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Star Trek's 50th Anniversary Celebrated at Comic-Con (deadline.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the live-long-and-prosper dept.

An anonymous Slashdot reader writes: Leonard Nimoy's 59-year-old son released a trailer for his upcoming documentary, For The Love Of Spock. CBS released a video teaser for their upcoming Star Trek: Discovery series. And Schmaltz brewery released a "Trouble With Tribbles" beer.

It was all part of the festivities celebrating the 50th anniversary of CBS's original Star Trek series at this year's Comic-Con festival in San Diego, which culminated with an all-star panel of actors from previous Star Trek TV series. William Shatner, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, Jeri Ryan, and Scott Bakula all reminisced on the phenomenon of the show's fan culture, with Dorn telling the audience that Apple's iPad was inspired by Star Trek technology. And Brent Spiner told the audience, "We're in a time now where identity is under attack... Politicians could learn from Star Trek."

61 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. I suspect geofencing... by Techmeology · · Score: 1

    "This video is not available. Sorry about that." If I'm right, and this is geofencing, WHY?!

    --
    Excuse for why is your room always messy?
    1. Re:I suspect geofencing... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      I hopped on to a US server via VPN and had a look. You aren't missing much, it's just the ship launching. The ship looks crap, really low budget CGI and uninteresting design, but it is new and it's not clear what era it's from.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. Live long... by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    As Kirk always said: "live long and prosper!". It sure did.

    1. Re:Live long... by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      That was Spock.

      It's the Vulcan salute

    2. Re:Live long... by magarity · · Score: 1

      It's the Vulcan salute

      Salute? No, I think the Vulcan salute is that thing where you hold your fist up and stick your thumb and forefinger straight out making an L shape with a raised pinky. You also need to nod vigorously at the same time.

    3. Re:Live long... by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      I think that is the Motorhead salute.

    4. Re:Live long... by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      Has anyone ever told you you're a dipshit? You should listen to them, they're right!

  3. Re:Please by magarity · · Score: 2

    is why there was a transporter room to go to (besides the tech on duty)

    Google for "Chief O'Brien At Work"

  4. Re:Meaningless by magarity · · Score: 1

    What exactly about "identity" is under attack, and how did Roddenbery's dream of a communist future with one militarized government and no form of money conduce to protecting "identity?

    I'm a bit puzzled by that one too; perhaps he means the 50% of humanity anonymized by burkas throughout the Mideast and large sections of France.

  5. How dare you invade our digital soil! by HalAtWork · · Score: 2

    Yes and that video must ONLY be viewed by Americans for some reason. Now that you've admitted to what is clearly a felony, prepare for extradition.

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  6. Not a great time to celebrate Star Trek by drinkypoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    While the copyright holders are shitting on the franchise? An anti-celebration seems like it makes more sense. I'd show up dressed as a Star Wars character.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:Not a great time to celebrate Star Trek by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      Not to mention CBS shitting on the fans by restricting the series to CBS All Access in the US and, as an extra slap in the balls, giving it to the rest of the fans worldwide on Netflix. They've made a lot of poor choices lately, like forcing Supergirl to compete in a time slot when other comic book franchises air and then not having it available on common streaming services like Hulu or Netflix. I'm sure that's the main reason the new season will air on the CW going forward.

      P.S. The new ship looks like hot garbage. Some things just do not translate into CG. It appears to be based on a design meant for the Enterprise refit back when The Motion Picture came out--originally intended as a pilot for Star Trek: Phase II.

      P.P.S. The best course of action as a companion to not watching the new series would be to refer to it as "STD."

    2. Re:Not a great time to celebrate Star Trek by jandersen · · Score: 1

      Yeah; what I hear is, this latest Star Trek themed movie isn't even as good as the first two after it became yet another action movie franchise - the effects are impressive (but that is sort of run of the mill nowadays), and the story is non-existent. The original series were usually well-researched, sometimes politically daring and often with some sort of ethical morale - all of which has been replaced with a bunch of chest-beating narcissists. Maybe I'll watch it if it eventually makes it to a free-to-air TV channel, but only if I have nothing more interesting to do - like filling in a tax return or watching BBC Parliament from the House of Lords.

  7. What's there to celebrate? by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A franchise being milked dry by its IP holder, fans being sued for trying to create something, and mostly being sued for creating something that's better and closer to the core idea of the franchise than its IP holder creates...

    What exactly is there to celebrate? Any "real" celebration would probably be snuffed instantly by the IP holders.

    In the eternal words of Bones: "It's dead, Jim."

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re: What's there to celebrate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The reboot lost me when Spock was pounding on that guy. That's not Spock, and the reboot is not Star Trek, it's just banking on the name.

    2. Re:What's there to celebrate? by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 1

      A franchise being milked dry by its IP holder, fans being sued for trying to create something, and mostly being sued for creating something that's better and closer to the core idea of the franchise than its IP holder creates...

      What exactly is there to celebrate? Any "real" celebration would probably be snuffed instantly by the IP holders.

      In the eternal words of Bones: "It's dead, Jim."

      You did see Voyager, right? Because that particular horse has been dead for a while now... OK, Scott Bacula quantum leaped into it for a moment and tried to set things right, but still...

      --
      Real lawyers write in C++
    3. Re:What's there to celebrate? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      A franchise being milked dry by its IP holder, fans being sued for trying to create something, and mostly being sued for creating something that's better and closer to the core idea of the franchise than its IP holder creates...

      What exactly is there to celebrate? Any "real" celebration would probably be snuffed instantly by the IP holders.

      In the eternal words of Bones: "It's dead, Jim."

      Huh, did you sleep a long time or something, because the same comment applies around 20 years ago, too.

      In other words, nothing new - CBS/Paramount/Viacom has been milking Trek for decades, suing fans (they've shut down many fan sites over the years. Some of the biggest fan-run sites that were considered the canonical reference, too, got at least a C&D, if not completely shut down. Heck, there were fansite protests against the overly harsh crackdown. These were the early days of CGI and "Content Mangaement System" or "Blog" weren't even terms yet. (Basically all the perl scripts you got did was the ability to add and subtract links to a page in a semi-automated fashion).

      And milked dry? Same. Heck, consider what a "uniform" is. And then consider why in the span of a few years, Starfleet would issue 3 different uniforms. No, it was never about the universe, but knowing that fans would flock to buy new uniforms. You can explain away TOS and TNG due to the time difference, but not TNG/DS9/VOY. Or even just TNG from the TV to the movies.Oh yeah, the movies have different uniforms as well.

      Brannon/Braga were also well known for disappointing the fan base time and time again.

      So it's not unusual to see it happen 20 years later. Funny thing is, Star Trek seems to be like oil. No matter how much the abuse, it just seems fans keep taking it and spending more $$$ on it.

      Hell, I remember buying the TNG DVD sets. When the average price of a season DVD set goes for $30 to $40, "Star Trek" pumps it up to $120+ MSRP, or $80 on sale. These days complete series sets are around $100 for DVD and $150 for Blu-Ray remasters,

      The abuse is the same and it's been going on for decades. The horse is not just dead, but it's decomposed into dust and the bones have been beaten into a fine powder, too.

    4. Re: What's there to celebrate? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Well, nobody outside the US, and probably even there nobody outside a few select echo chambers, gave half a shit about "Gamergate".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re: What's there to celebrate? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Doing very well? 50 million first week revenue on a 150 million budget movie? Well, maybe the international market will recover it.

      I would've expected more. We're after all talking about a franchise here, not some new movie nobody knew anything about and considering the hype around it in the past few weeks that even I, who doesn't give half a shit about movies, couldn't really ignore (fuck knows I tried), I honestly expected more.

      And don't forget, the rest of the world doesn't even give a shit about the "big message" of the all female cast. That whole hype only exists in the US, again.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re: What's there to celebrate? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      It works because the name is still valuable. We're talking about an established franchise after all, you can milk that for quite a while.

      Ask EA. They have been pretty successful milking the "Sim" franchise. But with decreasing success, because the name has been tarnished by too many money-grabs. A brand that was established and well liked by its customers because it was a sure bet that a game by that name would be good has been destroyed by too many games that weren't.

      The same works for movies. You can shit out a couple mediocre to outright dull Star Trek movies without noticing a dent in the box office numbers. But after that, the franchise is dead.

      But don't worry, there's plenty more to milk. How about Aliens? Or is it too late already (I didn't bother to see the AvP line)?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:What's there to celebrate? by BranMan · · Score: 1

      I was actually OK with the opening music - grew on me. What I could not STAND was taking something new and unique and hammering it (badly) into the same format as TOS.

      No! Let's not explore how we could have explored space with technology just a little more advanced than what we have - where's the fun in that?? Let's give 'em Phasers and Transporter technology too, as well as a first generation warp drive. Remember the 'testing the missles' sequence during the maiden voyage? C'mon.

      Let's make 'em technologically equivalent with everyone around them too - yeah, that will make for better stores! [Hint - it really doesn't]

      I'm ticked off that they basically removed 300 years (!) of development between Enterprise and TOS. Really? Every spacefaring race has their collective thumbs up their asses for 3 centuries?

      That was when I stopped watching. Heard about the 'temporal cold war' second hand - and was even more disgusted.

      Could have been great. Sad really.

  8. Celebration? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is Slashdot. We will have none of that. This is already obvious after just 12 comments.

  9. Politicians could learn? by ITRambo · · Score: 2

    The summary statement "Politicians could learn from Star Trek" presumes that sociopaths are capable of caring about others. That't not going to happen in the real world.

  10. Re:Meaningless by doconnor · · Score: 1

    Outside of Afghanistan and areas controlled by ISIS or the Taliban, burkas aren't common in the Mideast or anywhere else.

  11. ST is dead by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

    ST is dead.Each series has gotten further and further away from the original core concepts, and New Trek is a pile of flashy, pretty turds. The political correctness got too excruciating back in the days of Voyager. I will not be watching the next series. The franchise needs to be left dead. But as long as there's money to be made, CBS will crank out more crap, and further dilute something that was once the greatest ever.

  12. Re:Please by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

    Tech evangelists make horrible TV writers. Obviously 99% of the crews of Star Trek ships could've been automated away, but who wants to watch a TV series about machines? Bad flashlights set mood better. Watching people swap data crystals looks better and clearer and less boring than watching someone send a file over wifi. Etc.

    --
    This space intentionally left blank
  13. Re:Star Wars is better by plopez · · Score: 2, Informative

    Han shot *only*

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
  14. Re:Please by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    They say it was a boring job, but for sure he had to have some holographic internet porn to watch, like Geordi did. See what happens when you're locked up in a tiny vessel like that? This is another reason I doubt that long term space travel is practical. From the looks of things today, even the earth might not be big enough.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  15. Re:Meaningless by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

    Every time I go to London, I see a couple of dozen burka clad people a day - consider the population of London and the fact that in one day I interact with a tiny proportion of that populace and still see burkas on a regular basis and it has to be fairly "common" in London...

  16. I remember watching first episode Salt Monster by peter303 · · Score: 1

    It less silly than Lost In Space or ominus as the Outer Limits. Two years before 2001 Space Odyssey and three years before the Moon landing.
    (The Salt Monster was like 5th filmed including two pilots)
    (One of the 2001 actors was guester star of 2nd pilot)

    1. Re:I remember watching first episode Salt Monster by sconeu · · Score: 2

      (One of the 2001 actors was guester star of 2nd pilot)

      That would be Gary Lockwood, who played Mitchell in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and Frank Poole in "2001".

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  17. Politicians learn from Star Trek? by plopez · · Score: 1

    The Enterprise was a military fascist society with a white guy on top. The WAR types would love a government like that. Ironically the Borg were a total democracy in that every Borg had one vote. Something to consider.

    --
    putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    1. Re:Politicians learn from Star Trek? by plopez · · Score: 1

      That was in the movie I believe. And a total cop out. People seem to be afraid of democracy. They prefer to think some one "wiser" or with an anointed right should be granted power to rule. To imagine no one is in charge blows people's minds.

      --
      putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
    2. Re:Politicians learn from Star Trek? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Ironically the Borg were a total democracy in that every Borg had one vote.

      all Borg are equal, but some Borg are more equal than others? If they're a queen, that is

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  18. Re:Please by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

    It was badly written, badly acted and badly thought.

    Could be worse.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  19. lot of technology to reduce show costs and speed p by peter303 · · Score: 2

    Rodenberry said in his book The Making of Star Trek that he eschewed shuttles and invented transporters to cut the cost of filming and avoid the extra time it would take to depict a shuttle in the show. Ditto for many of the other devices. Constrast this to the Iron Man movie why they glory in showing expensive FX gizmos.

  20. Re:Meaningless by TheGoodNamesWereGone · · Score: 1

    1. Identify a respected institution. 2. kill it. 3. gut it. 4. wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.

  21. Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Cramming social justice down the throats of Trek fans against the wishes of George Takei is inexcusable. Boycotting the new movies because of it.

    1. Re:Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

      There are only three scenes with Sulu's "husband" and daughter in the Star Trek Beyond. If I haven't heard about the controversy before seeing the movie, I could have assumed that the "husband" was Sulu's brother and maybe the daughter was his niece. The scenes are quite subtle. No kissing, no glory holes, no rainbow flags.

    2. Re:Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      There are only three scenes with Sulu's "husband" and daughter in the Star Trek Beyond. If I haven't heard about the controversy before seeing the movie, I could have assumed that the "husband" was Sulu's brother and maybe the daughter was his niece. The scenes are quite subtle. No kissing, no glory holes, no rainbow flags.

      Why even bother unless it affects the plot in some way? Just to be fucking lame. The problem isn't making him gay. The problem is making him gay for no reason other than to pander.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    3. Re:Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

      Why even bother unless it affects the plot in some way?

      Because the scene plays off a moment in Generations where an older Kirk is at a crossroad in his life when Chekov introduces Sulu's daughter, which Kirk replied that the last time he saw her was when she was so tall. In the new movie, a young Kirk is at a crossroad in his life when he notices Sulu being greeted by his spouse and little daughter.

      The problem is making him gay for no reason other than to pander.

      Science fiction is a reflection of today's society. ST:TOS made TV history in the 1960's with the first interracial kiss when the civil rights movement was ongoing. I'm sure critics called that pandering as well.

    4. Re:Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Science fiction is a reflection of today's society.

      So why is there so little gay crew?

      ST:TOS made TV history in the 1960's with the first interracial kiss when the civil rights movement was ongoing. I'm sure critics called that pandering as well.

      I'm sure they did. But the difference is that Trek isn't breaking any ground here whatsoever, and they're going against the wishes of both the original, revered creator (who envisioned the character as straight) and the actor who made the role famous. Put it all together, and it spells fail.

      I am not offended by gay characters. I am offended by this senseless pandering. Not because it's gay, but because it's senseless.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    5. Re:Pegg's Star Trek is an abortion by hawaiian717 · · Score: 1

      So why is there so little gay crew?

      Actually do we really know? We have the seven lead characters, one of which we know to be gay (Sulu) and and additional four have been depicted as being in heterosexual relationships in this timeline (Spock, Uhura, Kirk, McCoy). Though we can't rule any of them out as being bisexual.

      So that's five people we know something about their sexuality, out of a crew of 1100 (remember, this Enterprise is much bigger than the one in TOS, which had a crew of around 400). Think about today's society. You probably know some gay people and some straight people. But you probably interact every day with lots of people you have no idea about; you've never seen them before and you'll never see them again. Some of them are probably gay. I think the same can be said for the Enterprise: Some of them are gay, some of them aren't, and most of them you'll never know.

      --
      End of Line.
  22. To boldly go where no One wants to go by neoRUR · · Score: 1

    While I love ST and have seen all episodes of all the series and movies, I was quite disappointed on this last one. It showed nothing about any of the Values that ST proposes, or anything about how we should all try to get along and resolve our issues. Something that shows the positive side of humans. It was a bad movies with a bad story with many plot holes and very drab settings, A movie about Revenge? really? Why waste all this time and effort and money into making something like that? While I love Simon Pegg, why is he writing the script and why did no one stop this and make it into something good. Roddenberry would not have approved this. J.J. Abrams as produced should have stopped this. I am quite sure there is better Fan fiction out there than this and so, even I could have written something better. Yes they are off into where no one wants it to go.

    1. Re:To boldly go where no One wants to go by hawaiian717 · · Score: 1

      Captain! Thar be spoilers ahead!

      Beyond boils down to a story about a Captain going mad in space and abandoning Federation ideals and principles. It's not like Star Trek has never explored that before. In this case, he's a soldier unable to exist in the more peaceful world he helped to create. To quote Chancellor Gorkon: "If there is to be a brave new world, our generation is going to have the hardest time living in it."

      --
      End of Line.
  23. STD: Going where Captain Kirk has gone before... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Star Trek Discovery is the new TV show. But STD as an acronym has other meanings.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=264s-sFqvTA

  24. Fuuuuuuuuugly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    All I know at this point is; that new ship is fugly. Seriously, amazingly, massively fugly.

    1. Re:Fuuuuuuuuugly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      An insider I know works in the CBS story department and explained the ship design to me and l will try to explain the ship design to you now. It is a Federation saucer attached to a Klingon D5/D6 type secondary hull because internal factionalism has split the Federation and Klingon Unity Alliance and the crew are without a ship but come up with an idea of uniting the Federation and the Klingon disparity and disunity with a symbolic symbol ship. Now as their own ships were partially destroyed in an altercation with dissident elements they salvage the working parts of a Federation and Klingon D6 type ships and make a new ship working together to reunite the disparate elements of the Federation and Klingon elements and thus create a hybrid design ship from the leftovers of their own ships.A major part of the show will be trying to get the different parts of the ship to work together.

  25. Re:STD: Going where Captain Kirk has gone before.. by Jhon · · Score: 1

    Lets change the name to Star Trek Intrepid.

    Oh wait...
       

  26. Re:Please by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2

    In the 80s/90s shows they are glorified flat, thin text terminals, basically portable versions of 1970s computers. What's worse is that people carry stacks of them, 1 for every report or case or whatever.

    The Apple Message Pad (Newton) was state of the art in 1993 with 640K of memory and monochrome LCD screen, which basically portable versions of 1970s computers.

    How retarded.

    What's retarded is making a comparison out of context. Science fiction is a snapshot in time. Although Star Trek is set in the future, it has frequent references to the 20th century. I wonder if anyone today in the 21st century knows what the significance of 1939 in Germany?

  27. Star Trek BEER?!?! by freeze128 · · Score: 1

    WTF? Who are the marketing geniuses behind this? "Drink Star Trek Beer, just like the kind you DON'T see on the show."

    The whole point of Star Trek is to determine how humanity can be the best it can be, and instead, the Federation of Beer (Canada, go figure), wants to sell beer to Star Trek fans. "Ha! Take that you know-it-all nit-picking trekkies! Have a beer and kill those brain cells. Star Wars Rulez, eh!

  28. Duh. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If I was a woman I'd wear one out there just for the privacy/sun protection/pollution protection.

    Also so I could totally be rockin some sexy undies and all that was protecting me from being exposed was that burka :)

  29. Re: Star Wars is better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Greedo never fired because he was trying to take Han alive since Jabba would pay him more. Unfortunately for him, Han had no ethical restraint in just killing him.

    Han shot only.

  30. Re: Star Wars is better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Different coward here; not sure which "1977" version you're watching, but Greedo doesn't shoot at all.

  31. Re:Meaningless by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

    Ahh yes anecdotal evidence. Now tell me the one about the guy with a hook for a hand.

    --
    Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
  32. Re:In O'Brien's defense... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    He did have a hot japanese wife to look forward to banging every night,

    But he did have a whiny and unreasonable Japanese wife he had to listen to every night, and he could have been banging Japanese chicks on the holodeck if that's what he wanted. I know this comment sounds sexist AF but seriously, Keiko was the most shit character in the whole universe, and the actress who played her overemphasized every line so badly it was like she was reading to preschoolers. We watched TNG religiously when it was coming out in the geek house I lived in at the time, and we always cheered when it looked like she might die.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  33. Re:Meaningless by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    you've obviously not been to Leicester or Bradford...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  34. Re:Meaningless by serviscope_minor · · Score: 1

    Every time I go to London, I see a couple of dozen burka clad people a day - consider the population of London and the fact that in one day I interact with a tiny proportion of that populace and still see burkas on a regular basis and it has to be fairly "common" in London...

    Two different standards there: you see burkas yet interact with some people. How many people do you see vs how many burkas do you see? Not how many people do you interact with versus how many burkas do you see.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  35. Re:Please by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    Obviously 99% of the crews of Star Trek ships could've been automated away, but who wants to watch a TV series about machines?

    It's not that obvious, if you take the Trek universe as a given. There's a bunch of times when the people kept working when the machines didn't, so they clearly were not redundant.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  36. Re:Holy Crap! by BranMan · · Score: 1

    So..... they're PIRATES! Oh cool!

    [Other than that, makes no sense whatsoever]

  37. Re:Meaningless by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

    Its not different standards at all - the comment was made that outside of some very specific middle eastern regions, burkas are uncommon, and yet when I go to London burkas are common enough across the entire city for people not to be staring, pointing or treating them as uncommon.

    Therefore the prior assertion is total bollocks - burkas may not be the *norm* in London, but they are certainly not "uncommon".