Lots of negativity in this thread, but that seems to be par for the course for any fandom. Personally I’m cautiously optimistic.

Skydance produced/co-produced (often partnering with Paramount) on a number of franchise movies, including Star Trek, Mission Impossible, Jack Reacher, Top Gun, GI Joe, Terminator, The Old Guard and Spy Kids. Some of their productions have been well-received (eg Mission Impossible, Top Gun Maverick) and others less so (Terminator Genysis and Dark Fate, although personally I quite liked Dark Fate). They’ve also produced smaller, critically acclaimed movies like True Grit, Annihilation and Air; as well as their share of dreck of course, like Geostorm.

What I think is clear though is that Skydance is primarily interested in big franchises, so if they were to acquire Paramount, I think more Star Trek movies would very likely be in the works which, as a fan, I’d be happy about. I know there’s an argument that Trek is best suited to TV, but some of the best Star Trek has been big screen Star Trek. And studios are more willing these days to have franchises run across both TV and film concurrently (MCU, DC, Star Wars), granted with mixed success.

Re Larry Ellison’s involvement - my guess is that he’d be a silent partner, putting some of his personal fortune - rather than Oracle’s funds - to help out his son. I believe he did the same thing for his daughter, Megan Ellison, whose company Annapurna Pictures he helped fun and which went on to produce films like Her, Zero Dark Thirty, Phantom Thread and Books Smart (and the stage musical A Strange Loop). I doubt Larry Ellison will take a hands-on role in the management of Skydance/Paramount.

For All Mankind is the Star Trek prequel we should have had. Co-created by Ron Moore (Deep Space Nine, Battlestar Galactica), the show has a bunch of Trek alumni working behind the scenes. It features human drama (and sometimes melodrama), geopolitical diplomacy, sweeping cultural change and scientific adventure against the backdrop of a multi generational future history, starting with the first moon landing.

I’m a younger user of lemmy in the sense that I’ve only been a Fediverse user for less than a year. 😇

Starcraft (1 and 2). I suck. Suck in the “had trouble finishing the campaign on Normal, couldn’t get out of Bronze league” sense of suck.

But I love it. It’s my favourite video game, though these days I only watch it rather than play it, for reasons of see above.

That Bob Justman memo reminded me how much fun they had making TOS (as well as working long and hard of course). Perhaps my favourite is the memo chain Justman started about Vulcan proper names.

Re fixing mistakes: I guess I don’t have a problem with it as long as the mistakes are trivial, are clearly errors, and the original version remains available. What constitutes a “trivial error” of course can be up for debate. Correcting a background audio cue - sure, why not? Changing early TOS references of “Vulcanians” to “Vulcans” - definitely not.

The first instance of “shit” on American network television (ie not HBO etc) that I can recall was on Chicago Hope. I think it was Adam Arkin who was able to say “shit happens” in one episode. There was a bit of publicity about it at the time.

Chicago Hope also managed to show a female breast, sort of. There was an episode where a woman had one of her breasts reconstructed, and they showed the result. I assume it wasn’t an actual breast that was aired, but a lifelike replica. Either that, or they got away with showing a real boob by pretending it was a fake one in the story.

Mine’s more like slash fiction.

Spock.

The why should be obvious, but this video goes some way to explaining it.

I’m pretty sure I encountered “City on the Edge of Forever” through James Blish’s short story adaptation before I saw the actual episode *cough cough* years ago, because Edith’s speech as televised:

One day soon… man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in… in some sort of spaceship.

has always struck me as being incredibly blunt in comparison to what appeared in the short story version. Blish didn’t work off the final shooting scripts but earlier revisions, so I assume Edith’s “astronauts on some sort of… star trek”-like predictions must have been inserted by Roddenberry or maybe Fontana.

While some of the poetry and elegance may have been taken out of Ellison’s script (along with other, more justifiable, changes), there’s no denying that “City” is an absolute classic, and one of the few instances of Trek doing romance well.

Great news! The Matt Jefferies Enterprise is my second-favourite incarnation of the Enterprise (after the TMP refit), although I prefer the post-pilot version with the balls at the back of the nacelles rather than the grilles.

But I don’t have a problem with it. I’m actually very glad the model has been found cause it’s an absolutely iconic item, and hope it’s on its way to Rod Roddenberry.

No it wasn’t, it was genes and it sat on his desk before being loaned out to the studio

It was loaned out in the run-up to Star Trek The Motion Picture. It was not loaned to the studio at the time of production of the original series. I’m talking about the ownership of the model back in 1964, not 1978/79.

No the model was made before any production, again documented and linked for source.

Filming of the first scene of “The Cage” took place on 24 or 27 November 1964 (accounts vary).

The 3-foot model was commissioned from Richard Datin on 4 November 1964. He received the blueprints on 7 or 8 November 1964. An in-progress version was presented to Roddenberry on 15 November 1964, with Roddenberry apparently requesting a number of changes, ie “more detail”. The model was delivered to Roddenberry on 14 December 1964 while “The Cage” was being filmed in Culver City.

Therefore the model was made during production, not before.

Source for most of these dates: http://www.shawcomputing.net/resources/shaw/1701-33-inch.html

And even if the model was made before production of “The Cage” started, it doesn’t negate my point, which is that the model would almost certainly have been paid for, and therefore owned, by Desilu or Norway as it was clearly a production/pre-production expense. It was used consistently throughout the run of the show, and was even modified to more closely resemble the 11-foot model. I find it inconceivable that Roddenberry would have paid for it out of his own, personal, pocket.

Again it’s documented, you’re simply making things up.

I’m not making things up, I’m speculating based on what I know of business and Roddenberry himself. Roddenberry was known to appropriate items that were owned by the studio for his personal benefit, eg when he took film clippings after the show was cancelled and sold them through his private business Lincoln Enterprises.

Roddenberry merely stating “I’ve owned it since the Desilu days” in a letter doesn’t necessarily make it so. Note I’m not claiming he didn’t own it, I’m raising it as an academic possibility. And, as I said, I have no problems at all with the model going back to the Roddenberry family once it’s been recovered.

@CCMan1701A has a point. The model was built for production purposes, so it would have almost certainly been paid for - and therefore owned - by either by Desilu Studios or Norway Corporation (aka Norway Productions) depending on how the accounting was set up back in 1964. So unless Desilu/Norway sold or gifted the model to Roddenberry at some point, ie formally passed title to him, technically it would still be the property of the original corporate owner.

What I think quite possible though is that after TOS was cancelled Roddenberry took possession of a bunch of production assets nobody ever thought would have any value. Star Trek, after all, was a failed show. IIRC it was known that he used to do stuff like that, eg selling off merchandise to fans that - technically - he didn’t own. It’s just that nobody really cared too much back then.

Now as it so happens, Norway was actually Roddenberry’s production company, but technically that doesn’t matter, as there’s a legal distinction between a corporation you own on the one hand, and you as an individual on the other. That’s the whole purpose of setting up businesses as separate legal entities. So even if the model was originally purchased by and owned by Norway (as opposed to Desilu, which was sold to Paramount during the show’s run) then Norway (Roddenberry’s company) would still have needed to pass ownership to Gene Roddenberry the individual (via a gift or sale) in order for Majel Roddenberry’s statement that “it was Gene’s” to be strictly true. Of course, that would have been a cinch to do: Roddenberry, as owner/executive of Norway, simply sells or gives the model to Roddenberry the individual.

It’s possible that this happened, ie that Desilu or Norway sold or gifted the model to Roddenberry, but it’s also possible (especially if the model was owned by Desilu/Paramount) that he merely ended up with it, and that nobody questioned his legal right to it in the years since.

Personally, regardless of whether technically (ie from a legal or accounting perspective) Roddenberry did or did not own the model, I fully understand that Rod Roddenberry would be interested in recovering this seminal piece of Star Trek memorabilia, and I wouldn’t have any issues if it stayed in the Roddenberry family or was gifted to an institution like the Smithsonian.

My favourite deadpan funny line delivery of Nimoy’s is this exchange from The Wrath of Khan:

Kirk: I would not presume to debate you.
Spock: That is wise.

I’ve never given the distinction much thought, but as I recall (and it’s been many years since I’ve read the Ender books) in Speaker for the Dead Jane was pretty much an AI, an evolved form of the fantasy game in Ender’s Game. In later books Card may have more explicitly applied his Mormon-influenced concept of a soul that exists prior to, and after, inhabiting a physical form, to the character of Jane. But when I think of Jane, it’s the Jane of Speaker for the Dead, as that’s the book in the series (along with Ender’s Game) that I read most often.

When I was younger I had a crush on Jane from Speaker for the Dead, so I wouldn’t be weirded out by that person, cause I’d probably be that person. 😅

“I love Italian. And so do you.” “Yes.” My favourite bit in TVH.

They started off with 15 guys.

In my head canon quad is a fundamental unit used in quantum computing, which I assume is a technology in common use in Trek.

I feel like it’s different when we’re talking about a planet.

I suppose I kind of figure that planets in the Star Trek world are more analogous to cities/countries in our world. Also, “Delta Vega” is such a generic-sounding, human-centric designation anyway that in my head canon the full, formal designation of a planet in the Federation catalogue of stellar objects might be a lot longer, with “Delta Vega” in this case just one part of the full name. Think about the billions of stars that Starfleet has catalogued, and thousands of planets containing life. There’s surely room for more than one “Delta Vega”. Not to mention that planets have different names used by different groups or contexts, just like Earth is also referred to as Terra, Sol III, Die Erde, La Monde etc. So I figure there’s different Delta Vegas around, and people know which one is being talked about from context.

That (monoculture) tendency is built into Trek, for good or ill, and I would say it even applies to humans.

Agreed, and put me down “for ill”, but I like the idea of explaining apparent canon contradictions by expanding the universe beyond the monocultures we usually see. One of my favourite little moments in Picard was Laris tapping Shaban on the Westmore appliance and calling him a “stubborn northerner”. In just those two seconds the Romulan culture got a lot more interesting.

The question is though, is Pike such a foodie that he would throw his weight around be certain that there is a supply of real bacon on the ship for him to use

If we ever see an episode where he hunts down a boar, guts it, dresses it and serves it to his crew with a nice sprig of coriander, we’ll know for sure. ;-)

Exactly. “Money” (or “credits”) would still exist to address whatever scarcity remains. Eg replicators can’t replicate starships (although in Prodigy we get pretty close IIRC). Or if you want to own that genuine Rembrandt (even if you could replicate a very good fake). Or if you want to trade with societies that still use money. But it would be confined to edge cases like that.