Browsed by
Category: Star Trek

The Observer on Why Board Games Are Making a Comeback

The Observer on Why Board Games Are Making a Comeback

Comments 7 comments

star-trek-catan-smallWe’ve been on something of a Star Trek kick recently, and I see no reason to change that now. So when I stumbled on this article at UK news publication The Observer, echoing many of the comments in my recent post on The Paris Fashion Week of Fantasy Games on the ongoing surge of high-profile SF and fantasy board games, I was delighted to see that the game used to illustrate it was the new Star Trek Catan from Kosmos/ Mayfair Games. Based on the worldwide hit Settlers of Catan, it looks like it offers plenty of Federation action to tide fans over until the May release of Star Trek Into Darkness.

The article itself is worth a read. Here’s a snippet.

Before video games (bear with me here, kids) – and as impossibly archaic as it might sound – there were “board” games: things made with card and glue that required imagination and literal, rather than virtual, interaction… it’s worth noting that the modern video-games market actually owes much to these board games. Visit any video games development studio and you’re likely to spot shelves piled high with colorful boxes sporting unfamiliar names, used for inspiration and lessons in good game design.

If you’re looking for a holiday gift for that gamer in your life, I included more than a few in our recent Christmas Gift List.

But there’s lots more to be found — check out our recent Games posts, for a start. Or just make a trip to your local games store. And hurry — this is the new Golden Age of tabletop gaming, and you don’t want to miss it.

First Teaser Trailer Released for Star Trek Into Darkness

First Teaser Trailer Released for Star Trek Into Darkness

Comments 15 comments

Hot on the heels of our Monday speculation surrounding the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, comes word that Paramount has released the first teaser trailer. In terms of creating a spectacle, I think there’s a good chance they’ve succeeded admirably… there are at least three brief scenes that clearly take Star Trek places I’ve never seen before.

True, there’s an awful lot of fisticuffs for a Star Trek film. And a lot of screaming, and what looks like 23th Century kung fu. That’s weird.

But there’s also some terrifically exotic alien landscapes, a huge cast, and what looks like breath-taking urban action. Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives.

The clip sheds no further light on whether or not Benedict Cumberbatch is indeed playing Gary Mitchell — although he is shown in Star Fleet uniform, so that puts to bed conjecture that he’s playing Khan.

Check it out below.

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

Star Trek Into Darkness Poster Fuels Gary Mitchell Speculation

Comments 16 comments

star-trek-into-darkness-smallJust to review, Black Gate is a website with a laser-like focus on the best in new and neglected fantasy. If you want science fiction, there’s plenty of other places for that. Except maybe for Star Trek, because that has William Shatner and we’re big fans.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d like to point you to the just-released poster for the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, featuring a trenchcoat-clad badass standing on a mound of rubble that used to be Federation stuff, starting at other Federation stuff he could also knock over. Just to drive home the point, his profile forms part of a crumbling Federation emblem (click the image at right for a bigger version).

That’s one cool poster. It’s also done absolutely nothing to dampen ongoing speculation that the villain this time is none other than Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend and helmsman who became all glow-eyed and megalomanical after slamming into the edge of the galaxy at warp 3 in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” Neither has the film’s official description:

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

For the record, I think this is a great choice. “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was the second pilot and one of the show’s earliest episodes, and frankly one of its best. And if the poster and teaser description are any indication, the action this time won’t take place on a remote planetoid covered in giant styrofoam rocks, but a populated center where the stakes are a lot higher and the explosions a lot bigger. Finally, as reported some time ago, Sherlock actor Benedict Cumberbatch has been cast as the film’s villain, and I think he’d make a magnificent Gary Mitchell, both as a jovial lieutenant commander and as an all-powerful psychic loonie.

Star Trek Into Darkness is directed by J. J. Abrams, and written by Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci. It is the twelfth feature-length Star Trek film and the sequel to 2009’s Star Trek. It is set for release on May 17, 2013.

Star Trek is New Again With Fresh Animated Intro

Star Trek is New Again With Fresh Animated Intro

Comments 4 comments

Our buddy John DeNardo at SF Signal tells us about this extremely cool re-imagining of the original Star Trek intro, with William Shatner’s famous voice over… and some very compelling animation.

Keep your eye out for a red shirt who buys it half a second after beaming down, right around the 20 second mark.

The video was produced by The Quintek Group, a digital retouching studio in the Detroit area.

I got seriously nostalgic watching this. It makes me want to blow the dust off my DVD box set of Star Trek Season One and enjoy a few episodes.

Thanks, John. Owe you one.

Star Trek: Where No Comic Has Gone Before

Star Trek: Where No Comic Has Gone Before

Comments 0 Comment

star-trek-1And here I had grand ambitions to write a quick post or two about some recent magazine acquisitions tonight. Instead I’m dropping all that to tell you about a comic book I’ve never even seen (and is reportedly already sold out). Blame Tor.com, where I stumbled across this story.

Now I know you saw 2009’s Star Trek reboot, staring Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, and directed by J.J. Abrams. Whether you loved it or hated it, I’m pretty sure your mind went the same place mine did after exiting the theater: Huh. I wonder how that fresh crew of punks would handle The Doomsday Machine. Or that nasty Klingon captain Kor from “Errand of Mercy.” Is that Quinto guy even old enough to grow a beard for  a “Mirror Mirror” remake?

We’ll have to wait until at least 2012 to see how (or even if) J.J. Abrams chooses to answer those questions in the coming sequel. But now IDW, the company behind the excellent Star Trek: Year Four comic series, has teamed up with Star Trek writer/producer Roberto Orci to launch a new comic that explores those very questions.

From the IDW website:

The adventures of the Starship Enterprise continue with the new cast from the film as they embark on missions that re-imagine select stories from the original television series, along with new threats and characters never seen before.

Under the creative direction of Orci, fan-favorite Star Trek writer Mike Johnson and artist Stephen Molnar bring this alternate universe to life and begin the countdown to the highly anticipated Star Trek sequel. The series kicks off with a dramatic new envisioning of The Original Series second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” The conclusion of this reimagined episode will be available in October. In November, the adventures of the new Enterprise crew continue with a new take on the classic episode “The Galileo 7,” as Mr. Spock finds himself in command of a stranded shuttle crew fighting for survival.

Yeah, that sounds pretty damn cool.  IDW has already announced that a second printing, with a variant cover, will be available soon. Worth a trip to the comic shop, anyway. I’ll be the guy in line in front of you, haggling for a free mylar bag.

Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner!

Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner!

Comments 5 comments

william-shatnerMy fellow Canadian William Shatner turns 80 today.

For much of my life I watched him, in his role as Captain Kirk, help program Americans to accept Canadians as their leaders.  Made things a lot easier when I moved to the U.S. in 1987 to finish my Ph.D, let me tell you. Not to mention numerous D&D games, in which elves (and anything else with pointed ears) immediately referred to me as “Captain.”

It did not, unfortunately, make picking up girls easier. For which I blame fellow Canadians Dan Aykroyd, Mike Meyers, and especially Jim Carrey. Doofus.

Anyway, back to Shatner. The Great One was born on March 22, 1931, in Montreal, Quebec. He had a starring role in Roger Corman’s 1962 film The Intruder and numerous appearances in film and television, including the classic Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” and “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” for The Outer Limits. In 1964 he guest-starred with Leonard Nimoy in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Project Strigas Affair.” I’m serious — check it out. Shatner plays a pest exterminator, and Nimoy a sinister-looking assistant Balkan diplomat. It’s sort of like watching the Trek episode “A Piece of the Action,” if you’re drunk enough.

From 1966 to 1969 Shatner was cast as James T. Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise, in the role that defined his career, and made things easier for a generation of Canadians living in the U.S. He reprised the role in Star Trek: The Animated Series from 1973 to 1974, and in seven Star Trek feature films between 1979 to 1994. He was a lead in the popular Boston Legal, currently stars in the CBS comedy $#*! My Dad Says, and has a cameo in the upcoming Horrorween.

Happy Birthday, William Shatner! You are a god among men.

Howard Andrew Jones on How Captain Kirk Led Me to Historical Fiction

Howard Andrew Jones on How Captain Kirk Led Me to Historical Fiction

Comments 0 Comment

captain-kirkMan, that Howard Andrew Jones is, like, everywhere.

Today he’s at Tor.com, writing about how James T. Kirk led him on a many-year mission to explore strange new worlds of historical fiction:

I’d read that Star Trek’s creator Gene Roddenberry had modeled Captain Kirk after some guy named Horatio Hornblower. I didn’t think I’d like history stories, but I sure liked Star Trek, so I decided to take a chance. Once I rode my bicycle to the library and saw how many books about Hornblower there were, I figured I’d be enjoying a whole lot of sailing age Star Trek fiction for a long time to come.

Of course, it didn’t turn out quite like that. Hornblower wasn’t exactly like Kirk, and his exploits weren’t that much like those of the Enterprise, but they were cracking good adventures. Thanks to my own curiosity but mostly to the prose of the talented C.S. Forester, my tastes had suddenly, and accidentally, broadened beyond science fiction… I no longer thought of historical fiction as a strange, untouchable world, and as I grew older I tried more and more of it, sometimes because a period interested me and sometimes just because I liked a cover or a title. That’s how I found the work of Cecilia Holland, and it’s why I wasn’t afraid to try out a book by Harold Lamb titled The Curved Saber after I was spellbound by Lamb’s biography of Hannibal, the great Carthaginian general…

The complete article is here, and you can learn the mind-boggling details about Howard Andrew Jones month at Black Gate here.

Twilight Sector & Astra Titanus

Twilight Sector & Astra Titanus

Comments 0 Comment

astraWith Black Gate 15 just around the corner I thought I’d start devoting some time to some products that arrived too late for us to cover, or that just didn’t fit into an issue nearly as large as issue 14.

I was particularly taken by two science fiction titles. The first is a campaign setting, and while it utilizes the Mongoose Traveller rules, it’s in a completely different universe from Traveller itself.

The other is a solo tactical board game. If, like me, you name “The Doomsday Machine” as one of your favorite classic Star Trek episodes, it’s a must have, but it’s pretty darned cool even if you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

…

Read More Read More

Art Evolution 4: David Deitrick

Art Evolution 4: David Deitrick

Comments 8 comments

In my ongoing Art Evolution series, I explained my plan to collect ten of the greatest fantasy role-playing artists of all time for a shared project. They were to illustrate a single character in their most recognizable style. So far, the list has included Jeff Laubenstein, Eric Vedder, and Jeff Dee, with this week adding again to that prestigious list.

a-doomsday-254Three down, and I now had a “1st Edition D&D Lyssa”, but I’d only scratched the surface of my goal and all the artists I’d collected so far weren’t cold calls. These were people I’d already worked with, friends and partners, and the list that remained loomed much larger than this current success. I kept asking myself, ‘do you want this for you, or do you want it for something greater?’

I chewed on that as I read through an old Dragon magazine one afternoon in late August [a pastime I strongly suggest doing once a month to anyone still role-playing]. While reading, I stumbled on a beautiful advertisement for the Traveller RPG.

I recognized the art as something I’d loved in my teens, but had no idea who drew it. Going to my bookshelves I pulled down a copy of FASA’s House Davion supplement for Battletech and managed to put a name to a style… David Deitrick.

I remembered him from a hundred different pictures that had shaped my role-playing life in the late eighties. Everything about his work screamed military, and that style lent so well to the science-fiction bent of the companies he helped characterize.

…

Read More Read More