{"id":123761,"date":"2022-04-26T09:44:55","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T08:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/?p=123761"},"modified":"2023-03-11T18:19:28","modified_gmt":"2023-03-11T18:19:28","slug":"star-trek-prodigy-a-whole-new-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/exclusive\/star-trek-prodigy-a-whole-new-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Trek: Prodigy: A whole new generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt was really important to start the show as far away as possible from Starfleet,\u201d says Ben Hibon, director and creative lead of the latest entry to Alex Kurtzman’s expanded Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> Universe, Star Trek: Prodigy<\/strong><\/em>. \u201cThey don’t know anything about Starfleet, and they’re going to make their way there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is that journey that we’re telling, so we had to create a world and a texture that feels different and off brand almost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Star Trek: Prodigy<\/strong><\/em> does certainly feel a lot different from its\u00a0Trek<\/strong> <\/em>brothers and sisters. Firstly, it\u2019s the first Trek<\/em><\/strong> series to use 3D animation and secondly, it\u2019s the first to directly appeal to kids.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> cannon is so dense right now and the characters, when you look at Starfleet officers, they’re fully formed adults who are the best of the best,\u201d says Kevin Hageman, who is a creator and showrunner of the show alongside his brother, Dan. \u201cCan kids really relate to that? I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

“That’s why we start outside – let’s start with a bunch of youths. Let’s discover something new that we love about Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> every episode and start from the ground up. So for the kids, [it\u2019s about] introducing them or a new audience, and for the adult fans, who love Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>, who take everything for granted – you’re reminded why you love what they’re doing. Or they\u2019re seeing through the eyes of these kids, discovering what a holodeck is for the first time. It’s wish fulfilment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Star Trek: Prodigy’s<\/strong> <\/em>creators wanted to start the series from the ground up.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indeed, you won\u2019t be seeing any pristine Starfleet uniforms here (apart from on a certain captain of course, but we’ll get to that later). The series follows a motley crew of young aliens who find an abandoned Starfleet ship, the USS Protostar, in the Tars Lamora prison colony. Taking control of the ship, they must learn to work together as they make their way from the Delta Quadrant to the Alpha Quadrant. But over the course of their adventures together, they will each be introduced to Starfleet and the ideals it represents.<\/p>\n

For the show\u2019s creators, Kevin and Dan, developing a Trek<\/strong><\/em> series was certainly a daunting task (\u201cwe felt overwhelmed, we didn’t think we were the right people for it,\u201d laughs Dan) but developing one for kids was certainly in their wheelhouse. They co-wrote the Golden Globe-nominated film The Croods: A New Age<\/strong> <\/em>and they also were showrunners of the multiple Emmy award-winning animated Netflix series Trollhunters<\/strong><\/em> for Guillermo Del Toro.<\/p>\n

And like their previous projects, they wanted Prodigy<\/strong><\/em> to aim at a broad audience.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew we were not going to write something just for kids,\u201d says Kevin. \u201cWe were going write something for adults too. It has to serve both. At first we were scared, but then we were in the parking lot and I asked Dan \u2018I know we’re both having a knee jerk reaction of it\u2019s too scary, but what would a Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> show look like for us?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe said \u2018from characters who don’t know anything about the federation\u2019, just because it gives us a security blanket of feeling like we can be outsiders just like our crew is,\u201d adds Dan. \u201cWe know a lot about Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>, but no one thinks they know enough about Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> to write a show about it. We had trepidation with that and then at the very same time we go: \u2018Who’s going to be leading them? Who’s going to be guiding them?\u2019 and in that same breath we\u2019re like: \u2018Janeway\u2019\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

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Janeway is here to guide the young crew on their adventures…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ah yes, Janeway. Leading our young crew is the starship\u2019s built-in emergency training hologram which is based on the captain of the USS Voyager herself, Captain Kathryn Janeway (voiced by Kate Mulgrew, who\u2019s reprising her iconic role).<\/p>\n

\u201cA man by the name of Alex Kurtzman called me on the phone and he said \u2018Do you know who I am?\u201d,\u201d Kate Mulgrew remembers on how she first heard about the project. \u201cI said: \u2018Who doesn’t?!\u2019 and he said: \u2018Listen, we would love to do this animated series with hologram Janeway as sort of its centre, teaching these kids\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought \u2018I don\u2019t know\u2019. It was so big when I did it. I just remember that effort. That investment. So I thought for some time and I talked to the people I trust, my closest friends. They all said ‘you\u2019re a fool not to do it’. To bring this to little children. They\u2019d love it and they\u2019d sit with their mothers and their fathers and it will become a conversation across generations. How can you beat that? And Kurtzman is a visionary, he will do this beautifully. So of course then I leapt for the phone and said, \u2018I’d love to do it!\u2019\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

Though she was initially uncertain about coming back to her iconic character, what Mulgrew certainly hasn\u2019t been uncertain about is that Janeway is a character that would be with her forever. First introduced to the world in 1995 with Star Trek: Voyager\u2019s<\/strong><\/em> first episode (\u2018Caretaker\u2019), Janeway has a legacy that Mulgrew is appreciative of.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the gift that keeps on giving,\u201d Mulgrew says of her part in the Star Trek<\/strong><\/em> world. \u201cIt is a tribute to this fan base – to their unending love of space, to their appreciation of the metaphor of the starship lost in space. How we are all on the planet Earth just really in a starship, desperate to find home. It’s a very, very lofty way of thinking. And the more I did it, the more I dug it. And the more I dug it, the more I knew it was going to be with me till the day I died. So it’s been a very, very interesting journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kate Mulgrew is back as Janeway.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Though Mulgrew must know the character of Janeway inside out, playing her via voiceover was a new experience, but one she\u2019s more than happy with.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m a woman of a certain age now,\u201d Mulgrew says, \u201cAnd my ego, my vanity has been modified by time, by loss, by life, by love, by all of it, it matters. So I am absolutely delighted to be in a recording booth, giving my voice to a hologrammatic Janeway that will then be issued to children and shared on screen by these marvellous voices. Nothing actually could make me happier. Least of all I should think, live action.\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s up to Janeway to lead this young crew, which comprises of Rok-Tahk (played by Rylee Alazraqui), Dal (Brett Gray), Jankom Pog (Jason Mantzoukas), Murf (Dee Bradley Baker), Zero (Angus Imrie) and 17-year-old Gwyn, played by Yellowjacket\u2019s<\/em><\/strong> Ella Purnell, who was also relatively new to voiceover work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the second voiceover job I’d ever done,\u201d Ella Purnell tells us. \u201cI’d done one show before, and I’d done a few episodes, but the characters could not be more different.\u00a0 That was the other exciting thing, I’m still figuring out my American accent and the dialect of the sound. So being able to experiment with that on a purely vocal thing when there’s no physicality to mask my fluffs is interesting. It\u2019s baptism by fire. I’ve really just jumped in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI haven’t heard you make any fluffs, because I’m often with you in the scenes,\u201d Mulgrew intercepts. \u201cI think it’s pretty bloody good!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah?\u201d Purnell responds. \u201cThank you, I’ll take that!\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Angus Imrie, who plays Zero (a noncorporeal, genderless, energy-based lifeform now less!), he already had some tie to the Star Trek<\/strong> <\/em>universe, playing a younger version of a role played by Patrick Stuart in the movie, The Kid Who Would Be King<\/strong><\/em>: \u201cWe were playing the young and older versions of the character of the wizard, Merlin,\u201d he remembers. \u201cSo having not known much about Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>, I was approaching old episodes, trying to watch Patrick and see how he behaves and try and find that in our character of Merlin together.<\/p>\n

“As soon as you go online, you see what [Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>] means to people. That they\u2019re fiercely intelligent, fiercely loyal, and fiercely invested in the whole show. Since I’ve been a part of it, my appreciation of what I’m involved in has grown and grown. And I feel very lucky to be in that world now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Angus Imrie plays Zero (right) a noncorporeal, genderless, energy-based lifeform who wears a containment suit as others would go mad at the sight of their true self<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Speaking of the world of Star Trek<\/strong><\/em>, there are a lot of firsts associated with Star Trek: Prodigy,<\/strong><\/em> but the team behind the series are planning on taking our young crew to familiar territory soon enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor canon, we’re very aware of what’s out there and you’ll see our crew heading closer to federation space,\u201d Kevin tells us. \u201cThere’s going to be a lot more familiar faces you might be seeing…\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, this is just the beginning for Star Trek: Prodigy<\/strong><\/em> and with the series already a big success in the US, the show has been commissioned for a second series before it has even hit the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 20 episodes that are going to be coming out [in the UK], and then we’re already doing a Season Two of another 20 episodes,\u201d Kevin informs us. \u201cWe’re writing episodes 39 and 40 right now, and it’s all one epic adventure.<\/p>\n

\u201cFear not. Everything builds, we have a strong ending for 20 and we have a super strong ending for 40. We hope that all of this is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have embraced it,\u201d Hibon adds. \u201cThe audience, the old fans, have really connected with some of the harking back to what they knew and rediscovering aspects of the shows that they loved. New audiences have discovered a universe that they can just mine for more because of all the other shows and I think that the medium of animation has allowed that to happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s definitely opening up opportunities for the Trek<\/strong><\/em> universe for Alex. Certainly to think about different ways and mediums to have more Trek<\/strong><\/em> adventures in, that’s for sure\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Star Trek: Prodigy will be showing from Mon 25th April \u2013 Fri 6th May, 6pm on weekdays on Nickelodeon.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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We speak to the cast and crew of the first Star Trek series developed for a younger audience: Star Trek: Prodigy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":123768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"MSN_Categories":"Entertainment","MSN_Publish_Option":true,"MSN_Is_Local_News":false,"MSN_Is_AIAC_Included":"Empty","MSN_Location":"[]","MSN_Add_Feature_Img_On_Top_Of_Post":false,"MSN_Has_Custom_Author":false,"MSN_Custom_Author":"","MSN_Has_Custom_Canonical_Url":false,"MSN_Custom_Canonical_Url":""},"categories":[1718,207],"tags":[7386],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/STPD-epi0106-001.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123761"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123761"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123779,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123761\/revisions\/123779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.scifinow.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}