Sci-Fi Storm

You always remember your first.

I’m not talking your first kiss, or first ice cream sundae, or your first rock concert. In this case, I’m talking about your first science fiction show.

I’m not yet 50 years old, but getting close to it. So I don’t remember when Star Trek first aired. But back in those days where we had just a few channels to choose from and not a lot of competition for your eyes, shows had a second chance at life during the daytime and weekends in syndication. Star Trek was one of those shows that found a second life there, and that’s where Star Trek found me.

I got my love of science fiction from my dad. I’m not sure what it was about the shows, but if Star Trek was on he found it and we’d watch it together. Other shows as well – I still remember watching a mostly forgotten show called The Starlost on a little black-and-white TV in the kitchen with him. I also got my love from old school Disney programs as well from watching Mickey Mouse Club reruns. We watched Lost In Space, Space: 1999 and Battlestar Galactica together. But Star Trek was the first.

Star Trek influenced me in so many ways. Before I was even in school, I could tell you the entire plot of any episode from the opening act. I recorded episodes on audio tape using an old Radio Shack cassette recorder on Memorex tapes. (The episode “Wolf In The Fold” gets really creepy with just the audio.) I even acted out my own episode recorded on audio tape – it was very short and very lame, and fortunately lost to the annals of time…but it did involve a third adventure into the Great Barrier…I’m afraid my skills as a science fiction writer haven’t really progressed much either.

There were two things that always drew me to science fiction – space and technology. Space, because it brought all sorts of cool spaceships but also a vast universe of settings and stories, and the “advanced” technology that was shown. Sure, I know know they were just plastic buttons with lights on a black backing, but they looked cool and I wanted to know what each of those buttons did! The communicators that became our cell phones, the computer tapes that were later mimicked by floppy discs, and now we’re even getting to tricorder technology. Although in many ways our technology has advanced further than what was shown back then, it was what they showed that inspired people to develop that which we have today. Star Trek likely accelerated our own technology from the dreams of the past.

I was convinced I would be an astronaut when I was eight just so I could be in a spaceship like the Enterprise. That didn’t happen, although my interest in the space program didn’t wane. I still have science and space program books from then, showing actual current theorized future space travel systems. My technology interests translated into other areas of science, ultimately into computers, where I eventually got two degrees in Computer Science. But I always kept one eye on the stars.

For a long while though, what was on TV remained on TV and didn’t really cross into real life. Conventions were a bit difficult for me to attend early on, but by the time I got to high school I was able to attend my first real convention in Boston. It only had a couple guests and was a fairly formal affair (it was a commercial convention and not of the much better fan-run variety), but it is where I met the late Jimmy Doohan in person, and not by spending hours in line for an expensive signature or photo op – by him coming down before the convention actually opened and shaking hands with everyone in line! Forever a fan of his with that. He was so gracious and friendly. He was the first TV celebrity I ever remember meeting.

While in college, Star Trek returned to TV in the form of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was living with a friends family, where he and I convinced the family to get cable TV wired to our room just so we could watch it. Star Trek influenced computer programmers a lot. There were always references to it somewhere. The granddaddy of internet forums, UseNet, had several discussion groups dedicated to Star Trek. Early computer games either paid homage or overtly referenced it (such as the famous “trek” game where you explored sectors and fought Klingons.) When the Internet started to grow in the early to mid-90s (yet before AOL was truly online), an early multi-player graphical game called Netrek ate up bandwidth at many universities. I was working at a university at a time running the computer systems and network, and hosted a pretty popular netrek server and was even involved in the International Netrek League for several years.

All through these years, the love of science fiction that started with Star Trek has never wavered. Now I’ve been doing science fiction news, mainly on the TV and movie side of things, for 16 years next month. I’ve made friends in the industry that work both in front of and behind the camera. Now I have two daughters who are eager to see the new movies as soon as they come out, sharing the same love of SF that I did then, watched “The Cage” with me tonight, and I have high hopes that they will continue to do love science fiction as I have done.

I may not have reached the actual stars myself yet, but I still do keep an eye on them.

For the 50 years you’ve been around and the nearly 50 that you’ve influenced my life, a most heartfelt thank you to all of the casts, crews, and fans that helped created and keep going this long trek to the stars.

Star Trek‘s 50th Anniversary is officially tomorrow, having debuted on September 8th, 1966. And Syfy will be in on the fun with a movie marathon starting in the morning…but to get you warmed up, here are a couple humorous videos from the whales in Star Trek: The Voyage Home…

Tomorrow, fans and viewers can send photos into the Twitter handle @Syfy with their best Vulcan Salute – Live Long and Prosper. Using the hashtag #SyfyLLAP , they have a chance for their photo and user generated content to be featured on-air during the marathon. Additionally, all day Thursday fans can interact and guess answers to on-air Star Trek trivia by using the hashtag #StarTrekTrivia

So many trailers out from Comic Con…here is just a dump of a bunch of them…

Doctor Strange

Dirk Gently

Legion

Star Trek Discovery
(I’m not yet digging the new ship design…)

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

Wonder Woman

A duo of returning items…first, the 80s sci-fi program Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future is underdevelopment as a reboot under the title of Phoenix Rising, with original co-creator Gary Goddard on board with former Syfy executives Greg Vitale and Craig Engler.

The original show followed a small band of guerilla fighters in the 22nd century revolting again the intelligent machines which enslaved mankind after the Metal Wars. The show was notable not only for their storylines that could appeal to kids and adults, but also the direct marketing the show also as a “game” that kids could play along with using specially equipped toys they needed to purchase. The show proved to be expensive to produce and the complex storylines and allegories drew criticism, and it was canceled after one season.

In other news, it appears that a fourth Star Trek reboot movie is already in the works, and this one will feature the return of Captain Kirk’s father, who was played (briefly) in the first movie by Chris Hemsworth. Not sure how that will be accomplished, but it’s Star Trek, and the “Kelvin Timeline” was kicked off by playing with time travel…

UPDATED 7/8: See below.

Actor John Cho, who plays the character of Hikaru Sulu, the helmsman of the U.S.S. Enterprise in the rebooted Star Trek movie franchise (which has been officially dubbed the “Kelvin Timeline”), revealed while on a promotional tour in Australia that his character will be revealed to be gay in an upcoming scene in Star Trek Beyond. The revalation will be muted – “I liked the approach, which was not to make a big thing out it, which is where I hope we are going as a species — to not politicize one’s personal orientations,” according to Cho.

However, in an interview with THR, the original Sulu George Takei says he is unhappy with the decision to take an established character rather than present a new character. When Cho called him to tell him the news, “I told him, ‘Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted.'”

Takei, who came out of the closet in 2005 and has since become a vocal supporter of LGBT rights, had a discussion with director Justin Lin, and believed that they had rethought the decision. But when Cho had emailed him about the promotional tour and that the revelation would likely come out, Takei was disappointed.

The character of Sulu as originally depicted appeared straight although it never was formally established outside of secondary sources like novels. What was established is that he had a daughter, Demora Sulu, but whether she was adopted or not isn’t necessarily canon. However, given his occasional targeting of women including Uhura, if he was actually gay that would seem to indicate that he was “in the closet” during the original mission – which would raise the question as to whether there was a closet in the 23rd century to be in.

Update 7/8: Simon Pegg gave a very reasonable counter-argument.

Opens July 22nd!

Actor Anton Yelchin, who has been playing the role of PAvel Checkov in the three recent Star Trek movies, as well as roles in Terminator: Salvation and Alphas Dogs among others, passed away early this morning in a freak automobile accident at the age of 27.

It appears that Yelchin had exited his car while it was running, and it rolled, pinning him against a brick post next to a security gate, suffering traumatic injuries.

Yelchin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia (back then it was still called Leningrad as part of the Soviet Union), but emigrated with his parents (professional figure skaters ho qualified for the 1972 Olympics but because they were Jewish were not permitted to represent the USSR) to the United States when he was only 6 months old. His parents went on to become skating instructors, but at a young age he showed more interest in acting than skating. He made his acting debut at the age of 10 in a guest spot on ER in 2000. and just a year later earned acclaim opposite Anthony Hopkins in Heart of Atlantis, earning a Young Artist Award.

Some Trek tidbits from the weekend…first, the second trailer for Star Trek: Beyond was released during a fan event marking the 50th Anniversary of the original series, which also paid tribute to the late Leonard Nimoy. You can see the trailer below.

Also announced at the time was that attendees of San Diego Comic-Con this summer will have the chance to attend the world premiere of the new movie – at a first-of-its-kind outdoor IMAX event that will even include a full orchestra! The event will take place on July 20th, with the movie being widely release two days later.

Lastly a followup to a story we have been following: Back in December, CBS/Paramount sued Axanar Productions about the crowdfunded film Axanar. While we believe that CBS/Paramount actually may have been on the right side of things, how they went about it drew a lot of ire from the fans in general and cooled way down the many other fan productions that they had previously tolerated.

At the fan event, producer JJ Abrams said that Paramount will be dropping the lawsuit, saying “This wasn’t an appropriate way to deal with the fans.” Apparently Justin Lin, who is directing Star Trek: Beyond and is himself a fan, played a big role in getting the studio to call off the lawyers. Things are still in process, so fans appear to be treating the news with cautious optimism so far.

Yesterday at the CBS upfront presentation in New York City, and for one of the presentations they revealed a teaser trailer for the upcoming CBS All Access Star Trek series, which includes the latest version of the logo. You can watch it below.

It doesn’t say much, other than there will be a new crew, new villains, new heroes and new worlds…still no plot, or actors have been announced.

In an interesting development this weekend, Emmy winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Expanse, House of Saddam) is reported to be the High Command of the Federation for reshoots taking place for Star Trek Beyond, being directed by Justin Lin. The reshoots are not expected to affect the release date, which is July 22nd. It sounds like some last minute improvements or replacements to scenes are taking place.