Answer to your prayers? Paramount's new cartoon division

[DFScott]

Just a few days ago, peteym5 launched a thread suggesting that perhaps now would be the best time for someone to launch a new Trek TV series. And yea, I was the one who said, no, television is a wasteland, let's sit this one out. While on the opposite front, some folks suggested that a first-run animation series similar to "The Clone Wars" might be a good option.

Well, The New York Times reported just a few hours ago that Paramount has officially announced the creation of its own in-house animation division. It apparently saw the advantages of owning full rights to "Rango" as opposed to being paid a mere 8% distribution fee by Dreamworks.

Having not seen the details of the rights contracts drawn up during the CBS/Viacom split, I don't know whether Paramount would necessarily have the rights to produce an animated Trek for television. My guess is that it would have the theatrical rights. But I can't imagine Paramount going through all these motions without 1) having already hired a stable of talented animators; 2) having already worked out a preliminary itinerary of productions, probably including something like "Rango Returns;" 3) having at least considered the question of how to leverage the Star Trek brand.

I may very well be eating my hat here in about a year.

DF "Just As Long As It's Not 'Trek Babies on Ice'" Scott

 

[AviTrek]

Just a few days ago, peteym5 launched a thread suggesting that perhaps now would be the best time for someone to launch a new Trek TV series. And yea, I was the one who said, no, television is a wasteland, let's sit this one out. While on the opposite front, some folks suggested that a first-run animation series similar to "The Clone Wars" might be a good option.

Well, The New York Times reported just a few hours ago that Paramount has officially announced the creation of its own in-house animation division. It apparently saw the advantages of owning full rights to "Rango" as opposed to being paid a mere 8% distribution fee by Dreamworks.

Having not seen the details of the rights contracts drawn up during the CBS/Viacom split, I don't know whether Paramount would necessarily have the rights to produce an animated Trek for television. My guess is that it would have the theatrical rights. But I can't imagine Paramount going through all these motions without 1) having already hired a stable of talented animators; 2) having already worked out a preliminary itinerary of productions, probably including something like "Rango Returns;" 3) having at least considered the question of how to leverage the Star Trek brand.

I may very well be eating my hat here in about a year.

DF "Just As Long As It's Not 'Trek Babies on Ice'" Scott

Let's see, a movie studio with no tv production business decides to launch a movie animated division. The move is a result of advantages seen in owning the whole rights to movies. That same company only owns the movie rights to Star Trek. Unless you're looking for an animated Star Trek movie, can you explain how this has any relevance on a TV show?

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Animated movies are insanely profitable - they do incredible foreign box office. Not so sure about animated TV shows. Paramount is unlikely to be distracted by our wish that somehow, someone do an animated Trek series (if live action isn't possible) even if they had TV rights.

 

[Kelso]

Oooh. Maybe they'll do one of those DTV animated tie-ins.

 

[DFScott]

From AviTrek:
Let's see, a movie studio with no tv production business decides to launch a movie animated division. The move is a result of advantages seen in owning the whole rights to movies. That same company only owns the movie rights to Star Trek. Unless you're looking for an animated Star Trek movie, can you explain how this has any relevance on a TV show?

Certainly. There's no entertainment business on the planet that doesn't think cross-platform, especially animation. No single producer anywhere fails to consider whether an asset launched on one platform has potential for carry-over into another, including television but especially video games. If you read the Times article, you saw that the key reason (almost the only reason, were it not for Rango) for the creation of this new division in the first place would be for Paramount (technically no longer a part of CBS) to exploit the products produced by Nickelodeon (every bit a part of CBS). So the money comes from exploiting a business relationship between two companies that used to be sister divisions -- a relationship that, for whatever reason, could not be exploited when they were joined at the hip.

Let's not forget that it was Warner Bros., not Fox, that reaped the benefits from the "Clone Wars" relationship with Lucasfilm, a probable reason being that Fox does not have its own animation division (it outsources to Blue Sky Studios, and if Lucas wanted Blue Sky animating Star Wars, it could talk to Blue Sky directly).

So I rather doubt that in discussing all the exploitable platforms made feasible through the creation of an in-house animation division (which is a hell of a risky move, let's face it), Paramount's lawyers said to themselves, "Damn it, although we do have movie rights to Star Trek, it's a shame we can't put our trademark on a TV production. Sigh. Oh well, we still have the Smurfs."

DF "Considered Sticking Andorian Antennae on Papa" Scott

 

[AviTrek]

Warner Bros. reaped the benefits of Clone Wars, because Cartoon Network airs the show. Lucas does its own animation work. If Fox wanted the Clone Wars benefits it could have bought the show and aired it on FX.

When you work with a second company, that company gets some of the associated rights(depending on the contract). Paramount decided it wanted to keep all the rights/revenues of its animated movies in house, so it created an animated division. This means that for future animated movies Paramount can make more money off of merchandise.

Nickelodeon stayed on the Paramount side of the split, so this means Paramount can now make a Sponge Bob movie without having to share revenue. This move is all about retaining rights for animated movies, there is no indication there is any move in taking movie properties and creating animated TV spinoffs from them.

 

[DFScott]

You may yet prove me wrong on this, AviTrek, which would mean I go back to my original assertion that TV is a vast wasteland and Trek would be better off if it steered clear of first-run TV for the next few years. (I do stand corrected on Nickelodeon, it's part of Viacom, not CBS.) And this whole deal may be about the Smurfs and Sponge Bob.

DF "Cringes at the Thought of a Trek Spinoff Where the First Officer is a Sea Star" Scott

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Except that TV is not a vast wasteland. Just look at The Walking Dead on AMC or Game of Thrones on HBO (just limiting myself to genre stuff for this analogy). Why can't we have a Star Trek series of that caliber (perhaps not quite so violent/gory) on Showtime?

Star Trek needs the longer form of TV to do justice to all the complexity that it can contain, when well written. If we get nothing but movies, we're going to get mainly action, with a bit of character development for Kirk and Spock, doled out with an eyedropper. That's all summer popcorn style movies are capable of delivering, even at their best, at a measly 2 hrs every 3 years, with audience expectations for the action to not be interrupted too often with all that boring talking.

 

[Captaindemotion]

^ Hmmm, a more adult ST in the vein of Game ... or Walking or even nuBSG is a pretty interesting concept. But would it really be Star Trek? I mean, I know Rodenberry pushed the limits as far as he could for 1960s network tv. But do we really want decapitations, swearing and headshots on Trek? I'm not sure (though I'm not 100% against it either).

 

[Thomas.B]

How is it that Paramount has "no ties" to TV outlets? There is a CBS and Paramount Logo at the end of all the Star Trek episodes on video. If you own an animation studio. And you share profits from Star Trek episodes on TV. Is it such an unbelievable leap to think they might want to do an animated series?
Anyway. People have been speculating on this lately and not just here. So while I understand the initial skepticism...what's not to like about the idea? Star Trek is a hot property again and I could see them making a deal with any decent animation studio to do a TV series.

 

[ClayHefner]

How would that even work?

Clone Wars works because it's set in the Star Wars Universe. It can be over-the-top and full of action and filled with strange alien creatures and humongous ship interiors because that's how the SW Universe is like. Star Trek, both prime and nuTrek are different.

Will we have Kirk fight space monsters every episode? Would the rather smallish Starfleet interiors we saw translate as well to animated as SW locales do?
Or would they dare to produce a "serious" series? But again, wouldn't the established conventions limit it terribly?

If they really do it, a 26th century series or something would probably be their best choice.

 

[AviTrek]

How is it that Paramount has "no ties" to TV outlets? There is a CBS and Paramount Logo at the end of all the Star Trek episodes on video. If you own an animation studio. And you share profits from Star Trek episodes on TV. Is it such an unbelievable leap to think they might want to do an animated series?
Anyway. People have been speculating on this lately and not just here. So while I understand the initial skepticism...what's not to like about the idea? Star Trek is a hot property again and I could see them making a deal with any decent animation studio to do a TV series.

Thomas, welcome to TrekBBS. But here is a little history lesson. Star Trek used to be owned by paramount. At one point Paramount owned CBS. However, a couple years ago Paramount and CBS were split in half. Star Trek rights were divided between both companies. CBS has the TV rights and Paramount has the movie rights. Also, the former Paramount television studios went to CBS. At this point Paramount does not have a TV production business. If you're interested in more information I suggest reading the wikipedia articles on Paramount and CBS. But the short story is, what you see at the end of an old episode has nothing to do with the current state of companies. Otherwise we'd be talking about Desilu making a new Star Trek.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

^ Hmmm, a more adult ST in the vein of Game ... or Walking or even nuBSG is a pretty interesting concept. But would it really be Star Trek?

The core of Star Trek is: optimistic future, focused on exploration and policing/defending the boundaries of the Federation and spreading Fed values of secular liberal humanism to the benighted darkened corners of the galaxy.

Could you do that with more graphic violence and sex? I don't see why not. Just as long as the producers don't get confused into thinking the violence and sex is what the show is about...

Also, just because something is on pay cable doesn't mean graphic violence and sex is a requirement. It becomes a possibility, that's all. I can see graphic violence being more appropriate more often, to emphasize that Starfleet has a dangerous job. As for sex, we can get the idea just by watching Kirk put on his boots.

How would that even work?

Clone Wars works because it's set in the Star Wars Universe. It can be over-the-top and full of action and filled with strange alien creatures and humongous ship interiors because that's how the SW Universe is like. Star Trek, both prime and nuTrek are different.

Will we have Kirk fight space monsters every episode? Would the rather smallish Starfleet interiors we saw translate as well to animated as SW locales do?
Or would they dare to produce a "serious" series? But again, wouldn't the established conventions limit it terribly?

A new animated series would most likely be assumed to be set in the Abrams universe, because of the PR value of having the movie characters as the series stars (maybe with voice actors that are not the same as the movie actors).

Other than characters' looks and voices, the only real difference between the two universes is in the starship aesthetics, and that Vulcan is gone (but even then, the new colony can be called "Vulcan" and the story proceed pretty much unchanged unless a story is focusing specifically on the Vulcan genocide.)

The stories don't need to focus on people inside starships anymore than that's the case in The Clone Wars. (I don't recall the Star Wars ship interiors being "humongous" - are you thinking of Coruscant?) There can be plenty of beautiful, fantasical planets with crazy critters. TOS had them - Hortas, space ameobas - and in Trek XI, Kirk was chased by some pretty out-there monsters, so there's plenty of precedent.

The Clone Wars tackles "serious" topics in between the action sequences. Star Trek would probably veer more towards ideas than action, but there would be a mix of both anyway.

 

[Kegg]

^
An issue with violence and sex is they could just be inserted to spice up whatever the show is about. Game of Thrones, which is a quite fine series overall, can be quite guilty of this, giving us writhing lesbianism in the background so it can get some character exposition out of the way.

The Star Trek equivalent to that would be, I suppose, including a sex scene in every other moralistic Captain speech... which would be something else, anyway.

Will we have Kirk fight space monsters every episode? Would the rather smallish Starfleet interiors we saw translate as well to animated as SW locales do?
Or would they dare to produce a "serious" series? But again, wouldn't the established conventions limit it terribly?

The best hint at how that might be done lies, rather surprisingly, right under your nose:

The Star Trek animated series.

This show featured - among other things - a three-legged, three-armed navigator, weird-looking space creatures, etc. etc., and also a lot of high pulp sci-fi type stories. It was, yes, pretty cartoony.

But then the main reason Star Trek usually looks like actors on various soundstages is because that's what the show largely is. There's no compelling story reason why the crew can't do incredible and exciting stuff on far-off pulp-cover planets or see surreal aliens who have evolved from a vat of CGI Cameronian/Lucasian improbability.

 

[ChristopherPike]

I vaguely recall Roberto Orci mentioning a Star Trek animated series was something under consideration, a while back. He's already an Executive Producer on a Transformers one. It was in a Trekmovie news article a few months ago.

Probably some loophole with the last film being Paramount Pictures property and the TV Series Universe requiring negotiation with CBS or both them and Berman to move any 22nd/24th Century characters forward. So if anything I'd likely expect Abramsverse adventures with that cast lending their voices... if it happens. That look to the Enterprise (NCC-1701) translated into being a cartoon and sound-a-likes brought in, at any rate. Fudge the likenesses of Kirk and Spock, McCoy etc somewhere between both versions, to get around paying the actors maybe? Or just pin the vagueness down to an anime style. Or go the Real Ghostbusters approach.

I think we can already see this approach starting to happen in an IDW comic series this September. Pine, Quinto, Saldana on the cover... who knows how accurate the drawings are for the pages inside. Intentionally the characters, not the actors perhaps.

I couldn't care less what happens no more. But the answer to my prayers was always an animated Star Trek Enterprise.

*defiantly folds arms*

- before -

*dodging ripe tomatoes*