The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log » Star Trek

“Sir, may I quote General Order Twelve…”

Joe — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:02:48 +0000

“Sir, may I quote General Order Twelve, ‘On the approach of any vessel, when communications have not been established...”

Well, we know now Saavik was correct to suggest going to alert status when the starship Reliant approached the Enterprise in silent mode with the nasty Khan Noonian Singh secretly in command and about to wreak his aweseome Wrath. Christer Nyberg has taken a year and somewhere between 10, 000 and 15, 000 Lego blocks to re-create Star Trek The Wrath of Khan’s USS Reliant and it looks fabbity fab fab. Star Trek and Lego, that’s like two of the best things ever brought together! Plus being Lego you can easily modify it and knock off a warp nacelle if you wanted the battle-damaged version. (via IO9)

Win a trip to the official Star Trek Convention!

Joe — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:00:41 +0000

Forbidden Planet International have teamed up with top UK sci-fi mag SFX and fine publisher Aurum Press – we’re celebrating the launch of the impressive Star Trek Vault book and to mark this one lucky reader could win the chance for a fab trip to Philadelphia for the official Star Trek Convention next year! Now there’s a prize that’ll stick some dilithium in your warp reaction chamber! Enter by filling in the form and handing it in to your local FPI branch or enter online here.

Python Trek Who Lego mashup

Joe — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:03:17 +0000

This made me smile – it’s a Lego take on Star Trek, but look closer on the Enterprise bridge and there’s the Doctor (with Fez, Fezes are cool) and look out! They’re being attacked by the pirates of the Crimson Permanent Assurance! Genius. (link from The Brothers Brick via Geek Chocolate)

The Captains…

Joe — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:01:56 +0000

I had no idea the mighty Bill Shatner had made a new documentary about Star Trek, it sneaked in underneath my sensor range like a crafy Romulan. The Captains, as the title implies, sees The Shat focussing on the man or woman in the centre seat on the starship bridge: the Starfleet captain and the actors who have taken that commanding role across several decades of Star Trek, from Bill himself, through Patrick Stewart, Avary Brooks, Kate Mulgrew and Scott Bakula to Chris Pine in the new movie version. It looks quite interesting from the trailer, with Shatner, a man pretty well qualified to talk to other actors about playing a Star Trek captain, let’s be fair, talking to them not only about the characters but about the time and strain issues when creating a weekly show, the cost in personal and family time and the stresses that creates on an actor and their loved ones, which is probably an area most of us don’t know about or think about much when loving our favourite shows.

Canadian audiences (appropriate, since the Mighty Shat is indeed from the lovely land of the maple leaf) will get a chance to see it on the big screen this evening; I’m hoping there are cinema screenings here too at some point – it would be fine on DVD, sure, but these sorts of films are best viewed with a like-minded audience to be really appreciated. (link from ChrisD, via SciFiTweetn)

Star Trek verus Star Wars according to Shatner

Joe — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:02:46 +0000

Star Wars or Star Trek, which is better and why? It’s an argument that’s surfaced in science fiction fandom many a time over the last few decades (personally I love both and consider them to be quite different types of SF&F so really don’t see much point in arguing over them like this other than for a bit of fun in the convention bar). But here BoingBoing has a link to a video from no less a luminary than the mighty William Shatner holding forth on the subject! Expect much arguments and for phasers to clash with lightsabres…

To boldly go…

Joe — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:51:08 +0000

It’s a sad day for many geeks as the final space shuttle mission returns to the Earthbound domain, never again to glide silently miles above our world, over poles and continents, clear skies and storms, never again to surge back into our atmosphere at many times the speed of sound, streaking across the sky, carrying back a precious cargo of human beings who are part of a small, select group of all humans who have had the honour to enter a realm that, despite being only a few miles above our heads, was closed to humanity until only a few decades ago. When I was a boy real science fired my imagination as much as science fiction and none more so than the space programme. As I was growing up my comics annuals would have features between the strips and the Shuttle was often a favourite subject – here it was, the test version, mounted piggyback on a 747 for flight tests, it was the future of manned space exploration. That test Shuttle was called Enterprise. And as the final shuttle returns to Earth today I can’t resist sharing this photograph from BoingBoing:

Our original crew of the Starship Enterprise, with creator Gene Rodenberry, in front of the Shuttle Enterprise. Bright sunny day, smiles from our Star Trek actors, the dream seemed so assured and confident, science fiction would slowly become science fact as we pushed forward, ever forward. Maybe one day these ‘spaceplanes’ would lead to passenger versions we all could ride into the Final Frontier. The shuttle’s history may be over today, but the dream, that remains… Perhaps one day the Shuttle too will have its own Next Generation.

Happy 80th birthday, William Shatner!

Joe — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:04:56 +0000

(detail from cover to Star Trek : Burden of Knowledge, art by Joe Corroney, published IDW)

Can it really be true? Can the mighty Shatner really be celebrating the anniversary of 80 of our Earth years this very day? Yes, folks, the man who is Captain James T Kirk (sorry, Chris Pine, loved you in the new movie but let’s face it, Bill is the Real Deal, always will be) celebrates his 80th birthday today, one hopes with a certain amount of Romulan Ale. From television to film to comic books to penning his own series of SF novels and even the music, can there be an end to the wonders of Shatner?

Shanter can be an odd character to some fans – some deride him or lampoon him, sometimes with reason perhaps, and yet he has frequently lampooned his own image, usually with rather obvious glee, which makes it hard to hold anything against him. Whatever side you come down on though you can’t deny he’s the man behind one of television and science fiction’s most iconic characters and we’d not have it any other way. Ladies, gentlmen, other intelligent lifeforms, please stand and carefully rip your uniform shirt in an enticing manner to honour the 80th birthday of Mr William Shatner!

Beam me up, Hottie!

Joe — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 23:02:18 +0000

The skirts on the female crewmembers of the original Star Trek were famously short (even for the 60s) and we know Kirk seemed to have a new alien woman asking to be taught about this human thing called ‘love’ almost as often as he ripped his top in a fight, but this (mildly NSFW) Trek parody takes it a bit further. Silly, naughty and quite funny (and a reminder how easy it is to reduce even an intelligent, trained 23rd century man to leering caveman with his tongue hanging out!):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-WA90u0f0Y

Why hello, Kitty!

Joe — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 23:02:36 +0000

Aren’t these Hello Kitty modifications just brilliant? Cool and also still quite sweet but with added SF/comics appeal! Joseph Senior’s MySpace has numerous clever and very well done examples like this, go and enjoy them (via Robot 6 who got it in turn from The Design Scene Blog)

Science fiction superfan guide

Joe — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 23:04:55 +0000

Geek Tyrant has this great cut-out-and-keep reference guide to superfans of some of the major science fiction and fantasy series out there, from Star Wars and Star Trek to Firefly and Avatar and taking in Lost along the way, going from fairly straightforward (uberfan’s nicknames, such as Trekkers or Trekkies) to how to piss off the fan of the relevant film/show and what sexual role playing kinks you can expect from them (at least Geek Tyrant, bless ‘em, are assuming fans get to have sex from time to time, unlike the mainstream media. Hey, mainstream media, if SF fans aren’t having relationships and nookie then where do the new, young fans come from, eh?).