CONTENTS |
UPCOMING
EVENTS
Wednesday, April 6: Star Trek
Geek Trivia at Battle & Brew
Saturday, April 9: Final
Treklanta 2016 Staff Meeting
Friday-Sunday, April 15-17:
Treklanta 2016
NEWS
& ANNOUNCEMENTS
Lts. JG Lee &
Tiffany Johnson named Members of the Year
Treklanta
announces actors, authors, artists and performers
Personnel Records
Library Computer
Recent Chapter Event Photos
SIDEBAR
Belated December Birthdays
February & March Membership
Renewals
About the Republic
For More Information
USS Republic Online
Crew Roster
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News
from TrekMovie.com |
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CBS CEO Les Moonves: "Netflix wanted Star
Trek" |
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CEO Les Moonves talks All Access, says CBS must wait
six months after Beyond
before Star
Trek
can come back to TV |
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Fan
film Star
Trek: Horizon
takes the Enterprise
era out for an adventure |
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New
Star
Trek Beyond
image released |
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UPCOMING
EVENTS
Star
Trek Geek Trivia
8:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Battle & Brew
5920 Roswell Road #A-120
Sandy Springs GA 30328 |
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Treklanta is
pleased to sponsor Star Trek Geek Trivia at Battle
& Brew in Sandy Springs! Time to rewatch all your
favorite episodes and study up on the science behind warp
drive, holodecks and transporters, then come out and participate
in Star Trek Geek Trivia for a chance to win passes
to Treklanta 2016!
Seating for Star Trek Geek Trivia can be reserved ahead
of time via our Open Table online reservation system. Teams
are limited to parties of eight. If you have more than
eight, you will have to split into multiple teams.
Show up with your team before 8:00 and get a pad of paper
and a pen. Think up a clever team name and turn it in
before Star Trek Geek Trivia starts. Some teams
choose to make fun of current events in their name, some stick
with a classic name every night. It's up to you!
Battle & Brew Geek Trivia Rules
There are three things that need to be on your
answer sheet every time you turn in an answer: 1) your team
name (or number), 2) your points wagered, and 3) your answer.
If you are missing any one of these three things, you
may not get points for your answer! If you don't know
the answer, draw us a photo or put down something funny. You
CANNOT use your phone or the Internet to come up with the
answers. That is considered cheating and you will be
disqualified. You cannot be on more than one team.
How Trivia Works
We work similarly to other bar trivias, but there
are some differences, so please read through this if you are
a newcomer to Battle & Brew's Geek Trivia. There will
be three sets of three questions each, a halftime question,
then three more sets of three questions each before a final
trivia question. You can wager 1, 3 or 5 points on each
set. You cannot repeat your wager. So if you wager
5 points on the first question, you can only wager 1 or 3
points on the second question. You MUST wager points
even if you don't know the answer, or else we will mark you
down for having used your highest wager left. This lets
us know that you are still playing and haven't punkd out.
Once a new set of three questions is started, your point
values reset.
The halftime question usually is a multiple-answer question
where there is a set amount of points you can earn. The
points on the second half of trivia are still 1, 3 and 5 (keep
your 2, 4 and 6's at home). For the final trivia question,
you will wager between 1 and 15 points. These points
are the only points that can be deducted from your score if
you get the answer wrong! All the team point values
will be read aloud before the final question is asked to give
everyone a fair idea of how many points they should wager
to be able to win. You must wager at least 1 point on
this question.
Prizes
Standard prizes are house cash for First, Second
and Third place. There may be weeks where we have
additional prizes for the winners and/or for participants.
So even if you don't win trivia, you may still be able
to walk away with a prize! House cash won cannot be
used on the same night it was received. |
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Final
Treklanta 2016 Staff Meeting
7:00 p.m. Saturday, April 9, 2016
Chinatown Buffet
Chamblee Plaza Shopping Center
5438 Peachtree (Industrial) Boulevard
Chamblee GA 30341 |
LAST
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS!
All members and friends of the USS Republic, all current
Treklanta
directors and staff volunteers and most importantly, anyone
who's interested in volunteering for Treklanta staff are requested
attend our last staff meeting of the year on Saturday, April
9, at 7:00 p.m.
The purpose of this meeting is to finalize staff recruitments,
assign departments, fill vacancies and answer any questions
our volunteers may have about the convention in general or
their duties in particular. Interested in joining
the Republic? Join us! Need to
renew your membership dues? Join us! Want
to become involved with the convention? Join us! Just
want to hang out for a while with a great group of folks who
love Star Trek? Join us!
CHANGE
OF LOCATION! |
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At our
last volunteer staff meeting in March, Marlow's Tavern was
unable to seat our entire party together. For
that reason, we have decided to not return to Marlow's for
our final meeting of the year and instead, we will meet
at Chinatown Buffet in the Chamblee Plaza Shopping Center
on Peachtree (Industrial) Boulevard in Chamblee, about a
mile inside the Perimeter. Chinatown Buffet management
is looking forward to hosting our meeting and can accommodate
groups of our size with just a little notice. For
that reason, please visit our Facebook
Event Page and click "Join" or "Like"
or "Going" (or whatever it's called) to indicate
your intention to attend. Conversely, please
do NOT click any of those buttons or "Interested"
if you do not plan to attend. We only
need to hear from those who DO plan to attend. Thanks!
Chinatown Buffet offers a full... well, buffet for only
$8.99 per person. Most beverages are $1.50. Your
hard-working, yet easy-to-please Captain/Chairman has recently
dined here and found it to be acceptable.
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Treklanta
2016
3:00 p.m. Friday, April 15, 2016 to
6:30 p.m. Sunday, April 17, 2016
DoubleTree by Hilton Atlanta Northlake Hotel
4156 Lavista Road
Tucker GA 30084 |
GUESTS
OF HONOR |
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FEATURED
GUESTS |
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GUEST
PERFORMERS
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PLUS
13 ADDITIONAL GUESTS ANNOUNCED BELOW
FOR
MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ALL OUR GUESTS, VISIT THE "GUESTS"
PAGE AT WWW.TREKLANTA.ORG |
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BOOK
YOUR HOTEL ROOM HERE |
Do
it now. Group rate could expire at any time.
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EVENTS & ACTIVITIES
Q&As,
Autographs & Photo Opps with Celebrity Guests
Two tracks of
programming devoted to Star Trek and your favorite
space opera TV shows and movies
Trekkiepalooza!
featuring performances by
Felt Nerdy: Science Fiction Puppet Show
Eric Daughery and Captain's Log: Star Trek Comedy Show
The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company: Space opera drama
Hyperspace: Nerd rock band
Dirty Harry's Karaoke Cantina
Jack Stauffer's
Cabaret: "How Come I Never Got the Girl?"
17th Annual
Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant
The Independent
Star Trek Fan Film Festival
The Independent
Star Trek Fan Film Awards Ceremony
The Treklanta
Masquerade
Screening
of Firefly fan film: Browncoats: Independence War
Open Gaming
with Dozens of Games
Dealers Room
& Fan Tables
Authors Alley,
Artists Alley & Art Show
Con Suite
Weekend Memberships
& One-Day Badges available at the door
Children 6-12
Half-Price; Under 6 Free w/Paid Adult |
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NEWS
& ANNOUNCEMENTS
Lts.
JG Lee & Tiffany Johnson named Members of the Year
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The
USS Republic is pleased to announce that its 2015
Member of the Year award has been presented to Lts. JG Lee
& Tiffany Johnson. The award was presented
to the couple by Commanding Officer Fleet Captain Eric
L. Watts at the Republic's annual Holiday Party
on December 20.
The
Johnsons joined the USS Republic in August 2013 and
quickly established themselves as two of the chapter's most
active members, in spite of the distance from their home,
originally in Cartersville and then in Blue Ridge, Georgia. They
routinely drive anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half
to attend Republic events and activities.
Both Lee and Tiffany rose in rank quickly, from Ensign to
Lt. JG, by completing both the Officers Training College
and Officers Command College courses offered by STARFLEET
Academy. They have actively recruited new members
for the Republic and sponsored full-page ads promoting
the chapter in the Treklanta program book in 2015 and 2016.
The USS Republic is privileged to have Lee and Tiffany
aboard as such active and involved members. Congratulations
to them both for being selected to receive this prestigious
award!
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Treklanta
announces more than a dozen additional actors, authors,
artists and performers to line-up
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Treklanta
is pleased to announce that no less than a dozen additional
actors, authors, artists and performers have been added to
our guest line-up for our 2016 convention!
Among our Featured Guests, we are pleased to welcome actress,
model and entertainer Lynn McArthur, best known for
her recent roles as Trixie in Lumber Baron of Jasper County
and as Kellie Callahan in Swamp Murders, as well as
playing herself on Celebrity Wife Swap with Corey Feldman. Jeff
Carroll is a writer and filmmaker who has written and
produced two films, Holla If I Kill You and Gold
Digger Killer, and published three books: the novelization
of Gold Digger Killer, Thug Angel: Rebirth of a
Gargoyle and It Happened on Negro Mountain. Jevocas
"Java" Green is an actor, filmmaker and makeup artist
best known for his long-running stint as Dr. Frank N. Furter
with Atlanta's own live cast of The Rocky Horror Picture
Show, Lips Down On Dixie, and as the titular star of the
YouTube web series, Doctor Who: The Forgotten Doctor. R.
Alan Siler is the author of Doctor Who's Greatest Hits:
An Unauthorized Guide to the Best Stories From Time and Space
and a contributing author to More Doctor Who and Philosophy:
Regeneration Time.
We have
also added five artists to our second Artists Alley! Returning
from last year is Justin Anderson, whose work is inspired
by a juxtaposition of themes that range from movies, pop culture,
animal symbolism, quotations and history. His technique
stems from a traditional art background combined with commercial
art skills, with a heavily saturated influence from drip painter
Jackson Pollack and bold lines from comic books, realism,
street art and video games. Joining us for the
first time this year is Maria Miller, a freelance artist
who does custom traditional paintings in a wide variety of
genres in acrylic paint, but who also does pen and pencil
illustrations. Gillian Parker is a longtime
henna artist who only uses natural henna for her art, creating
beautiful artwork on your skin. She
mixes traditional and modern designs and can add glitter and
rhinestones to your tattoos. Malik Roberts
has been drawing and painting all his life and is now realizing
his lifelong dream of making animated cartoons. He has
also begun exhibiting his work in local art shows and is a
presidential honor roll student at The Art Institute of Atlanta.
Scott Rorie is known for his realistic portraits
and has worked for many different card companies, creating
sketch cards for sets like Star Trek, Star Trek:
The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager for
Rittenhouse Archives; numerous Star Wars sets for Topps;
The Walking Dead for Cryptozoic Entertainment; and
many others.
In our
first-ever Authors Alley, we are pleased to welcome Michael
Lackey, whose first novel, The Bad Seed, is a medieval
fantasy that follows Zachery Morely as he discovers a mysterious
dark figure in his family's garden that tells him of doom
and destruction coming to his world. The Saga
of Ukumog is Louis Puster III's dark fantasy series
about an undead man with a forgotten past, a woman seeking
revenge and a sword with a taste for the souls of dark things.
There are three novels in the series so far: Wracked,
Desecrated and Flayed. A fan of thought-provoking
science fiction and history, Winfield H. Strock III's
works frame familiar and controversial issues within fantastic
environments and from challenging perspectives. His
four published novels include Adventures Above the Aether;
its sequel, Aether Legion; Red Sounding; and
The Veneer Clause. From vampires on a submarine
to steampunk starships and beyond, Strock hopes to move hearts
to action and entertain minds open to a larger universe.
And
finally, Treklanta is delighted to announce that Captain's
Log will be performing in our second annual Star Trek
Comedy Show! Captain's Log is an improv comedy
group that performs the first Friday of each month at the
Village Theatre in Atlanta. The cast includes Syl
Turner, Josh Warren, Cory Di Mino, Kevin
Goreham, Tom Bastek, Elliot Goff and Erica
Anthony. Most of the crew are big fans of sci-fi,
but some have never seen an episode of Star Trek. It's
a sci-fi mishmash hodgepodge of galactic proportions, and
we have it at Treklanta! |
ALL
THIS AND MORE FOR ONLY $40 WHEN YOU PREREGISTER! NO
OTHER CONVENTION GIVES YOU THIS MUCH VALUE FOR THIS LOW
A PRICE! PREREGISTER AND BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM
RESERVATION TODAY ON OUR WEB SITE AT WWW.TREKLANTA.ORG!
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Personnel
Records
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STARFLEET
Academy is a special collection of correspondence courses
available to every STARFLEET member. Over 60 Academy
Colleges offer courses spanning all aspects of Star Trek
and science fiction; some courses even cover non-sci-fi real
world topics. Each college offers dozens of different
courses at varying levels of challenge from super-easy to
really hard. In total, there are nearly 1,000 different
courses available. Take
a course today!
Something
special going on in your life? Submit
your Personnel Record for publication in the next
issue of The Republiqué! |
Library
Computer
CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE |
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NASA
planned to name the first space shuttle Constitution,
to commemorate the nation's bicentennial in 1976. But
that changed between the announcement of the program in 1972
and the unveiling of the craft in 1976. |
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Star Trek fan Bjo Trimble already had experience
in mobilizing Trekkers; she had spearheaded a fan campaign
to save the original Star Trek series from cancellation
in 1967. That effort stretched the show's run into
a third year. Trimble organized Star Trek fans
in a new campaign to name the first space shuttle Enterprise
instead of Constitution. The White House received
somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 letters urging the name
change (although some estimates go as high as 200,000).
President
Gerald Ford spoke with NASA chief James Fletcher and said,
"You know, I'm a little partial to the name Enterprise."
Ford did not mention the letter-writing campaign,
but instead referred to the fact that he served on a Navy
ship that serviced the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.
Fletcher resisted the name change, but was overruled
by the president. The shuttle would be named Enterprise.
Bjo Trimble and her husband John are Fan Guests
of Honor at this year's Treklanta. They are legendary
in science fiction fandom. Don't miss this rare
opportunity to meet the couple who literally saved Star
Trek.
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Recent
Chapter Event Photos
CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE |
USS
Republic Holiday Potluck Party & Member of
the Year Award Ceremony ||
December 20, 2015
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Members
and friends of the USS Republic
attend our annual Holiday Potluck Party! Hosted by
(ENS1) Tony Cade at Challenges Games and Comics... thanks,
Tony!
Seated: Adm Mike Henigan, Adm Kelly Hilliard, ENS1 Tracey
S. Harwell, ENS1 Sue Lin Lange. Standing: Melissa
Cowart, Henry Cowart, Ens Daniel Cowart, Matt Steinberg,
Lt JG Lee Johnson, Lt JG Tiffany Johnson, Kathy Wynn, FCapt
Eric L. Watts, Ens Vicki Greve, Ens Gaylen Greve, ENS1 Zannetta
Tucker, ENS1 Richard Tucker, CDT4 Zarena Tucker, (Ens) Chris
Jones.
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Members
and friends of the USS Republic
enjoyed yet another holiday feast, including Captain Eric's
traditional roasted turkey. There were lots of
other meats, veggies, starches and desserts spread across
two tables, as well as plenty of holiday... ah... beverages.
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Captain
Eric congratulates the USS Republic's
2015 Members of the Year, Lieutenants JG Tiffany (left)
and Lee (right) Johnson, who routinely drove long distances
to participate in chapter events, actively recuited new
members and sponsored a full-page ad for the Republic
in the 2015 Treklanta program book. For outstanding
service to the chapter, Lee and Tiffany received the Republic's
highest honor.
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BELATED
DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS
Saturday, December 12
Adm Kelly S. Hilliard
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FEBRUARY
& MARCH MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
These members' dues expired in February
and March. Please renew now!
Ens Daniel Cowart
ENS2 Tracy O'Quinn
Lt JG Robert Louis Simon
ENS2 Robert Teague
ENS1 Chris White
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ABOUT
THE REPUBLIC
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The
USS Republic NCC-1371 was originally commissioned
as a chapter of STARFLEET International on May 14, 1988,
at the Dixie-Trek convention in Atlanta, Georgia. As
of April 3, 2016, the Republic crew includes 35
members who are active members of STARFLEET in good
standing.
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The
Republic plans and coordinates an active schedule
of events for its members, but does not hold meetings
on a consistently fixed date each month.
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Because
the USS Republic is a duly commissioned chapter
of STARFLEET International and is bound and governed by
its Constitution and By-Laws, membership in STARFLEET
is a prerequisite for membership in the Republic. STARFLEET
dues for one person are $20 for a "Standard Membership"
or $10 for an "E-Membership" and chapter dues are $10
per person for either membership option. A
combined payment for all dues is collected by the Republic
(family discounts are available with certain conditions
and restrictions). Additional information about
the two STARFLEET membership options, amounts due for
additional family members, payment options and payment
instructions is on the "How to Join" page of our award-winning
web site.
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MEMBERSHIP
DUES
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PDF
STARFLEET NEWSLETTER EMAILED TO YOU
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STARFLEET NEWSLETTER MAILED TO YOU
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$45
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$30
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$57
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$40
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$69
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FOR
MORE INFORMATION
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USS
REPUBLIC ONLINE
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CREW
ROSTER
AS OF APRIL 3, 2016
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NEWS
from
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CBS
CEO Les Moonves: "Netflix wanted Star Trek" |
By
Kayla Iacovino
February 29, 2016
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Speaking
at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference
in San Francisco today, CEO of CBS Les Moonves told the
crowd that streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu
all wanted the new Star Trek series. And, they
were willing to pay big bucks for what Moonves called "CBS's
family jewel." |
The
new Star Trek series coming to CBS's over-the-top
streaming service, CBS All Access, in 2017 apparently garnered
a lot of attention from big streaming services like Netflix,
Amazon and Hulu during the show's inception. |
"Netflix,
Amazon, Hulu... they all offered us a lot of money. They
all wanted it very badly," Moonves said. "We could
have taken the quick bucks from Netflix, but it shows we're
investing in a property we really believe in the future
of." |
"For
this relatively minor investment, this is how we're going
to get All Access to be where we want it to be: where there
are millions and millions and millions of subscribers."
added Moonves. "And by putting that forward,
we said to the world, 'CBS is really serious about this.'
[We at CBS have] taken this crown jewel property and
put it in a place where [we] know there are so many millions
of Star Trek fans that they will pay for this." |
The
fact that the Big Three were willing to pay top dollar for
the show suggests that CBS's move to use Star Trek
to bolster their own streaming service may have been a wise
choice. Moonves also indicated that Star Trek
may be the first of many original shows created for the
All Access platform. |
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CEO
Les Moonves talks All Access, says CBS must wait six months
after Beyond before Star Trek can come back
to TV |
By
Kayla Iacovino
March 8, 2016
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Les
Moonves revealed this morning that CBS had to wait six months
after the premier of Star Trek Beyond before launching
their new Star Trek television series, which will
premier on CBS All Access next January. He also
spoke about the future of All Access, including a possible
merge with Showtime. |
Speaking
to a crowd at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom
Conference this morning, CBS CEO Les Moonves spoke about
the split of Viacom, which resulted in CBS and Paramount
fighting over what Moonves calls a "family jewel": Star
Trek. |
When
[CBS and Paramount] split from Viacom ten years ago, January
1, 2006, one of the big sticking points, as you can imagine,
was Star Trek. You know, we both wanted it. |
[Paramount]
said "It's a movie!" and I said, "No, no, no, it's a TV
show." Actually, we're both right. So they kept
the feature film rights, we kept the television rights;
they have [Star Trek Beyond] coming out July 22." |
Moonves
revealed that part of the deal between the two production
companies was a waiting period in between the new movies
and a new television series. |
Our
deal with [Paramount] is that we had to wait six months
after their film is launched so there wouldn't be a confusion
in the marketplace. |
Star
Trek is CBS's family jewel |
As
Moonves has said before, he and CBS consider Star Trek
a "family jewel" and are using the franchise to bolster
their new streaming service, CBS All Access. For Trekkies,
Moonves's faith in the show is a good thing, since it means
CBS will put their full backing behind the series in a way
that appeals to its already massive fanbase. |
Star
Trek is an expensive show. It's the family
jewel, obviously. The previous Star Trek shows
that we sold to Netflix did extraordinarily well; I don't
think it's a great surprise that Trekkies would go to the
[streaming services] of the world. So we sort of felt
that we had a tiger in the bottle. |
We
announced Star Trek, and internationally, we basically
have covered 60% of the cost of the show already. To
make up that [other] 40%, it's not going to take a whole
lot of subscriptions, and it says to the world that we are
very serious about this. |
When
you put something on [All Access], it's got to be something
special, something you wouldn't find on the [CBS broadcast
network], something that will attract subscribers. As
I said, Star Trek was kind of a no-brainer: there
aren't a lot of [properties] out there with that kind of
following. |
In
2017, when Star Trek starts on All Access, we think
that it's going to be extraordinarily successful. |
The
future of CBS All Access |
A
lot can change to CBS's All Access streaming service between
now and the premier of Star Trek next January. Today,
Moonves hinted at a so-called "skinny bundle" of All Access
and the standalone Showtime offering, at a discount to their
current pricing. Showtime launched its standalone
streaming service in July at a hefty $10.99/month. |
Someone's
going to figure out how to do this and how to give people
what they want to watch, and it's not for $100 a month.
It will be for $35 or $39 dollars a month where you'll
really get the 12 to 15 or 18 channels that you care about.
And not get the karate channel for 25 cents a month. That
doesn't make sense anymore. |
Moonves
called the idea of skinny bundles "inevitable" and called
them a "great idea... that will become more and more a part
of our culture." |
"No
matter what universe you live in, you have to have us....
You can't live without CBS," he said. |
Moonves
hinted that All Access would be seeing new and different
features pre-Trek launch, saying that, while All
Access has been successful, "we haven't pulled out all of
the stops. Next year it's going to add substantially
to our bottom line." And, he implied that Star
Trek will be the driving force behind All Access's success: |
I
think when Star Trek starts, which is in January
2017, I think you're going to see a larger marketing push
for [All Access] right then because there will be a lot
of people who will sign up then. |
He
said that shortly after Star Trek, subscribers can
expect about three or four more originals on All Access. |
Ad-free
All Access? |
One
of the biggest consumer complaints about the All Access
streaming service is the fact that viewers who pay $5.99/month
for the service are obligated to sit through the same advertisements
they would see for free over the air on the CBS broadcast
network. Moonves has talked about implementing an
ad-free version of the service for some time now, and has
floated the idea of a $9.99/month ad-free service. |
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Fan
film Star Trek: Horizon takes the Enterprise
era out for an adventure |
By
Bill Watters
March 11, 2016
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After
a successful Kickstarter in 2014 (they more than doubled
their $10,000 target by taking in $22,600), writer/director
Tommy Kraft and his team have finally delivered a fan film
that's pretty darned good. Their backer community
had been a bit worried with the delays (the original release
date had been set for December of 2014), but it would seem
the wait was well worth it. |
It's
no mean feat to manage to create a 102-minute long feature
film that's basically entirely green screen on a less-than-shoestring
budget (think a fan-level version of what was done with
Battlestar: GalacticaBlood & Chrome, right
down to the camera motion). So on a technical level
alone they deserve some mad props, and is likely one of
the key reasons for its extended delay. |
The
film is set in the era of Star Trek: Enterprise,
with the NX-01 even putting in a brief cameo, but it's the
NX-04, the Discovery, and her crew that are the primary
focus of the story. If you're not a fan of the long-running
Temporal Cold War story arc of Enterprise, then this
might not be the particular film for you, but don't tune
out quite yet. |
The
film opens with a prologue 250,000 years earlier, during
the last moments of a war between the Arioui and the Iconians.
Some of the last remaining Iconians manage to Stargate
away a planet with a massively powerful weapon and hide
it from the Arioui, who, it is implied, would have used
it to rule or destroy the rest of the galaxy. The
planet's name is Horizon, and those last Arioui keep it
hidden, lest it fall into the wrong hands. |
Jumping
forward to the present, we meet up with the Discovery
in a running battle with a trio of Romulan Warbirds. The
Discovery has a newly discovered Romulan defector,
T'Mar (Callie Bussell) on board and the chasing Warbirds
want her backdead or alive. |
After
an all-too narrow escape, it is found that T'Mar is a wealth
of tactical knowledge and reveals that the Romulans are
building a weapon of mass destruction. Thus the stage
is set, and the Discovery is set out to find the
truth of what the Romulans are up to and to prevent them
from gaining an upper hand in the war. |
There's
a lot of story packed into this film, and from a narrative
point of view, it's well-constructed and flows well. Various
elements from Star Trek: Enterprise imbues it with
an honest feeling of being part of that universe without
being forced. The outsider's-battle-to-be-accepted
trope in the case of T'Mar was decently handled, and gave
that almost underlying morality story that so many good
Trek tales often possess. Picking up story
elements from other parts of the Trek canon (the
Iconians and their mythos having started back in The
Next Generation episode "Contagion") also shows that
they didn't just pull the storyline out of a hat. |
As
with many independent productions, the acting is uneven
and at times a touch cringey. There are also
some moments of dialogue that could have been better crafted
(the amount of stop and talk in the midst of a gun battle
in Discovery's engineering was a bit askew). However,
there's other times when the acting is perfectly solidsuch
as some quiet moments between Lieutenant Amelia Yaris (Jeannine
Thompson) and Captain Harrison Hawke (Paul Lang) that were
really good. The Romulan characters were well-cast,
between Bussel and Ryan Husk as Admiral Verak. |
It's
easy to poke at the foibles of a low-budget film; however,
it must be reminded that it's a low-budget film. Yup,
the fit on the costumes was rough; some of the makeup work...
also rough. Some of the effects, especially around
the person-to-person phaser battles were also by no means
perfect. If you want to compare its effects and production
quality to Blood & Chrome, that's fine, but you're
comparing a three million dollar budget to twenty thousand.
Give creating a single SFX track-around shot like
Horizon has by yourself, and then naysayers can cast
stones. |
But
perfection isn't really what one should look for in these
films or episodes. Does it hold to the tradition of
the style of Star Trek in which they set their story? Does
it flow well and make sense, both in and of itself, as well
as part of the wider canon? Do you have a good time
watching it? For those later questions, Horizon
does so admirably. I've watched a number of productions
over the past year where I had to fast forward through one
scene or another because it felt just plain bad; this isn't
one of those projects. In fact, I really hope that
Kraft and his team continue to explore other stories and
projects, as there's some real production skill to be found
among them. |
Rating:
4 Stars out of 5 |
|
New Star Trek Beyond image released |
By
TrekMovie.com Staff
March 28, 2016
|
A
new image has surfaced for the upcoming film. |
The
still, part of USA Today's Summer Movie Preview,
features Simon Pegg as Scotty and Sofia Boutella as Jaylah,
and is the first official release we've seen since the teaser
trailer dropped in December. |
|
In
the blurb accompanying the image, director Justin Lin continues
to keep most plot details under wraps, simply saying that: |
Kirk
and Spock is the heart of the ensemble, but we all have
love for everybody else. It was to be able to not
only showcase these characters but also to be able to push
them and interact and react to certain obstacles. |
Star
Trek Beyond hits the big screen on July 22. |
|
|