Category: Star Trek Musings

Random Thoughts On… Short Treks (Part 1)

I’ve seen about the first two of these short Trek things that have been airing these past couple months. I’ve yet to see the recent Saru-focused on and apparently there’s another one coming before Discovery returns for its second season and “ruin canon” or whatever the detractors like to say.

I didn’t like the one with Tilly. It had a good start at the beginning with the invisible alien and all that, but once the alien spoke English and came off as a bit emo, that’s when the short lost me. I don’t know if I want to blame it on the actress or the writers who wrote her character that way, but it’s the cliched case of “I wanted to like this, but I couldn’t due to this and that.” The idea was good, the overall story was familiar fare but still interesting, but the execution was a turn off.

The other one, with the lone pilot and the ship computer taking place a thousand years in the future… that was interesting. I like the idea of setting this way into the future because you don’t have to worry about canon or anything, though I question how Discovery would’ve survived for a millennium and still be in pristine condition. I also liked the concept of one man alone with only the ship’s computer as company and said computer trying to make a relationship with a married fellow. It’s an interesting premise and it made for an entertaining fifteen minutes of television. I liked this one better than the other one.

So if I get to watch the other ones, I’ll probably post some thoughts on it. But for now… meh.

No More Stage 9

A couple weeks ago, I post a quick little video showcasing some gameplay from the amazing Stage 9 fangame, which was a nice little interactive simulator that let you run around the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D and do a bunch of little things… like phasering everyone in sight like a crazy man and blowing up a small research outpost with a photon torpedo. It was a fun time and I wanted to do more of these little videos to showcase what I thought was a pretty cool little fan project.

Little did I know that a couple weeks prior, CBS sent a cease-and-desist letter to the creators, prompting said project to shut down, never to be seen again.

So… yeah. Terrible timing on my part, I suppose.

I understand the CBS mindset here; they’re just protecting their IP and I think the whole Axanar thing has put them on a bit of an edge that some would consider the brink of madness. It’s sort of the same way Nintendo is with fan games and rom sites. I’m not mad or sad or anything like that because that’s just the way things are. I’m just happy to have been able to sample this slice of Star Trek fandom before it went away forever.

And perhaps most importantly, I wish the creators of this wonderful project all the best in their future endeavors and offer a thank you for their brief moment in the sun.