This Side of Paradise remastered

StarTrek.com have updated their remastered comparison gallery with a new image from the next remastered episode "This Side of Paradise", which will be the last remastered episode for a little while until the next batch start up again after a summer holiday.

Resistance blurb and excerpt

StarTrek.com have posted the cover copy and a short excerpt for the forthcoming post-Nemesis TNG novel Resistance. The blurb:

The U.S.S. Enterprise is ready to rejoin the fleet. The body of the great starship — which managed to survive the deadly Romulan-Reman attack only with Data's ultimate sacrifice — has been restored.

With the departure of first officer William Riker and ship's counselor Deanna Troi, Picard has to replace two of his most trusted advisors. A Vulcan is granted the commission of ship's counselor. Logical and pragmatic, T'Lana is a highly decorated member of Starfleet who served with distinction during the Dominion War. For his Number One, Captain Picard has only one candidate: Worf.

The captain is looking forward to putting the shadows of war behind him, shaping his new crew, and returning at last to being an explorer. However, the Klingon refuses the promotion. And Picard senses that his new counselor does not approve of Worf.

Starfleet hands the Enterprise a simple assignment perfect for a shakedown cruise. Picard is confident that this is all he needs to bring his crew together. Before the mission commences, the captain once again hears the song of the Borg Collective. Admiral Janeway is convinced that the Borg have been crushed and are no longer a threat. Picard knows that she is wrong, and if he doesn't act immediately, the entire Federation will be under the domination of its most oppressive enemy.

Find the exceprt here.

More new IDW covers than you could stick a shake at!

Comic Book Resources have posted their report of what IDW had to announce at the San Diego Comic Con., pretty much all previously announced information, but their report came with a generous smattering of new covers:

Joe Corroney covers for Year Four issues 3 and 4:

Artists covers for Alien Spotlight issues, David Messina's Gorn, John Byrne's Romulans, and the so far unannounced artist cover for Orion Slave Women:

And finally, my favourites of the bunch, the Zach Howard covers for the Alien Spotlight Gorn and Vulcan issues:

The article also has some concept sort of art for the Orion Alien Spotlight issue, scroll down to the Star Trek section of the report (here) to check it out.

Maybe TNG remastered

TrekMovie.com are reporting something exciting, CBS have been working on tests for a HD remastered version of TNG. This has been a subject of much speculation since the TOS remastered project began and would present a lot of very different problems to those faced in doing the TOS episodes. The guys doing the work have hinted they'd like to expand the project to TNG before and it looks like it's under real consideration.

I suppose this confirms all the speculation over if it's even possible, TNG was edited in ye olde low definition video which, as I understand it, means you would have to reedit every remastered episode from the original film from scratch. The TrekMovie article says CBS are looking at both using tricks to make the low res effects footage high res or doing the whole lot from scratch like the TOS project.

Tiptons TNG comics news

Newsarama have posted an interview with Scott and David Tipton about their forthcoming (early 2008) TNG comic miniseries. The series seems to have changed name from House Call, announced just a week ago, to Intelligence Gathering, and has been reduced from six to five issues.

A couple of little bits of new information were revealed; the series will take place towards the end of TNG's fifth season, and will feature new bad guys and established threats.

The article also included some preview art by David Messina, and Mr Messina has posted some more art from the series on his blog. It all looks a bit like the real world sections of The Matrix to me.

See the original interview here.

Official announcements and new poster for new Star Trek movie

Various sites, including the official StarTrek.com are reporting news coming out of the San Diego Comic Convention of official cast announcements. As rumoured Zachary Quinto will be playing youngish Spock and Leonard Nimoy will be returning in the role of the older incarnation of the classic character. As yet no one has been cast as Kirk.

A shiny new poster was also revealed which if you click the image on the right you can see in bigness. And a horizontal wallpaper version is up on StarTrek.com

I've so far not been reporting much (anything) on the new movie because it's all rumour and will continue in that stance as TrekMovie.com already do a far better job on news of the new movie than I ever could. I shall report official announcements like this one though, along side the usual assortment of every scrap of information I find out about every other facet of Star Trek.

Heroes only just started in the UK, yesterday in fact, and Quinto's character wasn't in the first two episodes shown (as far as I noticed) so I cant say much about his acting, he certainly looks Spockish. And I'm happy to see the new poster continues to show great respect for the original Trek it was based on, the first poster loyally followed the classic emblem and this new one uses the classic font and a very TOS starscape, it'll be interesting to see how loyally they follow the originals in the actual film.

More Wrath of Kahn figures revealed

Toy News International have reported from the preview night at the San Diego Comic Convention with news and views of the next wave of Wrath of Kahn figures from Diamond Select Toys.

TNI's coverage includes photos of a few of the previously announced figures (out about now) and three new ones; Spock, Uhura and Savik.

See TNI's gallery for more images.

DST reported a while back the WoK line would have fifteen figures, these three confirmations bring the total up to twelve. I'm thinking the final three will be a radiation damaged Spock and Carol and David Marcus.

Year Four, Issue 1 review

Relief. After the mess of the last issue of The Space Between and general litter of plot holes throughout the series I was highly concerned about the ability of the writer David Tischman to actually write a coherent story. Well I'm glad to say he's done it with the first issue of Year Four, no plot holes, no jumps that make you flip back to check you haven’t missed a page just a nicely formed story with the usual Tischman mastery of characters and interesting story ideas, plus a nice assortment of general Star Trek references. The story does go a bit quickly which would be my only real criticism of it and as some of the pages are quite sparten you feel a bit more story could have been squeezed into the 22 pages, but it works none the less.

The story is delightful TOS, lone scientist, pretty girl, up to no good to help the one he loves, tragic end. I really could imagine this as an episode of the series

Looks a little Gold Key

Steve Conley's art isn't as strong a the rest of IDWs comic so far but it's not bad. It reminds me a lot of the art in the original gold key comics and I suspect that was the intent. Which works sometimes and not other, the character likenesses are a bit funny at times, you can tell who they are but they don't look quite right. The whole work is quite flat often using a nothing but a bold colour as a background and not being to generous with details. Compared to the short comic in the preceding in the Focus on... Star Trek book I think I prefer the more detailed look in that short story, but this issue is still pretty good looking. There were two pages I didn't really enjoy art wise which consisted of eight near identical panels of Dr McCoy and guest star chatting, the text was interesting but it was quite boring to look at the same thing again and again for two whole pages.

Could be a bit more exciting to look at...

So all in all a good effort, nice story if a little fast to conclude, and nice art if lacking in a bit of detail. I look forward to the next issue and my faith in David Tischman is growing at last.

And nice to see Arex and M'Ress in a comic, they should totally do Caitain and Triexian Alien Spotlight comics.

TOS-R HD-DVD details

StarTrek.com have announced details of the forthcoming HD-DVD release of the first season of remastered episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.

The ten disc set will be double sided with HD-DVD on one side and normal DVD on the other and will include the following extras:

-Starfleet Access – On-screen graphical interface allows viewers to access Picture in Picture video commentaries, comparisons of re-mastered vs. original effects, encyclopedic information (science, life forms, technology), episode trivia and more on the following episodes:
--Where No Man Has Gone Before
--The Menagerie, Part 1 & 2
--Balance of Terror
--The Galileo Seven
--Space Seed
--Errand of Mercy
-Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century – From new visual effects to sound, this documentary provides an in-depth exploration of the remastering of classic Star Trek episodes.
-Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories – Join crew member and "extra-extraordinaire” Billy Blackburn as he shares his own behind-the-scenes home movie footage of life on the set of Star Trek.
-Interactive Enterprise Tour – Viewers will explore the Enterprise interior and exterior in detail as they pilot their own shuttlecraft in this spectacular 3D simulated feature.
-Perpetual Entertainment's "Star Trek Online” MMO Game Preview

Bonus features on the standard DVD side are as follows:

• Spacelift: Transporting Trek into the 21st Century
• The Birth of a Timeless Legacy
• Reflections on Spock
• Life Beyond Trek: William Shatner
• To Boldly Go…Season One
• Sci-Fi Visionaries
• Billy Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories
• Kiss & Tell: Romance in the 24th Century
• Trek Connections
• Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier
• Episode Preview Trailers
• Perpetual Entertainment's "Star Trek Online” MMO Game Preview

The press release can be found here, also in Klingon! The RRP for this set is just a little over $200 and the set is out in region 1 in November.

Personally I'm hoping Bluray wins this ridiculous battle of the formats and I've no intention of getting either until one is declared winner. I also think the double sided disc format is a bit bonkers, just get on a choose a format please!

Wii Star Trek game

Gamefly.com have a listing for new Star Trek game for the Wii "Star Trek: Conquest", and judging my the logos on the front it will be a Dominion War game. No details from current makes of Star Trek games Bethesda Softworks, Gamefly says it's out late this year.

Thanks to TrekMovie.com for spotting this one. Bethesda do seem to like keeping things under wraps until the last minute.