated project after the success of ST09 though.

 

[arch101]

I had thought for years that a new animated show based on TOS post-TMP would be great. But, with 2 cast members gone and the rest getting very old, the opportunity has now past.

 

[Mysterion]

Wasn't there suppossed to have been a tie-in novel SOVF by D.C. Fontana?

 

[A beaker full of death]

There's a great preview for this game on the Starfleet Academy game disk. I always wondered what happened to it.

 

[MANT!]

the videos from Interplay..

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQHyg6nFpAY[/yt]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8o4YtpKnT00&feature=related[/yt]

http://gaming.trekcore.com/secretofvulcanfury/faq.html#gen2

There were many setbacks to the game. The game's development was essentially restarted three times due to producers leaving the game. Each new producer had different ideas for the game, which meant much of the work done under previous producers was scrapped. Each time a new producer came on board, Interplay's marketing department tried to keep the same shipment date. These shipment dates did not reflect how far the game was in development. Another setback was due to the game's Lead Artist leaving. A new Lead Artist was not assigned, which meant there was no one on the staff to resolve several 3D art technical issues. Furthermore, motion capture data could not be imported into Lightwave 3D, so time had to be spent developing a plug in for Lightwave. Another problem with the motion capture was that several motion capture houses could not deliver enough data for the developer. The game went through two motion capture houses before finding a house that could deliver the required data.

By this time, Secret of Vulcan Fury had cost Interplay millions of dollars. Interplay then had a horrible financial quarter, forcing them to cut projects and 50 employees. Half the artists on the project were let go and the others eventually left. Later, the game was cancelled completely.

[FONT=Arial]Many of the artists who worked on Secret of Vulcan Fury ended up working on Roughnecks: Starship Troopers (a CGI TV series). After Roughnecks finished, Paramount seriously considered making a CGI series based on the Original Series...[/FONT]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ey31YCsJ5E&feature=related[/yt]

[FONT=Arial]Paramount eventually decided not to do the project.[/FONT]​

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Whenever I hear about this project, I'm reminded of all the wasted time and effort that went into developing the aborted Star Trek projects like "Planet of the Titans" and "Phase II." All that money wasted could've been used to complete other Star Trek projects, or in this case, would've created a kick-ass animated film.

 

[Winterwind]

*sigh*

I can't begin to tell you how much I loathe and despise Herve Caen.

Once upon a time, I was a SuperMod on the IPLY/Black Isle boards, owned a few shares in the company and was friends with some of the devs (still friends with a few). And yes, I loathe and despise Caen. For many, many reasons.

I did an interview with one of the devs ( good friend of mine, Damien "Puuk" Foletto) shortly after Caen killed Black Isle and here's an excerpt you might get a giggle from:

Winterwind: You're a known fan of MMORPGs (see the article Damien wrote for Winterwind on MMORPGs ). Herve Caen (having refused to let IPLY die with dignity) claims that IPLY will survive and develop/release Fallout Online (known affectionately as FOOL in fandom). What would your response be if Herve knocked on your door tomorrow and asked you to be the Lead Designer of FOOL?

Damien Foletto: A swift punch to his face followed by hysterical laughter and letting my kitties use his face as a litter box – not that I’m bitter, or anything…

Being reminded again of the loss of SOVF... *double sigh*

 

[Gary7]

Those videos look terrific, especially considering that they're late 90's vintage. What a shame... all of that potential wasted by a selfish arrogant schmuck. It just goes to show you how screwed up some people can be and the effects it can have on so many others.