Star Trek: The Animated Series music

Star Trek TAS music! Art by Kail.

Woah, spooky. I was only thinking today that I wished Arex and M'ress were in that famous TAS cast publicity shot you see around. And yay, M'ress without her sometime-black koala nose - but with her black collar.

Welcome back, Arex

Fan film producer, James Cawley, has released a test shot of a new cast member for his "Star Trek: Phase II" series. Check out the whole article on TrekMovie.com!

I did read, on James' Facebook page, that the new Arex has lost his tripodal features. (I guess the CGI would have cost an arm and a leg.)

Haw haw haw!


Arex in "The Practical Joker" episode of Filmation's TAS.


My M'Ress and Arex customised action figures.




Arex features in IDW Publishing's "Year Four" comics!

Chekov's TAS cameo?

"Beyond the Farthest Star", the first episode aired of Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (TAS): Arex is navigator and Sulu is helmsman, with Kirk in the command chair. Uhura's chair is vacant.



Seconds later: suddenly, a redshirted Chekov(?) is navigator - and Uhura is back in her usual chair.

This brief sequence is perhaps a re-use of part of some TAS pilot/test bridge footage, maybe before they were certain the budget couldn't afford Walter Koenig's voice, and before Arex was conceived. Note that "Chekov" is even in red, a precursor to his proposed role in "Star Trek: Phase II", as security chief (a Chekov "Phase II" redshirt uniform was auctioned off diring the "It's a Wrap" eBay auctions of Paramount costumes and props) and, of course, came to fruition in ST:TMP.

Okay, so maybe they accidentally threw Scotty into the scene but...



Seconds later again: Arex is back, as the bridge shakes!

(It's fun to speculate. It's certainly not the only blooper in TAS.)

Recent ramblings about Star Trek

Here Down Under, we've recently had a rush of William Shatner print media interviews. I originally thought it was just Sydney, but my mother sent me several clippings from Perth newspapers and magazines, all covering the same information. Almost every newspaper, in several states, has carried a variation of his press release about his new autobiography ("Up Till Now") - and every local journalist covering the story for their paper has added mention of the new JJ Abrams "Star Trek" movie, and how Shatner had been a little disgruntled that Nimoy would be reprising Elder Spock alongside a new cast, but at least Shatner was doing well with his TV career, writing career, and his online selling. None of the articles I read were anti-Trek.

Paramount can't buy this kind of publicity. It percolates along - and they haven't even started their own campaign yet.

TrekBBS posters are perhaps overly concerned about public perceptions of the forthcoming movie. They seem to think that Internet complaining and whining about any changes JJ Abrams has forced upon the accepted "Star Trek canon" (what has gone before in decades of aired live-action Star Trek) may scare away the general cinema-going public.

Not a chance. There'll always be Star Trek fans who complain the loudest, but will still turn up on opening weekend, so they can blog about how much they hated it, or how well they boycotted/lied about it.

The "concern" is nothing new. It is precisely what happened with "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "ST IV: The Voyage Home". While both films made huge amounts of money, both films angered some fans. A lot. The character interrelationships were supposedly "missing" from TMP, and many complained that ST IV's comedy and science had been "dumbed down" for the masses. But both films received sufficient buzz to draw in the curious general public.

Ditto "First Contact", which polarized many TOS and "The Next Generation" fans (action Picard, supposed mis-portrayal of Zefram Cochrane, too scary for kids, etc) but was still a critical and box office success.

Many Trek fans seem to feel that the general public always thinks that "Star Trek is for basement-dwelling 'dweebs' with no social skills". Well, it didn't stop the general public associating with nerds to see TMP, ST IV or "First Contact".

You know, in my life, none of my non-ST friends, neighbours, work colleagues, kids I teach, or blog readers, think that I'm a basement-dwelling deeb. If they do, it must always be behind my back, and done so well that I never catch them insulting me. I never hide that I'm a ST fan, and I've fielded many curious questions as people have started hearing that there's "a new movie" on its way. Maybe jocks think I'm a "dweeb", a "nerd" or a "droob", but I can't say that I choose to hang around too many jocks, so we don't really know each other.

That the general public hate nerds but love and respect jocks is a crock. I would think that most cinema-goers would prefer to associate with polite nerds (when sitting in the darkened theatre with a group of strangers) than with those who'd rather be off being... active. (Mind you, whoever said that jocks have to hate Star Trek?)

On another Star Trek track...

The final issue of IDW Publishing's "Star Trek: New Frontier" comic (#5) turned up on Thursday. Some fun stuff, as usual, and a little more Arex action, but online fans are complaining that the ending kinda fizzled. I didn't mind this issue, but the art and pace of #4 was probably the best. Perhaps author Peter David was setting up for the next "New Frontier" text-based stories..., or the next IDW comic mini-series?

While I got plenty of NF bangs for my bucks with "Turnaround". My only main concern was imagining how anyone who had no familiarity with PAD's recent NF books understanding what was going on. While I personally enjoyed seeing Morgan Primus, Arex and M'Ress - and a Mirror Universe incarnation of superbeing Mark McHenry - these characters must have presented new readers with many "WTF" moments, if you'll pardon their expression

I guess for those unsure about ordering future NF comic issues, they could wait to hear some amazingly positive reviews of the next NF mini-series, and then there's always Volume 2 of the inevitable IDW trade reprint...

Kirk and the animated common people

This is a great Youtube find: William Shatner (aka James T Kirk), singing "Common People" on the "Has Been" CD, set to edited images from the Filmation Star Trek animated series. Some cameos by M'Ress and a jammin' Mr Arex!

The Enterprise Experiment

I picked up my copy of IDW Publishing's "Star Trek: Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment" #1 yesterday and read it in the train on the way home. A major role for "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (TAS)'s tripodal Lieutenant Arex - yay! - and a great, page-turning beginning for the new story arc by DC Fontana (Mrs TAS herself!) and Derek Chester.

I loved the TOS/TAS rendition of the San Francisco airtram station, soon to be upgraded in time for TMP, I presume.

The story is, of course, a sequel to the TOS episode, "The Enterprise Incident" (in which Captain Kirk disguised himself as a Romulan to steal a cloaking device from the female Romulan Commander). This time, in a story that takes place during the TAS years, the Enterprise is testing a cloaking device of its own.


Arex: such a handy crewman to have around


No "Quad Covers (TM)" for this storyline (as per the "New Frontier" issues)? When I arrived at the comic shop, they'd put aside the "Year Four" Spock cover (Cover B) issue for me, but I really wanted the great Mr Arex and Kirk (Cover A) instead, of course. But all the shelf copies had sold already! (Stock only arrived the day before.) Luckily, my trusty comic seller rummaged through the standing order boxes, found the last unclaimed Arex cover issue, and did me a swap. Too bad if the other guy preferred Arex, too.

I'm really enjoying IDW's efforts; I just wish the multiple and "rare" covers didn't cause as many heartaches for me, or for the completists out there who must be driven crazy by now.

Hanging out for Year Four!

Arex and M'Ress (of Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series") really do cameo, as promised, in IDW Publishing's upcoming "Star Trek: Year Four" comic mini-series!

Check out the review at TrekMovie.com, which has links to online preview pages from IDW. It's actually quite a positive review, apart from the mention of the (same) writer's now familiar, sparse style.

I quite enjoyed "The Next Generation: The Space Between". (I guess it was only David Tischman's seeming reluctance to draw the threads together in the final TNG issue that left me cold.)

Uniformity

Over at the TrekBBS, someone asked for the Star Trek fans to name their favourite Star Trek uniform, and I hadn't really felt the need to contribute to that thread - until someone wondered aloud if "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" was going to get any representation. And it helped that I was "taking a break" from yesterday's epic moving of magazines from one pile to another. (Today I'd progressed to "free some action figures from their packaging" to free up more space. But it's okay, I've always been an "opener", not a "MOMC" - "mint on mint card" - collector.)

Okay, back to ST uniforms: well ST:TMP on the big screen was my first really memorable ST experience, after TAS repeats on TV. So, call me biased, but I love the ST: TMP uniforms (even if they do look a little - okay, a lot - like 'jammies). In 1980, if I coulda put one on and leapt into the silver screen of Sydney's old Paramount Theatre and onto that starship, I'd have done so.



Above: From an early fanzine story; art by my penpal, Kamu. Note that I'd asked her to include the Andorian partial exo-skeleton mentioned by the Ballantine "Starfleet Medical Reference Manual".



Above: At the first Medtrek Convention (1982), at the historic Hydro Majestic Hotel, Medlow Bath in the Blue Mountains. Therin was on the debating team: "Federation vs Empire: Which is the Better Form of Government?"



Above: Therin, Arex and M'Ress join the crew after ST: TMP, with a little help from Photoshop.

Animation could have saved the franchise?

Certainly, there were several times the idea of a "Star Trek: The Next Generation" animated series was mooted at Paramount. It has been said that a TNG animated series could have continued the action on TV between TNG feature films, especially since Brent Spiner and Patrick Stewart were so keen to move onto other projects, yet might have happily voiced a few animated lines for Data and Picard every few weeks between other stage or film work. IIRC, Susan Sackett and her TNG writing partner, Fred Bronson (who wrote "The Counter-clock Incident" for TAS as John Culver), had also suggested a Wesley-at-the-Academy spin-off animated series. Rick Berman was said to be resistant to these ideas. He was worried that animation would "milk the franchise". (And "Star Trek: Voyager" didn't?)

However, I reckon TNG animation would have brought in new younger fans. TNG was coming to the end of its amazing TV success. Everyone and his dog had been buying the Playmates action figures, but think about the later waves of "Star Trek" toys: the wonderful Art Asylum "Enterprise" and "The Original Series" figures were seemingly being designed and made for adult collectors only. What children were even watching ENT late at night, let alone asking Grandma to buy them a T'Pol or Archer action figure?


Above: Species 8472 meets Lieutenant Arex.

TAS was my first exposure to "Star Trek". As I mentioned below, a few episodes in black and white on Saturday mornings, then after colour TV came to Australia in March 1975, I distinctly remember watching weekday breakfast television repeats of TAS as a young teen: Spock replaced by an Andorian first officer in "Yesteryear"; the stark, white starfield of "The Counter-clock Incident"; tiny, yellow-haired Nurse Chapel drowning in Dr McCoy's halo fish tank in "The Terratin Incident" ("Help! Help!"); wacky new aliens of "The Jihad"; Arex and M'Ress accused as pranksters in "The Practical Joker"; red-skinned Lucien in "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"; bright pink tribbles in "More Tribbles, More Troubles" (which I saw before the original TOS episode); and orange-skinned Mr Arex in "Albatross" (with all the bridge characters turning various colours from the Auroral Plague).

I never even noticed Arex's three arms and three legs until I read Alan Dean Foster's "ST Log" adaptations! (And in one book, ADF accidentally gives Arex three eyes as well!)

Getting animated!

The final series of "Star Trek" not-yet-available-on-DVD has been announced for commercial boxed set release! Filmation's "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (aka TAS), which I used to watch in glorious black and white limited animation on Saturday mornings in the 70s, and then in colour repeats on breakast television - "The Super Flying Fun Show" with Miss Marilyn (Mayo) - was my first real introduction to "Star Trek", consolidated by a few random TOS ("the original series") episodes, again to celebrate the arrival of colour TV Down Under, and then the mesmerising "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" in 1979.

I'm really looking forward to the DVD text commentaries by Michael and Denise Okuda on three of the episodes, including two of my favourites ("Yesteryear" and "The Counter-Clock Incident", plus "The Eye of the Beholder") and all the other bonus features. "Yesteryear" was a story involving the Guardian of Forever time gate from the live-action "City on the Edge of Forever", and "The Counter-Clock Incident" featured the first captain of the NCC-1701 Enterprise, Robert April, and his wife, Sarah.

References to TAS in latter day Star Trek tie-ins have been annotated at my site, Toon Trek. A work in progress, I've tried to annotate the list with every element of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" that has appeared in "Star Trek" episodes, movies, novels, comics, games, etc. Another great site about TAS is here.

A frequently asked question about TAS concerns its controversial "removal from the canon" via a memo from Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek Office at Paramount during that prolonged hiatus between Seasons One and Two of "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Why de-emphasise TAS stories? Who knows, the definitive answer is buried under red tape, but keep in mind that: TAS identities, DC Fontana and David Gerrold, had begun legal proceedings in regard to their departure from the staff of TNG; Peter David was asked to discontinue using Arex and M'Ress as characters in his post-ST IV comics; Filmation was being disbanded as a company; and SF writer Larry Niven was just about to launch "The Man-Kzin Wars" books and a licensed "Ringworld" RPG, both featuring kzinti. (It would not have helped him if the TOS and TNG comics and novels started playing with "The Slaver Weapon"'s animated kzinti with, or without, Niven's input.)

But it doesn't matter to us, the fans, any more if TAS is canonical or not. Paula Block, of Viacom (now CBS) Licensing, started letting back in references to TAS in the books within weeks of Roddenberry's death (and Richard Arnold's departure from the STO) in 1991. The novelization of TNG's Spock episodes, "Unification" by Jeri Taylor, briefly references the Phylosians, of "The Infinite Vulcan" and "The Time Trap" fame. Arex and M'Ress have since time jumped into Peter David's "New Frontier" novels (from "Gateways: Cold Wars" onwards) and a member of Em/3/Green's species - P8Blue the Nasat - has turned up in the "Starfleet Corps of Engineers" (SCE) eBooks.

By the way, the above Bill Redfern pic is not actually a still from TAS. Caitians and Andorians used to feature in the online parody, "Haul Trek: Misadventures of M'Iskiti" by the late Paul S Gibbs (who once started up an email correspondence with me, and long held a hope that his Admiral M'Ress fan stories might have had a chance to transform into professional, licensed Star Trek novels). After putting a lot of energy into his TAS-homage "M'Iskiti" strips, he decided to strip out all the "Star Trek" references, changed M'Iskiti's name, and concentrated on crafting a more original humorous science fiction pastiche in panelled cartoon form, presumably again hoping for a commercial sale. Andorian captain, Aydestinguis Thesspiahn, (above) of the freighter Pharsicle was turned into a non-ST green humanoid for the revamped "Freighter Tails". That's the real M'Ress below, between a kzin and Lieutenant Arex.