Corporate ownership

At Star Trek‍ ’​s creation, Norway Productions, Roddenberry’s production company, shared ownership with Desilu Productions and, after Gulf+Western acquired Desilu in 1967, with Paramount Pictures, the conglomerate’s film studio. Paramount did not want to own the unsuccessful show; net profit was to be shared between Norway, Desilu/Paramount, Shatner, and NBC but Star Trek lost money, and the studio did not expect to syndicate it. In 1970 Paramount offered to sell all rights to Star Trek to Roddenberry, but he could not afford the $150,000 ($911,000 today) price.[15]

In 1989, Gulf+Western renamed itself as Paramount Communications, and in 1994 merged with Viacom.[15] In 2005, Viacom divided into CBS Corporation, whose CBS Television Studios subsidiary retained the Star Trek brand, and Viacom, whose Paramount Pictures subsidiary retained the Star Trek film library and rights to make additional films, along with video distribution rights to the TV series on behalf of CBS.[97][15]

(So sayeth wikipedia)

It still seems like a first, in my recollection, for CBS to play the heavy, so your story surprised me. Seems like over the years they’ve left that to Paramount; it’s always been Paramount you hear about squashing copyright infringers like bugs. Will wonders never cease.

Only to get
“This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CBS. Sorry about that”

Way to stomp on fan creativity CBS. I wonder if it is some overzealous lawyer or because they used some theme music and voices from the show.

Anyway I found it someplace else. Hopefully this one will still be up when I get home tonight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l28KDuRrPYU

Spend a few nights aboard a starship as imagined circa 1960? With a pool? Yeah good golly wow I’d do it, if it weren’t too outrageous.

I’m pretty sure that the whole retrofitted WWII-era aircraft carrier vibe was entirely calculated, with a keen eye for period details like the sound-powered phones. And I’m pretty sure it was all land-locked in a vast sound stage in Vancouver BC. Well actually, not “pretty sure”, “entirely certain beyond a shadow of a doubt” would better describe it.

I get the feeling that the industry anticipated the idea of releasing a “work” in multiple formats a while ago, and they’ve really run with it. Seems SOP any more that sci-fi or action/adventure movies have a video game tie-in along with all the material bling. I think sometimes it turns out the game is more successful; I think that’s what happened with Star Wars:Rebels. But of course they’ll do it because of the economic efficiency, for the reasons you cite: Same model serves the green screen film as serves the game.

Then there’s “Defiance”. Weird, but I was really getting into the TV show, when I read about how it’s both a TV show and a video game, digitized actors appearing in the games, and it spoiled it a little for me. Like it was crass or calculating to plan for the tie-ins and the merchandising ahead of time. I’m naive, I know, but isn’t science fiction sacred? (he whined plaintively). I’ll still watch the next season when it shows up “free” on Netflix, but I changed my mind about paying to get it quicker. Sic transit Irisa.

The same (I think) video is on the Syffy web site: http://www.syfy.com/ascension/videos/ascension-building-the-world . They seem to be checking to see whether you have a cable package, and I don’t, so I can’t verify whether you can see it.

But anyway, I was relieved when I viewed it again that my memory hadn’t been playing tricks on me. The second half of that documentary is one long “gee whiz!” over their awesomeness building a set like that. And it really is effin amazing.

I want to move to Vancouver and work on science fiction TV and video.

The set of Hobbiton for the Lord of the Rings was mostly foam and was removed from the farm in New Zealand. But for the Hobbit movies, the set was recreated with the intention on making it into an attraction as a partnership with WETA and the owners.

And it is beautiful. If you ever have the chance, go. I was there before the Green Dragon was open, so I need to go back to have a proper pint. It is so much fun to watch scenes from these movies and think, “I’ve been there.”

There is a whole industry, books and tours and web-pages, dedicated to visiting the locations used in the LOTR and Hobbit movies. Aside from Hobbiton, the rest are just they way they were, and are ordinary places. The flight to Buckleberry ford is a city park. Helms Deep is a quarry.

I get why most sets get dumped at the end of a show. Its real estate. I seem to recall a kickstater of a guy that salvaged one of the Enterprise Bridges and is trying to restore it. Could be the same one from Vegas.

As cool as it would be to walk onto a real set, the virtual reconstruction actually has me more excited. This is something, that one day I should be able to load up on my computer and I could explore every nook and cranny to my heart’s content. If done well, imagine following a Jeffries tube to see where it ends up. Or see if you really can get to Deck 4 via the Jeffries tube from ten forward?

Here’s another idea. What if the next big sci-fi story has the set already built virtually? The cost to do this would not be huge as set design already requires CAD drawings and most of these have gone 3d. I work in 3d with Revit or Sketchup as often as I do in 2D CAD, this is the way the industry is going. So as they are designing and physically building the set, they have another guy building everything virtually as well.

Before the show comes out, you could even invite fans to virtually tour the ship to generate excitement for the show. Even leave some clues lying around for things that will appear in the show. This way before anybody has even seen a single episode the ship environment starts to feel as familiar to the potential fans as the Enterprise does to its fans.

But interesting thing about BSG, now that you mention it, is that it’s a product of Vancouver, Hollywood of the North, where their thing is the biggest sound stages in the world, where they can build these huge lavish sets. For the miniseries “Ascension”, about the covert 1960s interstellar flight, they constructed the five-story starship interior for real; camera shots up the axis aren’t CGI.

I remember some of those little documentaries about BSG showing the sound stages, and while there was a huge amount of greenscreen, there was considerable physical construction too. The hanger deck existed partially in the real world, with CGI used just to matte in the long vistas. Which makes me think that the old BSG sets might work better than old Star Trek sets in a theme park setting.

And ooh ooh who can forget the ship in Stargate:Universe? Mothballed after a season, but I’ve seen bits of it reused in other shows since, like “Dark Matter”. That seemed like a big elaborate physical set that might make a great amusement park attraction. Or a bed-and-breakfast, come to think of it.

Ya really got me thinking, Steve.

“Now Reclus, QM3, lay to the bridge.”