Someone's posted the individual episodes as a podcast, pulling the files from an Internet Archive upload. Not hard to find, but I won't post them here in case the rights holders just haven't noticed the files being distributed.
Would you listen to Big Finish produced trek?
- Thread starter FreddyE
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Hmm, I imagine that it must be the algorithm picking up on my multiple recent searches on Star Trek and Star Wars audio, but today my feed is filled with Star Trek audios. The Power Records adventures, the Captain Sulu adventures, the abridged novels read by the original actors. One channel just uploaded Q-in-Law an hour ago. The only stuff I can't seem to find is the more recent stuff based on Star Trek Picard. There really isn't any need to provide links, because it's all easily searchable. But it's all out there Trek fans. You just have to look for it.
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I think I really only liked one of the three. It's been so long though that now I don't remember which was the one I liked!
I seem to recall enjoying Spock vs. Q, though. (But again, it's been so long that my memory might be playing tricks on me.)
It has been quite some time for me, as well. I only remember quite enjoying them... though admittedly, only the one with the space radio DJ actually sticks in my memory.I think I really only liked one of the three. It's been so long though that now I don't remember which was the one I liked!
I seem to recall enjoying Spock vs. Q, though. (But again, it's been so long that my memory might be playing tricks on me.)
And yes, Spock vs. Q was phenomenal- wonderfully performed, with both actors at the top of their game! The sequel was a bit of diminishing returns, I felt, but the original is fantastic!
I remember listening to Spock vs Q with my wife and both of us deciding it would have been a lot funnier if we'd been in the audience. IIRC, there were times the crowd howled with laughter when nothing had been said, so we were evidently missing some nonverbal stuff.
To answer the original question, yes, I would listen to something like that! However, I would be equally or more happy with an all new premise with new characters as well. The promise of legacy actors and characters just doesn't have much draw to me. The story is what keeps me interested.
Have you been listening to Khan?
And for anybody who hasn't listened to too the Star War ones, I listened to about half of Tempest Runner, and it was absolutely fantastic. The only reason I didn't finish it is my borrow from Libby ran out, and I just haven't reborrowed it yet. One thing I noticed for the audios with movie/TV characters is that they seem to always go with different actors from both the live action and animated actors, which I find very disappointing. Even if they didn't want to go for live action actors, you'd think they could have at least gotten the voice actors from the animated series.
Nope not on Spotify, at least not as a free podcast. Pretty much all of Star Wars audio dramas including the original ones, have been presented more as audio books, along the lines of how Big Finish releases their new audios.
And for anybody who hasn't listened to too the Star War ones, I listened to about half of Tempest Runner, and it was absolutely fantastic. The only reason I didn't finish it is my borrow from Libby ran out, and I just haven't reborrowed it yet. One thing I noticed for the audios with movie/TV characters is that they seem to always go with different actors from both the live action and animated actors, which I find very disappointing. Even if they didn't want to go for live action actors, you'd think they could have at least gotten the voice actors from the animated series.
Might be a matter of budget or availability, or maybe there are different unions for animation and audiobooks and not everyone belongs to both.
The original NPR Star Wars radio dramas only got Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels from the movies, with everyone else recast, though they got some fairly well-known actors, like Brock Peters as Vader and John Lithgow as Yoda. And Hamill only did the first two. So I'd imagine they potentially could have afforded to get more of the movie actors, but maybe most of them just weren't interested or available.
^ A minor correction. Billy Dee Williams performed Lando in The Empire Strikes Back.
And don't forget Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt, performing his lines entirely in Huttese.
And don't forget Ed Asner as Jabba the Hutt, performing his lines entirely in Huttese.
Oh yeah, I thought there was one other movie actor involved, but I thought it was in ROTJ, so I didn't check the TESB credits.
There were a number of other familiar names. I didn't know Perry King (Han Solo) at the time, but I recognized his name later when he appeared in Riptide and other shows. (Apparently he auditioned for Solo in the movie but didn't get it.) And there are other names that were familiar then or became well-known later, like Keene Curtis, John Considine, Adam Arkin, David Paymer, Joel Brooks, David Rasche, Arye Gross, Ed Begley Jr., David Birney, Natalia Nogulich, and Yeardley Smith. Even more in the supporting casts: David Alan Grier, Jerry Hardin, Meshach Taylor, Sam McMurray, Sherman Howard, John Kapelos, Nia Vardalos.
If I recall correctly, Harrison Ford was interested in reprising Han Solo for NPR, but there was a scheduling conflict with a little movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Honestly, I would almost take Brock peters Vader over JEJ. I thought he knocked it out of the park!
Incidentally, for anyone interested, there were three more audio dramas produced by NPR, in the same style (and using the same narrator), adapting the Dark Forces storyline (from the video games, later adapted as novellas and these audio dramas).
A number of the comics of the 90s were also adapted as audio dramas (including the FIRST time Palpatine returned and ruined all the themes of Star Wars ;-) ) with a more minimalist style (no music, minimal sound effects). And of course, the 2000s were rife with fan-made audio dramas aspiring to the NPR standards, with varying levels of quality and success... in fact, that's how I met my wife (the community gold-standard for portraying Mon Mothma).
If anyone's looking to get into that world. :-)
I forgot that along with the Random House audio dramas, there is also a line of Audible exclusive audio dramas on Amazon.
So to take this back to Star Trek, would the podcasts coming from CBS, Secret Hideout, ect. mean that we won't be getting any more audio dramas from Simon & Schuster like the Picard one about Seven & Raffi?
So to take this back to Star Trek, would the podcasts coming from CBS, Secret Hideout, ect. mean that we won't be getting any more audio dramas from Simon & Schuster like the Picard one about Seven & Raffi?
I'd expect so, since typically only one company at a time has the license to adapt a series to a given medium. Though there are exceptions. Malibu had the DS9 comics rights while DC had the TOS & TNG rights, but that's because each series was licensed separately and Malibu outbid DC for the license when DS9 came along. Tokyopop and IDW did Trek comics at the same time, though I'm not sure if the former being manga was a factor.
OK, I thought that might be the case, but I just wasn't sure if one being free and one being sold made a difference.
This is a little off topic, but how would that apply to things like the character autobiographies and that fairy tale book that's coming out, which are published by companies other than Simon & Schuster/Gallery? Would books like that be a separate liscense from tradition novels?
You generally don't get a lot of name actors in audio dramas on this side of the Atlantic, in my experience. Besides the top-billed four, the only name I recognize in Khan's cast is Maury Sterling (Ivan), who was in Enterprise: "Exile" and has an extensive TV/film resume.
The podcast is ad-supported, like commercial TV, so it isn't really free. It's paid for by the advertisers, who recoup their investment (theoretically) from that percentage of the audience that pays for the stuff advertised in the commercials. The rest of us pay for it by having to sit through a bunch of intrusive commercials (though that's mercifully minimized on YouTube).
Fiction is generally a separate license from nonfiction (which can include non-narrative fiction like in-universe reference books and biographies).
