The rebooted Star Trek was a massive success. I walked the fine line of total restart and series continuation and ended up with a totally familiar, but all together new universe for us to explore. One of the first new explorations into this new universe will be the upcoming Star Trek game.

The game, which was announced at last year’s E3, is currently slated for an early 2013 release date. For those unfamiliar with the upcoming game here is what we know:

Star Trek continues the story from the recent J.J. Abrams film. Players take control of Kirk and Spock in what is being called an “unprecedented co-op experience.” 

“Star Trek challenges the boundaries of co-op gameplay with a galactic adventure that gamers and fans have never experienced,” said Tom Lesinski, President of Paramount Digital Entertainment. 

The new teaser doesn’t give much up on the ‘unprecedented co-op’, but it does showcase a very pretty looking game that should have Trek fans everywhere eager to play. Alongside this new teaser were three new concept art pieces that give some clue to the types of environments we should be expecting in the new game.

You can check out the new teaser and the concept art after the jump.

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There are few franchises that garner the fan support quite like Star Trek. Trekkies, or Trekkers to some, are a loyal group of fans who have embraced the franchise in it’s many incarnations. Most of the stars of the shows and movies become fixtures at Star Trek conventions, but never before have the five television Captains appeared together onstage at a convention.

Well according to a Reuters report that is all about to change in London:

Organizers for “Destination Star Trek London” said on Monday that their fan convention would be the first official “Star Trek” live event in the UK for 10 years.

To mark the occasion, actors William Shatner (Captain Kirk), Sir Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Avery Brooks (Commander Sisko), Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway) and Scott Bakula (Captain Archer), who have commanded operations in each of their respective series based on the iconic TV franchise that began in 1966, will appear on stage together.

Recently William Shatner wrote and directed a documentary called The Captains, where he tracked down and interviewed each of the Trek captains. If the gathering in London is half as intriguing as that was this will be a tremendous experience. There is a really compelling allure to the idea of these iconic actors coming together to discuss the roles that came to define most of them (Bakula being the notable exception, he will always be Dr. Sam Beckett first).

Hopefully this event will be recorded and made available for those of us who can’t make it to London for this rare occasion. If for no other reason than to see what that kooky Avery Brooks will do live on stage.

Whats this, another special edition of Film Score Friday? That’s right, with the massive summer season beginning in just a few short weeks I wanted to spend a little time now on a topic I have long wanted to write about, famous film composers who have written classic TV Themes.

Many famous film composers have taken their talents to the small screen, writing music for pilots or crafting original main themes. Unfortunately a lot of that really great work goes under valued in the overall catalog of these talented musicians. In this week’s Film Score Friday I aim to make up for some of that oversight, and spend some quality time focusing on some of the great TV work these renowned film composers have done.

-John Williams-

The best place to start is with the most famous of all film composers, John Williams. Back in his earliest days Williams, then known as Johnny, wrote music for TV shows. He did music for the pilot episode of Gilligan’s Island, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants, but his most famous early TV work was writing for Lost in Space.

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According to a joint press release, Paramount Pictures and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions have agreed to an extension of their exclusive, first-look agreement through December 2015. The deal looks to be incredibly lucrative for both sides.

“J.J. is a unique talent and a captivating storyteller,” said Brad Grey, Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures. “J.J., Bryan Burk and the whole Bad Robot team are an integral part of Paramount and we’re proud to continue our collaboration. Their pictures have extraordinary resonance around the world and we’re so pleased Paramount will be their home for years to come.”

Bad Robot Productions’ original first look deal with Paramount began in 2006. Since then we have had releases of a variety of successful films and franchise continuations. Considering that grosses on Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol are now $670M globally, while those for the Star Trek reboot hit $385M worldwide, it is no surprise that Paramount is excited about the continuation of this deal. Under the previous Paramount deal, Abrams also had made Cloverfield and Super 8, both of which did well at the global box office.

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Welcome to the future, a world where it is news that a feature film is being shot on 35mm film instead of digital or in 3D. We now know that the new Star Trek film will be one of those such films, although that doesn’t mean we will be spared the 3-D post conversion.

MTV recently talked with J.J. Abrams about the 2013 film:

“I’m sure, like many people, you see what you do and you go, ‘I really could have done that one better, I should have done that, that was a mistake, more of this, less of that.’ You always do that… I’m hoping that as we do the next one, all the mistakes that I’ve made that I’ve hopefully learned from, I can bring to this one and hope make it better.

We’re shooting on film, 2-D, and then we’ll do a good high-end conversion like the ‘Harry Potter’ movie and all that. Luckily, with our release date now we have the months needed to do it right because if you rush it, it never looks good.

We were talking about [shooting in IMAX] and I would love to do it. IMAX is my favorite format; I’m a huge fan,”

While it is nice that J.J. is looking to get into the IMAX business, post conversion 3D has a rocky history. He sited the most recent Harry Potter film as the standard he expects, but even then shooting for 2D and converting it after the fact never looks as good.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home remains one of the most popular Star Trek films, and is often considered the biggest hit of the original crew’s cinematic run. The movie is certainly the oddest of the bunch and adding to the goofier tone of the film is Leonard Rosenman’s score.

The score is usually sited as one of the weaker elements of the film, but that is an opinion born mostly from one or two very unfortunate cues that made it into the movie. The score as a whole is very good and the movie features one of the best main theme’s written for any of the films.

The wonderful folks at Intrada thankfully see it that way too because they have just announced the release of the complete score for Star Trek IV.

“Intrada ends 2011 with one last major release – the complete Leonard Rosenman score to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. The second film in the series under the helm of director Leonard Nimoy, Nimoy choose a lighter approach to this outing and injected liberal amounts of well-placed humor.  For this fourth entry, Nimoy introduced another element he had wanted to bring on board earlier in the series: the music of Leonard Rosenman. Rosenman’s Star Trek IV music bears the hallmarks of the composer’s distinctive style: vaulting brass figures, complex textural passages, thumping suspense motives. The main theme—and also Kirk’s theme—is upbeat, heraldic and heroic, its optimistic flavor cutting a different path than the other scores in the series.”

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We told told you recently that Peter Weller and Alice Eve had signed on to the cast of the new Star Trek sequel, joining the original crew and Benicio Del Toro who was in talks to play the villain. The speculation ran wild that Del Toro would be playing Kirk nemesis extraordinaire Kahn Noonian Singh. The one thing we can now know for certain is that Del Toro will not be Kahn, because he will not be in the movie.

Vulture is reporting that the talks between the actor and the producers broke down due to monetary issues. The speculation of the movie’s villain being Kahn had a lot to do with the fact that Del Toro fits the same mold that Ricardo Montalban so famously inhabited. J.J. Abrams has denied these rumors, but J.J. loves to keep things secret and anything he says about a movie in this stage of development is far from an official proclamation.

Those rumors might just get another boost as Variety reports Edgar Ramirez is now in talks to take over Del Toro’s assumed role. There is enough in common between Del Toro, Ramirez and Montalban that should keep the flames of Kahn hope alive and well for a few more weeks. 

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In what could be called a bit of sci-fi synergy, original Robocop actor Peter Weller is reportedly joining the cast of J.J. Abrams upcoming sequel to Star Trek. While no other details are available at the moment as to what type or size of role Weller will be taking on in the film, you can be assured it will probably not be that of a robot or cyborg.

Of course, now that Weller is being cast in the film, speculation as to his role can begin in earnest, even without any “official” word. That’s just part of the fun. In addition to him most likely not being any sort of robot, bad or otherwise, It’s likely Weller will not play Kahn Noonian Singh — even if that role also doesn’t go to Benicio del Toro.

Weller will more likely take on a smaller yet pivotal role as a Starfleet officer or recognizable alien species who helps (or hinders) Kirk and company’s fight to destroy the greater evil threatening them and Earth. We have nothing to base that on of course, just spitballing here and trying to fill some column inches. That’s just how we roll. Who do you think Weller should play?

Paramount will release the Star Trek sequel May 17, 2013. Weller joins recently announced new cast members Alice Eve and del Toro and the returning Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Anton Yelchin, John Cho and Simon Pegg.

He may have his hands in half a dozen TV projects, and Zach Quinto may want to quit acting, but that isn’t stopping J.J. Abrams from continuing in his reimagined world of Star Trek with a second film.

First, Abrams announces that he wants She’s Out of My League starlet Alice Eve to have a juicy role in the upcoming sequel. This is the first hard confirmation of new casting news, seeing as the deal with Benicio del Toro has yet to solidify. From Variety.

As is common with Abrams, secrecy has surrounded the pic since the helmer officially announced he would be back — including which characters the new actors will play. Sources say Eve’s character is new to the “Star Trek” universe, unlike del Toro, would insiders believe will be playing someone familiar to Trekkies.

As if that isn’t juicy enough for all you diehards out there, an official date has also been announced, which will make it hard for actors like Quinto to continue to drag their heals.

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We recently had the opportunity to sit down with the cast of USA’s hit show about a police consultant with an uncanny ability to pick up clues, almost psychically, some would say.  Read below to hear what the cast had to say about next week’s vamp-themed episode, “This Episode Sucks” (pun intended), and the arrival of a former Starfleet Captain to beautiful Santa Barbara.

The Flickcast: What’s been your favorite episode to shoot for Season 6?

James Roday (Shawn Spencer): Probably our vampire episode [was my favorite to shoot this season], because it’s chock full of vampire fun for vampire fans but it’s also a love story for Lassiter’s character which is something we’ve never seen before. Any time we do something new, I get excited.

Steve Franks, creator: I really, really love the vampire episode. James directed it and put such a tremendous bit of magic on top of it, in such unexpected ways.  Yes, it’s vampires and it’s a little gory and it’s a little scary, but it also has such tremendous sweetness and heart.  It’s one of our nicest episodes and yet one of our darkest episodes at the same time.  So that one’s really fun.

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We may have the entirety of the original Star Trek series on Blu-Ray and in HD online, but for the first time ever, we’re getting Pricard and his entire crew in glorious 1080p with the release of Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Next Level on Blu-Ray for the very first time.

It may not be the entire series, but it’s certainly a start to hold us over until it gets a full release next year. What exactly took so long? Well apparently the folks who boldly brought us where no man has been before, they didn’t think to preserve the original footage on film. Here are the details from the press release:

Transferring STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION® to high-definition presented numerous challenges – The series was originally shot on film and then transferred to videotape, which was used to edit episodes together.

In order to create true HD masters, CBS is going back to the original uncut film negative – all 25,000 plus film reels of it – and cutting the episodes together exactly the way they originally aired. The visual effects were all shot on film and will be painstakingly recompositioned, not upconverted from videotape.

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To boldly be published in comic book format!

Star Trek #1 is an ongoing series by IDW Publishing. The new comic book series is based on J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek while telling stories that are “re-imaginings” of the adventures of the 1960′s classic Star Trek TV show. Basically, take the fun, hip crew you liked from the 2009 film, mix them with the classic, brilliant drama of the 1960′s TV show, and you have an intriguing concept that appeals to new and old Star Trek fans alike.

Based on the original series episode titled Where No Man Has Gone Before, Star Trek #1 begins with the Enterprise finding the distress beacon from the Valiant, a vessel thought to be lost. After crossing the galactic barrier, Enterprise crewman and one of Kirk’s best friends, Gary Mitchell gets sick and begins to display psychic and telekinetic powers. Gary is now temparmental and angry. Captain Kirk has decide what to do about his good friend before he harms himself or worse, the Enterprise.

The issue follows the same basic first act of the episode it is based on with minor changes. Spock and Uhura are still dating like in the movie, and Kirk is still very new to command. Gary Mitchell even makes a joke about how he was ahead of Kirk in the Academy, and now Kirk is his superior officer. Robert Orci, one of the screenwriters for the 2009 Star Trek, is listed as creative consultant on the issue which I believe is the reason why the story feels fresh and modern even though it’s based on an episode over 40 years old.

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