OMFG! The BORG!
That was exactly the reaction I was hoping for when we dropped the very big bombshell that the Borg are going to make an appearance on Frontiers, and that's pretty much what we got.
So what happened? So far as everyone always knew, I was very much against doing the Borg on Frontiers. That's pretty much true. They were such great villains initially, but their frequent appearance on Voyager, as well as Seven of Nine's constant reference to various Borg-related things, really emasculated them. The addition of the Queen in First Contact, and then again in Dark Frontier and the remaining Voyager Borg episodes, turned them into cookie cutter sci-fi villains instead of the compelling, scary monsters we had come to know on TNG.
One of my rules from the beginning for Frontiers was that we wouldn't touch the Borg. Eventually that gave way to a willingness to explore them if the story was unique and exciting. If it brought the Borg we loved back and yet still evolved them somehow. For the first two seasons of the show, we got a lot of pitches. That scene from "All the World's a Stage" where the Borg are suggested every staff meeting was inspired directly from reality. Jay shared some of our pitches for them in the forums some time ago. If inspiration strikes me sometime I might go back and get all of the pitches verbatim and post them publically.
Jay was always an advocate of bringing the Borg back, especially given the nature of the Frontiers Project. Clearly, if we were going to span the galaxy and beyond with transwarp hubs, the probability of running into the Borg again should be pretty high. And it was Jay's pitch that I ultimately greenlit.
I'm not going to reveal any of that pitch. It looks very different from what the movie ultimately became, but there are still a great many spoilers. Eventually we'll probably post the original pitch, but for now let's just say that the film does achieve what I wanted to do with a Borg story. It brings them back the way they probably should have been all along, in the days of "The Best of Both Worlds" and even "First Contact". But it doesn't let them stagnate either.
So here we are, just a few days away from Ascent's release. There's a lot of buzz around the movie, and I look forward to seeing the reaction to where we took things. Not just with the Borg but with the Frontiers project as a whole. I happen to agree with Joss Whedon's notion that a television episode shows the day-to-day but movies are event moments in characters' lives. This proves VERY true in many ways. Ascent is most definitely an event movie, for some of our characters, for the Borg, and for the galaxy at large.
I'd also like to announce another VST first. What's a big movie release without some previews at the beginning? Don't worry, we aren't going to subject you to thirty minutes of previews for movies no one wants to see, or commercials for cars or trivia quiz games. But we WILL be featuring a special preview of the forthcoming Star Trek: Knight's Haven. That's right, for two weeks only, every download of Ascent will feature a three page preview of Kyle West's upcoming VST series, Knight's Haven.
So when you add all this together, why wouldn't you want to check out Ascent this Friday? Come on, you know you want to. Resistance is... useless.
Gotcha.
So what happened? So far as everyone always knew, I was very much against doing the Borg on Frontiers. That's pretty much true. They were such great villains initially, but their frequent appearance on Voyager, as well as Seven of Nine's constant reference to various Borg-related things, really emasculated them. The addition of the Queen in First Contact, and then again in Dark Frontier and the remaining Voyager Borg episodes, turned them into cookie cutter sci-fi villains instead of the compelling, scary monsters we had come to know on TNG.
One of my rules from the beginning for Frontiers was that we wouldn't touch the Borg. Eventually that gave way to a willingness to explore them if the story was unique and exciting. If it brought the Borg we loved back and yet still evolved them somehow. For the first two seasons of the show, we got a lot of pitches. That scene from "All the World's a Stage" where the Borg are suggested every staff meeting was inspired directly from reality. Jay shared some of our pitches for them in the forums some time ago. If inspiration strikes me sometime I might go back and get all of the pitches verbatim and post them publically.
Jay was always an advocate of bringing the Borg back, especially given the nature of the Frontiers Project. Clearly, if we were going to span the galaxy and beyond with transwarp hubs, the probability of running into the Borg again should be pretty high. And it was Jay's pitch that I ultimately greenlit.
I'm not going to reveal any of that pitch. It looks very different from what the movie ultimately became, but there are still a great many spoilers. Eventually we'll probably post the original pitch, but for now let's just say that the film does achieve what I wanted to do with a Borg story. It brings them back the way they probably should have been all along, in the days of "The Best of Both Worlds" and even "First Contact". But it doesn't let them stagnate either.
So here we are, just a few days away from Ascent's release. There's a lot of buzz around the movie, and I look forward to seeing the reaction to where we took things. Not just with the Borg but with the Frontiers project as a whole. I happen to agree with Joss Whedon's notion that a television episode shows the day-to-day but movies are event moments in characters' lives. This proves VERY true in many ways. Ascent is most definitely an event movie, for some of our characters, for the Borg, and for the galaxy at large.
I'd also like to announce another VST first. What's a big movie release without some previews at the beginning? Don't worry, we aren't going to subject you to thirty minutes of previews for movies no one wants to see, or commercials for cars or trivia quiz games. But we WILL be featuring a special preview of the forthcoming Star Trek: Knight's Haven. That's right, for two weeks only, every download of Ascent will feature a three page preview of Kyle West's upcoming VST series, Knight's Haven.
So when you add all this together, why wouldn't you want to check out Ascent this Friday? Come on, you know you want to. Resistance is... useless.
Gotcha.
posted by The Grimm Sleeper at 8:37 AM
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