New Star Trek Into Darkness calendar cover

The Amazon listing for the 2014 Star Trek Into Darkness calendar has been updated with a new cover. The previous Enterprise image has been replaced with a version of the poster, with oddly green text. It's still quite a while before the calendar's release in August, so I wouldn't be too surprised if this still isn't the final version (as demonstrated by the recent Ships of the Line cover, the rest of the 2014 range is still in development):

Blurays update

CBS have released details of the special features coming to the Star Trek: The Next Generation season three, and stand-alone The Best of Both Worlds bluray releases. StarTrek.com described some of the highlight extra features:

“Inside the Writers’ Room” featurette with Seth MacFarlane moderating a conversation with Trek scribes Ronald Moore, Brannon Braga, Naren Shankar and Rene Echevarria. Then there’s “Resistance Is Futile: Assimilating The Next Generation,” a multi-part documentary examines the making of Season Three and includes a tribute to writer-producer Michael Piller. Fans can also expect select audio commentaries (Moore on “The Bonding” and Moore and Ira Steven Behr on “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” for example), episodic promos and, of course, an HD blooper reel.

Expanding on that, TVShowsonDVD list Rene Echevarria, Jonathan Frakes, Ron Moore, Ira Steven Behr, and David Carson as all taking part in commentaries on the set.

The standalone release of The Best of Both Worlds meanwhile gets its own suite of features, including:

“Regeneration: Engaging the Borg,” which details the creation of the powerful Trek enemy and includes interviews with TNG cast, writers, visual effects staff, makeup artists and producers. There’s also an audio commentary with director Cliff Bole, Mike and Denise Okuda, and actress Elizabeth Dennehy. And, yes, there’s a gag reel, too.

StarTrek.com also posted a new detail of the cover, which shows a separate image with an assimilated Picard as part of a photo-montage. I imagine the oddly shaped blank space if where cover copy will go. As the Picard image on the montage cover, and his Locutus version on the main cover are in the same positions I imagine one cover might be a slipcase over the other, allowing you to assimilate/rescue Picard as you open the case (if that is the case, hopefully they're doing it with a transparent material, because that would fun, don't you think? Slip on Borg implants, Slip off Borg implants, and so on..):

It appears the screening event that has become a regular feature of the TNG bluray releases will this time be the feature length edit of The Best of Both Worlds, along side some of the extra features. Here's a poster TrekMovie found:

In other bluray news, pre-order listings have appeared on Amazon for the stand-alone releases of The Final Frontier, Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis. TrekMovie report The Motion Picture and The Search For Spock will also be coming out separately. These complete the set of individual releases begun in 2009, when the other (more popular ...better?) films were released on bluray. All the films have already been released separately in region 2, and in a variety of combinations in box sets, but if you really want to get your set of individual cases, these new versions are out at the end of April.

February retro prints

A new month, a new set of TOS retro prints from Juan Ortiz. StarTrek.com have done their usual interview with Ortiz to introduce the new designs. Here are this month's four:

This was the first TOS poster that I worked on, so I really didn't know where I was going to go with them yet. In general, I like the distressed paper look, not because I wanted them to look old, but because it added another visual layer for me to play with.

On the red element:

It was planned, but I didn't plan on how well it turned out. With the red coming out of the face, it looks as if he's contemplating his destiny in the stars.

On the text at the bottom

When I was done with the art, I felt the bottom of the page needed something to ground the dragon with. While I was designing the poster, I imagined it as an advertisement in the old TV Guide magazine. I was going to write down the time and channel info, but I went instead with something that T'Pau, the Vulcan elder, had said in the episode.

I never know where the ideas are going to come from. This one was inspired by crate labels for oranges. A lot of the stylizing was done so that the phaser would be highlighted, almost framed within the illustration. Kirk's collar, the phaser fire and the hand all draw attention towards it.

This one was loosely inspired by Saul Bass' Spartacus (1960) movie poster. My original idea had the glowing red entity hovering above the Enterprise, but I felt that a Klingon element needed to be added.

This one was inspired by Saul Bass' Birdman of Alcatraz movie poster. Originally, I was going to have the visor on Spock, but I felt that it was covering up too much of his face. I was hoping for a feeling of solitude. Spock always seemed like a lonely figure to me, always in thought.

The image started out as a photo of Spock from an episode. I pumped up the contrast in photoshop to where it's mostly just shapes. Then I transferred the image to illustrator where I deleted parts of it and added texture and color. I knew the poster would work well from a distance, but the texture and color was done so that it would at least seem interesting up close.

The usual retailers don't seem to have listing for this poster set up yet, but Entertainment Earth does already have a listing up for the shot glasses featuring this month's designs:

Ships of the Line update

Listings for the 2014 Ships of the Line calendar have now joined the rest of the 2014 calendar range on Amazon. At the moment the cover and preview images are all pulled straight from the 2013 edition of the calendar, with only the year being altered; so these will certainly be changing later.

There is some news of what will actually be in the calendar though, as Mark Rademaker has recently posted one of his super close-up teasers of part of the model he is working on for next year's edition. This is apparently "one of the communication devices on the primary forward pylon":

Star Trek ongoing: McCoy Origins preview

Out this week is issue seventeen of the Star Trek ongoing comic series, which focuses on the back-story of Doctor Leonard McCoy. Here are the first seven pages, which take us back to McCoy's childhood, and introduce us to his father. But first, there's trouble in sickbay (preview continues after the jump):

First look at Revell's new USS Enterprise model kit.

Revell have been showing off their latest Star Trek model kit, the new timeline USS Enterprise, at the recent Nuremberg Toy Fair:

As you can see, the previously released CGI rendering has formed the basis of their box art, which also reveals the size of their model; 588mm long - At their claimed scale of 1:500 that makes their Enterprise the equivalent of a little under 300m long, about the same size as the original Enterprise, rather than the gigantic size that details such as the shuttle bay actually make the new version of the ship. Here's how one of the bluray extra features compares the two designs:

Revell's new USS Enterprise is due out in Germany in May, to coincide with the release of Star Trek Into Darkness.

New trailer, bad day for the Enterprise

So, some sporty thing happened in America, which had the nice side effect of a new Star Trek Into Darkness trailer! There are some interesting new bits of footage; have a watch:



Shall we look at some stills of the new footage? Well, ok then. It all seems to start with a nice day out in London:

Then we find ourselves in a big hanger/storage bay, which goes boom:

 

Which maybe was in London, where we find another explosion:

Then we get to a very interesting exchange between Kirk and Harrison which plays over most of the trailer:

Kirk: Who the hell are you?
Harrison: I am better.
Kirk: At what?
Harrison: Everything.

This should have some impact on the speculation of who Harrison is; he clearly isn't the same character who Kirk recently met in Countdown to Darkness, or indeed anyone else Kirk knows. And of course claims of being better at everything should help reinforce the idea of some sort of augment connection.

 

Then comes the most moving part for us starship lovers, as the poor old Enterprise looks to be suffering. I would guess this is part of the same sequence where we saw the damaged Enterprise in the previous trailer:

 

Then we see the familiar starship crash, with a new shot of the suacer slicing through buildings. The implication from the edit being that the Enterprise has fallen to Earth. But the configuration of that crashed ship doesn't seem to match, so I think this is probably misdirection:

We are also given the rather ominous message, via a series of title cards (stuck together here), that:

Moments from Star Trek history, coming in Trek lit.

Coming soon to our bookshelves are the final year of Kirk's five-year-mission, and the first year of the Federation. The author's chronicling these tales have been talking about there work:

Out now is the first TOS novel of the year, David R. George III's Allegiance in Exile. StarTrek.com ran a brief interview with George, in which he outlined some of the key aspects of his new novel:

For one thing, the tale takes place in what I think is a really interesting time period, namely the final year of Enterprise's five-year mission under Captain Kirk. In fact, the story actually begins on the fourth anniversary of Kirk taking command of the ship, which of course makes him pensive and anxious about what is to come after he and his crew complete the mission. The first Star Trek film alluded to some of that transition, as did Gene Roddenberry's novelization, both of which I try to be faithful to.

Another element I like is that Lieutenant Sulu plays a large role in the novel. He only had limited treatment during the series, and so it was fun to get inside him, explore his motivations, and add some details to his personal life that hew to the series and yet expand on the character—and even set up some of what came later for him in some of the Trek literature. Finally, but definitely not least, I'm quite excited that Allegiance in Exile features some strong links to the later incarnations of Star Trek, in ways that I hope readers will find both unexpected and fun.

I'm led to believe, from readers on the TrekBBS who have already got the book, that the those strong links include an appearance by a an adversarial race from the DS9 relaunch series - Which has rather increased my interest in this book - I await my own copy's arrival.

Looking to later in the year, TrekMovie recently interviewed Chrisopher L Bennett, where he talked a little about his forthcoming Enterprise relaunch novel Rise of the Federation: A Choice of Futures:

My focus is largely on two main starship crews, which include a mix of familiar and new characters and move some of the familiar cast into new roles and responsibilities. Hopefully the new characters I’ve created are interesting and fun, and a couple will hopefully defy stereotypes in interesting ways. (Imagine a Tellarite communications officer.) There are also characters representing various branches of the Federation government, which at this stage wasn’t structured quite the same way as its 24th-century incarnation as portrayed in the book Articles of the Federation. If you’ve ever wondered what a Federation commissioner was (a title used a couple of times in the original series), you’ll find out here. There are also some surprise appearances by characters and species whose names will please the Trek trivia buffs, though in such a way that readers who don’t recognize the names will hopefully still be satisfied by their roles in the story.

He also elaborated on the astro-political setting he is working with:

The Federation is still small in the number of its members at the time my book is set, but its founding worlds have just triumphed over the Romulans, and that gives them some “street cred” going in, a perception that they’re a force to be reckoned with—a reputation that comes with its own problems. Yet it’s still a fairly new, tenuous union and that leaves it vulnerable. It’s an experiment that hasn’t yet proven its success, and there are bound to be those who are rooting for it to fail—or actively trying to sabotage it. Moreover, there are disagreements within the Federation about just what its identity and priorities should be, which is why the book is subtitled A Choice of Futures.

Make your way to TrekMovie to read the full interview, including discussion on Bennett's recent original novel, Only Superhuman. Meanwhile on Bennett's own blog he mentioned he has just turned in the outline for his next Star Trek novel, which (barring trade paperback or ebook additions to the 2013 schedule) will presumably will be coming in 2014. At this stage he wasn't able to provide any further details on what the book will be about.

DS9 Soundtrack Collection coming soon

TrekCore have confirmed the imminent release of the latest in the new wave of Star Trek soundtracks; Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Soundtrack Collection, coming from La La Land Records on February 12th. Here's the cover:

The four six set will include music from across the series. Each disc is themed:

• Disc one features music by Dennis McCarthy, with cues from many episodes, including "Duet", "The Circle", "The Die is Cast", and "Far Beyond the Stars".
• Disc two focuses on the music of Jay Chattaway, including cues from "The Search", "Call to Arms", "The Changing Face of Evil", and more.
• Disc three, titled "New Recruits" focuses on the many guest composers that contributed to the series, with music by John Debney, Richard Bellis, David Bell, Gregory Smith, and Paul Baillargeon.
• Disc four, called "The Lost Album", will give more extensive coverage to just three episodes, one of which will be "Our Man Bashir".

Meet Cross Cult's M'Ress

Cross Cult are a busy bunch lately, prepping lots of new covers for their next catalogue, and showing them off on their Star Trek books Facebook page. Their latest image is a new draft portrait (ready for use on future New Frontier covers) of everyone's favourite Caitian, Shiboline M'Ress:

The next New Frontier books coming from Cross Cult are the Excalibur trilogy, due to start in April, and they have also released finalised version of those covers. They are largely unchanged from the previous versions (which you can see here, here, and here), except Robin Lefler has a snazzy new hair-style, and the titles have been added on, with the Excalibur title going up the sword blade which appears on every Cross Cult New Frontier cover:

 

 

Cross Cult have also announced they will be finishing their run of Vanguard audiobooks, with the final three books in the series coming out from March to May.