A Monument for Captain Janeway

[Prax]

The whole point here is whether Janeway and by extension VGR deserve a monument, which (unless it’s more of a $25,000 in-joke) implies major cultural, historical and critical significance as opposed to the fact that some people can watch it in the context of The X-Files and fail to see it for what it is, seven seasons of a bland spinoff that never left the turn of the century and can’t be an easy sell to future generations. Perhaps in the final calculation not even TNG was worth an HD master, but CBS did invest in TNG first because of its relative status in the public eye, and now they’re making PIC first with no suggestion of a Janeway show.

They invested in TNG 2nd. The remastered TOS first, then TNG. TNG was already a time consuming and expensive project, DS9 and Voyager would have been much more expensive, and take much longer. So they released new DVD's of the two shows, and went on to create the Enterprise Blu-Rays. It has nothing to do with the quality, or your opinion on the show, or if the show was bland or not. It might not even be possible to remaster Voyager.

Mulgrew's Janeway is fairly iconic. The actress and character got a great deal of publicity when the show was on air, and everyone knows who she is, Trekkie or not

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Janeway isn’t iconic in the sense that she’d be familiar to generations of casual viewers who weren’t exposed to her heyday, as opposed to new fans of Star Trek who will inevitably find out about all of it, including VGR.

CBS invested in TNG as the first of that kind of remastering project, one far more difficult than what needed to be done for TOS, which already had film masters as opposed to elements that needed to be tracked down and put together from scratch. Why would you think it had nothing to do with quality? If an effort is made to remaster seven seasons, it should be seven seasons future audiences would watch. And of course it’s possible to remaster VGR; it just needs a bit more 90s/00s kind of CG work to recreate any shots that haven’t been saved by the original VFX artists, and thus couldn’t simply be rerendered and tweaked for HD. That’s an added expense but not terribly difficult with exact SD reference, preserved model libraries and the vastly improved tools and greater processing power available in 2019+.

 

[Prax]

Apparently, Janeway has more "cultural significance" in Bloomington than wherever you're from. Small cities are always looking to enrich their downtown areas with art and/or monuments(even stupid monuments).

If Voyager and DS9 were just as popular as TNG, they still wouldn't have gotten remastered. The TNG remastering took much more effort than expected, and earned much less $$ than expected. VOY and DS9 would have cost a lot more to remaster.
http://www.treknews.net/2017/02/02/why-ds9-voyager-not-on-blu-ray-hd/

 

[Boris Skrbic]

So why not find a way to honor Jeri Taylor, who was born in Bloomington? Perhaps she wouldn’t approve of a “monument” exactly, but surely there are other ways? Because it’s more fun to crowdfund an in-joke?

VGR and/or DS9 may or may not cost more to remaster (I imagine it’s harder the first time around and tech improvements might also help), but I don’t see it as orders of magnitude. You’d be recreating or dusting off 90s CGI using 2019 technology, with access to SD reference and many artists from the era.

 

[Qonundrum]

The first thing that comes to mind is doing a prank and putting an orange prison uniform on it.

Probably by the critics who cited Janeway's perceived inconsistencies and hypocrisies. Like in "Equinox" and called out on in "Hope and Fear", but VOY wasn't serialized and each episode was self-contained. Not unlike TOS. But you'll find the biggest popcorn-chowing moments on Quora and/or Reddit. Or TrekBBS!

 

[Qonundrum]

She should be holding a cup of coffee

While pointing to a nebula, saying that's where she got it from.

Signed, a fellow coffee addict.

Also, how come there's a Jack Daniels Whiskey flavored coffee* yet there's no Jolt brand coffee with ten times the caffeine to induce heart attacks across the land? /answerselfresolved


* yes, it's a real thing, but not targeted at alcoholic deniers who also take care of their inevitable hangover preemptively because the whiskey flavor contains no alcohol, like how beer simmered stew or bratwurst won't make ya tipsy...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Probably by the critics who cited Janeway's perceived inconsistencies and hypocrisies. Like in "Equinox" and called out on in "Hope and Fear", but VOY wasn't serialized and each episode was self-contained. Not unlike TOS. But you'll find the biggest popcorn-chowing moments on Quora and/or Reddit. Or TrekBBS!

I was thinking more that it would change the Janeway statue into a Red statue.

 

[Qonundrum]

I was thinking more that it would change the Janeway statue into a Red statue.

Command red suits her well. Regardless of the uneven scripting between seasons, Janeway did embody the best of Kirk with concern for the ship and crew, as well as Picard's sense of logistics, while being her own original character -- and not being a cardboard cutout copy on a string. Which is a tall feat to accomplish.

 

[Ghislaine H. B. BRAEME]

For those who wondered what that could look like...

And without the landscape:

Seriously, it must cost a max such a monument!

Would a plaque not have been enough?

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Could we stop this on the technicality that we don’t actually know her birth year? How much would it cost to fix it afterwards?

 

[Kor]

Will the Janeway character portion be an actual three-dimensional sculpture, or a flat plaque? It's a little hard to tell from the rendering.

Kor

 

[at Quark's]

Perhaps replace "USA" with "America"? After all we don't know if the USA still exists by that time, but we do know that the words "America", "Indiana", and "Earth" are still in use then ....

 

[DonIago]

With no slight to VGR intended, I have to admit I think we have better ways to spend $25K these days...

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

She should be holding a cup of coffee

This is so dumb, it has to be shared:

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[A Chimpanzee & 2 Trainees]

I think the idea of a monument to any Trek character is pretty silly on its face.

There's a time, place, and way to honor sci fi characters and their impact. The air and space museum in DC had an exhibit at one point on the impact of sci fi, there's that planned museum of science fiction (if it ever gets off the ground). Heck there's the smithsonian American history museum that has props/clothing etc from various impactful movies and TV shows. I'd rather see exhibits to Trek in those type of places than a random monument in a park. But hey, it's not my money ... so whatever they want to do...

 

[Boris Skrbic]

The text also needs a rewrite: “Admiral Kathryn Janeway was born in this city on May 20 in the 24th century, exemplifying leadership and integrity reflected in the best of Starfleet.” (I’m sure that Bloomington like any other place has had its notable citizens, but upping it to “the people of this great city” seems far too flowery and self-congratulatory.)

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Is it weirder than having a Rocky statue?

Now I’m picturing the temporal investigations people showing her a picture of the monument saying “Janeway, you got some splaining to do” in a Ricky voice.

 

[Agony_Boothb]

She should be holding a cup of coffee

She needs to have a phaser rifle in one hand and a jug of coffee in the other

 

[Abi Smith]

A tribble in one hand and Kirk's head in the other.

 

[F. King Daniel]

For reference, here is the Kirk statue in Riverside. Apparently Shatner didn't sign off on it, so it's kind of a "generic" Kirk.