The first panel I attended at last month’s San Diego Comic Con was “The Gene Roddenberry Legacy: Roddenberry in the 21st Century.” From the program – Building on his father’s legacy with Star Trek, Rod Roddenberry and Roddenberry Productions are bringing the Roddenberry philosophy into the 21st century, through their work on the forthcoming feature documentary Trek Nation, as well as the development of original content in webcomics such as Rod & Barry and Gene’s Journal. This panel features exclusive Comic-Con looks at new Roddenberry content and projects currently in development. Featuring Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, Trevor Roth (COO of Roddenberry Productions), and Allen Holzman (Emmy Award winning editor).
During the panel, we were able to view a newly finished trailer of Trek Nation, which has been in development for several years now. As a life-long Trek fan, I found it extremely poignant. And I’m looking forward to seeing the film in its entirety, when it’s completed.
Following their panel, I was able to interview Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry and Trevor Roth:
What is your timeline for Trek Nation?
Rod: We kind of don’t want to give timelines just because over the last few years, we’ve been saying in the next year. But we feel really comfortable with Allen (Holzman), obviously, and the direction we’re going. We’re looking at 3 to 4 months for a rough cut then a number of months afterwards to put a final together. I don’t want to be too presumptuous, but my hope is to get it together within 8 to 10 months.
Trevor: Yeah, our hope is that with the new movie coming out, that we’ll have this be something that people can enjoy along side the film.
A possible new generation of fan base.
Trevor: Absolutely. But we don’t have any firm dates on the cut. We don’t want to make any promises we can’t keep.
Are there trailers for Trek Nation available online?
Trevor: The new trailer that just debuted here will be available online shortly. Go to our website (http://roddenberry.com/) or http://TrekNationdoc.com to view.
How did you come up with the new comics with David Reddick?
Trevor: We have a table of ideas in development, and those particular ideas were things that we had thought of for a long time. But we didn’t really have a media vehicle, so we kind of put them aside. And when we came across David Reddick who was doing StarTrek.com’s Trek Life, we realized these (ideas) would be great for comics. So we basically took them out of the basement and continued to develop them. And he said “Absolutely, I can do something with this.”
And are you guys involved with the writing of the comics?
Rod: I try to get involved every now and then.
Trevor: David is a tremendous talent, and we want to utilize that talent on a day to day basis. And we are basically deciding “Is this Rod & Barry? Is this not Rod & Barry?”
But beyond that we stay editors rather than creators. They’re taking our concept and kind of helping us run with it.
You mentioned (in the panel) possible animation in the future for the webcomics. Are you thinking about print as well?
Trevor: We have a whole number of things swirling around, because they (the comics) are being received so well. Also, possible merchandise opportunities. We also talked about compilation books that might be put together, behind-the-scenes stuff that we have, what the sketches were at the beginning and what they became, and all that kind of stuff. Overall, I think that we have a lot of length in addition to live animation.
Rod: I think the characters and concepts are fantastic. I think the webcomics are just, I know it sounds cliché, but the tip of the iceburg. So much more can happen with these characters, so much personality in all of them.
Thanks to Rod and Trevor for their time! And be sure to check out Rod & Barry and Gene’s Journal at Roddenberry.com!
