Beautiful new packaging for TNG, on DVD...

StarTrek.com has announced a new DVD release of TNG. Amazon has all seven seasons set for release on April 16th, although StarTrek.com claim the first two will actually be available earlier from Amazon, on March 12th. This release will be identical to previous DVD sets, except that they have very snazzy new covers:

 

 

Excellent artwork aside, who in their right mind would spend $300+ getting TNG on DVD, when for only a little bit more (and a slightly longer wait) you can get it without the weird pink tint and terrible fuzziness, by going bluray!?

Andorian ships coming to Star Trek Online

Cryptic have announced the latest additions to Star Trek Online's Starfleet; pulling the Andorian Kumari class right out of Enterprise, giving her a 25th century polish, and spinning off the usual variants, to give three new ships in STO, each with new abilities. The differences between the three new classes are pretty subtle design wise, here's how Cryptic described them:

Each Andorian ship has some slight modifications befitting the role they might fill on the various battlefields of the galaxy. The Khyzon is the most reminiscent of the ship we've seen in Enterprise, and has a slightly more "sciencey" feel compared to the others. Next, the Charal boasts armored-up hull sections, beefier, sturdier wings, and bulkier cannons, as it will most likely fit the role of a more engineering focused vessel. Similarly, the Kumari Class is the tactical version, and it boasts larger forward dual cannons and sleeker, longer, wing cannons than the rest, with a slightly more aggressive stance. Mixing and matching parts, with paint patterns and varied hull materials will allow players to make some pretty interested mash-ups.

The new Andorian ships are focused primarily on being powerful attack ships, as Cryptic describe:

Andorian Escorts are focused on intense firepower. With an unprecedented five forward weapons slots, the Kumari line is built to hit enemies hard and fast. One of those weapons slots is for the Andorian Escorts' integrated Wing Cannons, which are among the most powerful weapons ever seen in the Alpha Quadrant, delivering powerful bursts of Phaser energy too quickly for an opponent to recover.

Here's the Kumari class:

The Kumari Class is designed for raw firepower, offering heavy tactical seating and five tactical console slots.

In addition, it is also comes standard with the Phaser Dispersal Array console. The Phaser Dispersal Array console allows your Wing Cannons to charge up and fire a powerful blast that will damage your target and all enemies near your target.

Continue reading after the jump for a look at the Khyzon and Charal variants, plus the Andorian bridge:

NuTrek comic previews

Out this week are both of this month's nuTrek comics (both featuring Uhura on the cover too); issue two of Countdown to Darkness, and issue 18 of the ongoing series. Here are seven page previews of both (via Comics Continuum), which continue after the jump after the first couple of pages of Countdown to Darkness, where we find a fascinating revelation about the history of the starship Enterprise:

 

Star Trek Into Darkness motion poster

The Star Trek Into Darkness app has been updated with a new animated version of the poster. Which is pretty cool (and is probably auto-playing as you read this). UPDATE: I've switched the flash animation to a Youtube version, which thankfully doesn't auto-play!



You can see the same thing at full screen resolution on the Star Trek Into Darkness website, where it now loads up the animation before returning to the previously animated falling rubble version of the poster. Or rather it does on the UK version of the site at least, the .com version doesn't seem to have done that (yet?).

When it was first released the motion poster was used as an intro animation on the UK version of the Star Trek Into Darkness website. This feature has subsequently been removed (guess it got annoying!).

Worf's baldric and NuTrek from Anovos

Anovos have announced the latest addition to their range of high-end Star Trek costume replicas; Worf's baldric. There is a cool story behind this particular piece, as it came about thanks to The Big Bang Theory. Here's how Anovos describe its origins:

Presenting a truly unique collectible from the ANOVOS Premier Line Collection, we are privileged to bring you an exclusive directly from one of the original artists on Star Trek™: The Next Generation®: the Worf Baldric Warrior Sash, authentically recreated and hand made by Bear Burge, one of the artisans responsible for the construction of the original production used pieces.

ANOVOS came to Bear and his team for a much needed production-worthy Worf Baldric Sash to be used in the The Big Bang Theory episode "The Bakersfield Expedition". Constructing multiple sashes in record time, these metal and leather works of art completed the Worf outfit worn by character Raj, seen also wearing an exclusive ANOVOS TNG tunic with ANOVOS-produced accoutrement, including our high-end jewelry rank pips.

Crafted from leather, hand linked metal metal rings and resin insignia, direct from the original, there is no mistaking the quality and the hours spent on creating this one of a kind, hand made piece. With such quality aligned with ANOVOS history of products, it made only perfect sense to bring this beloved icon of Star Trek™: The Next Generation® to the fans in a limited Premier Line run. Now, offered for the very first time, the licensed Star Trek™: The Next Generation® Worf Baldric Warrior Sash will be made available for pre-order, created by the hands of an original artist from The Next Generation era, Bear Burge.

Worf's baldric will retail for a mere $1209.95. Meanwhile Anovos have also been teasing another new addition to their range, the nuTrek black under-shirt, which will be coming with their Star Trek Into Darkness releases:

More Star Trek Visual Dictionary previews!

StarTrek.com have released another set of preview pages from next month's Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary. Here are two two-page spreads:

 

While these two images are the top half of two single pages:

 

You can see previous previews here, here, and here. As well as a few more pages from the German language edition, here.

Ich bin besser

The German arm of Paramount have released a version of the Star Trek Into Darkness super bowl trailer, dubbed into German. German John Harrison sounds a bit grumpy:

Comics update

The latest Star Trek comics news, starting with IDW's May solicitations. No new series launching this month, but the ongoing series continues, and promises to take us onwards after Star Trek Into Darkness. The whole gang on the cover make this look like a nice jumping on point for new readers post-Into Darkness, and one might be inclined to read into it that everyone survives, and along with the Enterprise, are ultimately unharmed by events in the preceding film - Of course covers can be misleading! Here's the official description:

Star Trek (ongoing) #21
Writers: Mike Johnson and Ryan Parrot. Artist: Erfan Fajar. Covers: Tim Bradstreet, plus photo and sketch covers.

The hit ongoing STAR TREK series picks up right where this year's blockbuster sequel STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS leaves off! Don't miss the all-new adventures of the crew as they go boldly into the unknown, in a story overseen by STAR TREK writer/producer Roberto Orci!

Also out in May is a re-release of the first ever TNG comics. This title appeared on Amazon a little while ago, listed for June release, so seems to have been brought forward slightly:

Classics #4: Beginnings
Writer: Mike Carlin. Artist: Pablo Marcos. Cover: Bill Sienkiewicz.

Set during the earliest voyages of “The Next Generation” series, join Picard, Riker, Data, Worf, Troi, Yar, and Laforge as they learn about each other and encounter: A de-powered Q who seeks refuge aboard the Enterprise as he attempts to learn what it means to be mortal; A world where warriors see battle as a child's game; A world with dark secrets that threaten both the ship and crew, and more.

Looking a little further ahead, Amazon have added a listing for Star Trek, Volume 5, which will most likely contain issues seventeen to twenty of the ongoing series. They expect that to be out in July.

In other comics news, TrekWeb recently ran an interview with artist, Joe Corroney, who talked about how he developed his artwork on the Hive miniseries:

The scripts by Terry, Travis and Brannon Braga were extremely well-written, they were just so well paced and contained lots of great information and ideas for the visuals. I really try to more or less nail what the writers are hoping for but they also gave me room to conceptualize the look of new characters and environments visually too. In some ways, the scripts were very epic and so ambitious with some pretty extreme visuals which I either had to reign in with my art because of lack of time in the schedule or because I was trying to stay a little more consistent to the visual style of Star Trek, I think. Some of the more over the top scenes and visuals in the script regarding the Borg would work really great in the comic book storytelling format, but on the other hand they would seem a bit too extreme to me for a Star Trek story, especially with my more realistic cinematic style. So I would sometimes work with the writers via email or over the phone with Brannon to come up with a compromise and find a nice balance for some of the ideas that would fit in the world of Star Trek but still look dynamic, exciting, and really cool and hopefully get their idea across.

Specifically, with Locutus' scepter in the shape of the Borg logo, which was a really cool idea on paper and we tried it in the first issue visually, ultimately just didn't sit right with Brannon and me once we saw it on the page. We agreed that the Borg aren't materialistic, carrying objects or having effects of any nature, and the idea of them even having a "logo" or a "symbol", which is something more of a licensing thing and not a real visual you ever see in the shows or the movie, seemed out of line with the ideology of the Borg. The species just wouldn't represent themselves or their identity with some kind of logo branding. Tying in the Borg logo visually to Locutus' scepter seemed like a fun little detail at the time but by the second issue we decided to ditch it since the scepter was just more of a visual cue to establish him as the "Borg King" anyway. Though for continuity sake I did find a way to bring it back in issue #3 when Data and Locutus are fighting the Queen in the future timeline. If you look closely you'll see that Data is fighting her with Locutus' broken scepter, it's just missing the Borg symbol on the end of the staff and he ends up piercing her chest and wounding her with it. So I just repurposed it as a weapon. I imagined maybe Locutus called the scepter back to him "off screen" and it just floated back into the scene when he and Data needed it.

Describing his design for the Voldranall:

I was given a short and simple line of description in the script that they looked like something that was a cross of the monster in Cloverfield and a nightmarish H.P. Lovecraft-ian type creature, just something as ugly, horrible, and menacing looking as possible. So that really was my jumping off point. I kind of designed them like these giant, walking mutant bat creatures with tentacles, since bats kind of look like demons in a way. I wanted the Voldranall to look more demonic and animalistic than Species 8472 since I knew comparisons might possibly be drawn to them in this story. The tentacles gave them that extra alien feel they needed and a slight Cthulhu or Japanese monster feel, too. They were very fun to draw and design.

And how he approached Seven of Nine's spider-form:

This was one of my favorite scenes to draw in the whole series actually. I'm a huge horror movie fan so getting to push the limits of Star Trek with some imagery like this was pretty cool. Really, the Borg themselves are pretty horrific. I mean there are elements from Best of Both Worlds and First Contact that would fit visually and metaphorically at home in a horror film. I think with the Hive, though it is a comic book series which allows for boundaries to be explored and pushed in this medium, I did feel a responsibility because it is Star Trek, like I do with any licensed property I work on, to stay true to its voice. I wanted to explore and push the envelope and make things fresh and exciting visually whenever I could but I also sought to stay true and keep things feeling familiar or tonally consistent to the identity of the property which is why fans love it to begin with. I didn't want to go too extreme in my artwork when it didn't call for it but other times it was exciting for me and even necessary to add some new layers to the mythology of Star Trek with some pretty dynamic, new visuals.

For that particular version of Seven of Nine, where's she's evolved into the horrific spider drone creature, I actually had to tone it back a bit. In the script she was described more as a cross between a snake, spider, and scorpion type creature. She was more massive, too. I knew going in though if I made her too large that it would make for less intimacy in the dialogue scenes after she was defeated. I didn't want to keep having to pull the camera viewpoint so far out for the readers just to show off her scale, since there really weren't too many action panels of her to begin with. So I tried to compromise and keep her ominous and creepy looking, but not too monstrous so I could keep tight on all the characters whenever I could in the short scene.

You can read much more on TrekWeb, where Corroney discusses Hive, his contributions to the Star Trek ongoing series, his recent work on Federation: The First 150 Years, his forthcoming Stuck on Star Trek book, and more!

Behind the scenes of the new Star Trek video game, looks awesome!

Namco Bandai have released a new behind-the-scenes featurette looking at the co-op mode of the new Star Trek video game. It's effectively a trailer too, with loads of new footage, including brilliant little scenes between Kirk and Spock. Plus we get what I think are some samples of Michael Giacchino's new soundtrack for the game! Enjoy:



Much more engaging the previous trailers I think - This has upped the game from "yay new Star Trek thing" to "oooh this looks really enjoyable and exciting!" for me. Hopefully the next parts released on this Making the Game series will be equally as enticing!

Book bits

A few newslets from the world of printed Trek:

David R. George III has announced on Facebook that he has been asked to write another Star Trek novel, so will be (presumably) be joining the already growing list of authors on the 2014 schedule.

Meanwhile over in Germany Cross Cult have released their latest New Frontier portrait, which will be finding its way onto a future German New Frontier cover. This time they bring us a new take on Janos the Mugato. This is Cross Cult's second rendition of Janos, he previously appeared on their version Martyr (Märtyrer). Thanks as ever to UnrealitySF's Jens Deffner for pointing me to this:

Finally, in non-fiction news, a new listing has appeared on Amazon for a book called Star Trek Topps. Listed as the authors are regular Star Trek non-fiction contributors Paula M. Block and Terry J. Erdmann, and a little more curiously, The Topps Company. It's to be published by Abrams Books (who have previously brought us Block and Edmann's two Star Trek 365 books), and more specifically will be released under their ComicArts imprint, which has released a few books based on Topps trading cards, including the recent Mars Attacks retrospective. There have been two Star Trek Topps cards collections, a TOS series, and a Motion Picture series. Aside from some of the TMP behind-the-scenes alien cars there doesn't that much interesting about them. Anyway, whatever this book is, it's out in September.