Comment on Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x01 "Kids These Days" & 1x02 "Beta Test"

• StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  As an animated Trek fan, that definitely irks, especially as it’s an animated sequence.

  I have a suspicion that there’s something about animated design IP rights behind the decision though.

  The old owners had decided to jettison animated Star Trek, and some other Paramount+ animated content to make the streamer mainly live action focused. Which, at the time this was announced, seemed very odd because Paramount’s owners were trying to sell the firm to Skydance, which is a major producer of high end animation for streamers.

  So, my thought is that Skydance wants its own animation studio to be doing any future animated content for Paramount. There will be exceptions for long running Nickelodeon animation such as SpongeBob, Beavis and Butthead or Dora the Explorer, but relatively recent creations will get short shrift.

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  • Lumidaub@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    You sound like you know what you’re talking about while I know very little if anything - how does that IP rights stuff mean that the Cerritos and the Protostar can’t be in that sequence?

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    • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Generally, Paramount owns all Star Trek IP rights.

      However, reusing some things isn’t cost less. In some cases, they have to pay residuals to specific individuals or subcontractors who have creative rights.

      Historically, this has led to weirdness such as renaming the Locarno character from the TNG episode ’Lower Decks’, played by Robert Duncan McNeill, to become Tom Paris in Voyager because Paramount didn’t want to pay the writer who got scrip credit for the TNG episode ongoing residuals for creating the character.

      I don’t know enough about whether creators of animated character designs have rights to similar kinds of residuals, or the production houses like Titmouse for Lower Decks, but one has to wonder. It was so strange that Paramount+ suddenly said it was refocusing away from animation just as Skydance started its moves to acquire it.

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    • samus12345@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Protostar is Nickelodeon, but I don’t see any reason the Cerritos couldn’t be used.

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