Conventions and Events, Star Trek Discovery

Star Trek Discovery Panels at Star Trek Las Vegas. Pt1

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On the opening day there are four…yes there are FOUR panels dedicated to Star Trek Discovery this Wednesday at Creation Entertainments Star Trek Las Vegas… the first was the highly anticipated Star Trek Writers Room panel with Ted Sullivan, Kirsten Beyer and Akiva Goldsman.

If you don’t follow Ted on twitter already, you must. Not only Ted is a writer and supervising producer on Discovery he is a massive super fan of Star Trek. I was lucky enough to meet him and his companion #JasonGorn and exchanged a brief chat about Star Trek and it’s like talking to any other fan at a convention that you’ve never met before but you share a common love of a show called Star Trek.

Inside the Star Trek Discovery Writers Room

Here are our tweets summarising the panel.

Conclusion: These are people who understand the very essence of Star Trek,they ARE the essence of Star Trek. I came away knowing the franchise is in the best hands possible.

Highlight: Witnessing the transitioning of fans of Star Trek into creatives and caretakers of Star Trek.

Weird Bit: Went to ask a question and my knee started bleeding!

Introducing Star Trek Discovery Cast

Immediately after (I mean immediately, no bathroom breaks here!)  our favourite person Scott Mantz took to the stage to host the second panel feature some of the cast (not seen at San Diego Comic Con) including Mary Cheiffo (L’Rell), Kenneth Mitchell (Kol), Sam Vartholomeos (Ensign Connor) and surprise guest Wilson Cruz (Dr Hugh Culber) who won the hearts and minds of the entire audience.

Firstly I must share how blown away I was to the dedication these actors have to their craft. they have gone all out!

Mary Cheiffo brings depth on both an intellectual and emotional level.  She told us that she was introduced to Star Trek at the new movies and considered herself a fan from then on.

She is VERY invested in her character. To the extent that she wishes to speak Klingon fluently! This has long been a desire of my own so I instantly fangirled when she mentioned it.

Together with Kenneth Mitchell they have been practicing Klingon together and found it easier to remember lines when they worked collaboratively. In case you hadn’t heard, Klingons will speak Klingon with subtitles.

Mary and Kenneth even treated the audience to some lines direct from the show. Their accent and delivery are spot on. They’re the experts on Klingons now, I don’t know many fans (if any) who could compete with them.

They have a Klingon Grammarian working on set, Robyn Stewart, who helps with understanding the language and dialect coaches to assist with pronunciation. This is probably why they speak brilliant Klingon and why my Michael Dorn ‘conversational Klingon’ cassette tape has taught me how to spit up phlegm .

They explained the look of Klingons being different and Kenneth told us that we had only seen images from one house.  A picture was revealed of Kol who looks a bit more like the 24th Century Klingons we’re familiar with. He then dropped the bombshell that he was from the house of KOR!!

Sam Vartholomeos shared how he was convinced when he auditioned that his character would be a relation of Chekov. His impression was spot on! He also confirmed that the bridge of the USS Shenzhou is underneath the saucer section which fans had speculated.

The most heartwarming and tear-jerking part was listening to Wilson Cruz speak. This guy is going to be a BIG HIT at Star Trek Conventions in the future and the franchise will be much richer for his involvement.

Conclusion: In all the series of Star Trek I’ve never witnessed such an invested cast. Many actors on other series haven’t watched their own show let alone watched other incarnations of their franchise.

Highlight: Wilson talking about how proud he is to be part of this historic role in Star Trek

“I’m incredibly proud to be part of this story. This is a big deal, a kid will turn on the TV in September who is questioning their sexuality and they’re going to see two men love each other. And we’re not going to explain it. It will be what is it” – Wilson Cruz

Weird Bit: That realisation that soon these people will be beamed into all our TV’s/Tablets etc and will be as much part of our Star Trek narrative as Captain Kirk, Seven of Nine and Photon Torpedoes.

 

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