Special Season: "Secret of Vulcan Fury"

mckurland91

After finding out a lot of information regarding this one "Star Trek" video game that never came to be, "Secret of Vulcan Fury", I'm thinking why can't this story written by D.C. Fontana become a special season for "Star Trek Online?" The original game would've featured all of the Original Series cast reprising their roles, a multi-part mystery adventure, and finally the full explanation for the Vulcan/Romulan separation. It was originally being developed for Interplay by Tribal Dreams before the plug was pulled in 1999. I'm one of many who wants to finally unveil this untold voyage of the Starship "Enterprise."
"Star Trek Online: Secret of Vulcan Fury"
Featuring the Voices of:
William Shatner as "Capt. James Tiberius Kirk"
Leonard Nimoy as "Commander Spock"
DeForest Kelley & Maurice LaMarche as "Dr. Leonard McCoy" (Kelley died before all of his dialogue was finished.)
James Doohan as "Scotty"
Walter Koenig as "Pavel Chekov"
Nichelle Nichols as "Lt. Commander Uhura"
And George Takei as "Hikaru Sulu"

Based Upon "Star Trek" Created by Gene Roddenberry
Story by Dorothy "D.C." Fontana
Script/Voice Direction: John Meredyth Lucas

angrytarg

Did they actually finish the recordimg and are those files still around?

Aside frombthat I suppose the legal hassle would be momumental. I'd wish some studio could pick up the pieces and make it into a modern adventure using the old recordings rather than a STO episode.

gaevsman

All the rights belong to Interplay, it would be great for an arc thou, based on the oringinal story.. "Secrets of V'Las", or something like that..

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angrytarg

I think that's because the license just alliws you to use names and visuals, the work itself (assets, scripts, voice work) is still original work and belongs to the creator, even if it looks like the IP.

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artan42

darthmeow504 wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

I think that's because the license just alliws you to use names and visuals, the work itself (assets, scripts, voice work) is still original work and belongs to the creator, even if it looks like the IP.

But why is that? Work for hire clauses exist where all work created specifically to function inside an existing IP belongs to the owners of the IP. Comic books, for example, couldn't operate without them. It makes no sense that Trek work for hire wouldn't or at least shouldn't operate the same way. Then anyone working on stuff in the franchise has access to anything else made within the franchise. Again, like comics. A writer of Marvel Whatever Comic Number 354 doesn't have to ask the creator of Doctor Doom to use him in a story, she just has to clear it with editorial. It should be that way here as well. The fact that it doesn't for whatever reason is a failure to adequately handle the legal end of things.

Except it does work like that. Neil Gaiman owns the Sandman characters and DC needs permission if they want to use one despite the fact Sandman is owned by DC.
Terry Nation estate owns the Daleks and the BBC has to ask permission before using them in an episode even though the entire lisence for Doctor Who is owned by the BBC.

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angrytarg

darthmeow504 wrote: »

That's two examples, it's clearly not always the case. As I said, "work for hire" contracts exist. If I worked on a Star Trek project, I wouldn't expect to retain rights to anything I did under contract in CBS' sandbox any more than I would expect to retain anything I wrote for Marvel Comics. I can't imagine how you manage a shared universe without such contracts.

You can say "work for hire" as much as you want, I am not aware of a single case where a licensed game did not reserve all rights to the original work. You have to see it like this, licensed or not, the work is still done. The team created assets from scratch, wrote a script, programmed the thing, all this is their work and cannot be taken away. The license is simply exchanging names and the "paintjob" of the work, but it could just as well work without the license in a original setting, but it would be less popular, most likely. Cryptic cannot use things from novels for STO except when they obtain the specific author's license for the elements they want to use. See Larry Niven who kept the rights for the Kzinti, despite them appearing in TAS and he or his estate did not allow Cryptic to use them, nor mention them in any other installment of Trek.​​

silverlobes

mckurland91 wrote: »

After finding out a lot of information regarding this one "Star Trek" video game that never came to be, "Secret of Vulcan Fury", I'm thinking why can't this story written by D.C. Fontana become a special season for "Star Trek Online?" The original game would've featured all of the Original Series cast reprising their roles, a multi-part mystery adventure, and finally the full explanation for the Vulcan/Romulan separation. It was originally being developed for Interplay by Tribal Dreams before the plug was pulled in 1999. I'm one of many who wants to finally unveil this untold voyage of the Starship "Enterprise."
"Star Trek Online: Secret of Vulcan Fury"
Featuring the Voices of:
William Shatner as "Capt. James Tiberius Kirk"
Leonard Nimoy as "Commander Spock"
DeForest Kelley & Maurice LaMarche as "Dr. Leonard McCoy" (Kelley died before all of his dialogue was finished.)
James Doohan as "Scotty"
Walter Koenig as "Pavel Chekov"
Nichelle Nichols as "Lt. Commander Uhura"
And George Takei as "Hikaru Sulu"

Based Upon "Star Trek" Created by Gene Roddenberry
Story by Dorothy "D.C." Fontana
Script/Voice Direction: John Meredyth Lucas

A couple of reasons:
-Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and James Doohan are dead.
-Shatner apparently won't appear in Star Trek Online (which is why in Return to Babel, Kirk is only seen lying facedown on the floor )
-Rights to the material.

I believe the best we could hope for, is either Cryptic (somehow) acquires the rights and uses actors from Star Trek Continues for the voices (Chris Doohan has voiced Scotty's dialogue in the 23rd Century stuff and Vic Mignona voiced Admiral Garrett) or, they re-write the material into something which occurs in a different era, and use other voice actors.

If anything was to happen, it definitely won't be as per the original concept...

angrytarg

@silverlobes: Appearantly, the recording was already finished according to internet sources like TrekCore ( http://gaming.trekcore.com/secretofvulcanfury/faq.html ). Assuming the files weren't deleted when the development was scrapped, it's all still archived somewhere.​​

silverlobes

angrytarg wrote: »

@silverlobes: Appearantly, the recording was already finished according to internet sources like TrekCore ( http://gaming.trekcore.com/secretofvulcanfury/faq.html ). Assuming the files weren't deleted when the development was scrapped, it's all still archived somewhere.​​

Ooooh, if the original recordings are still on file, then acquiring them is a possibility, then using them would be awesome Not sure Cryptic would get round the Shatner-issue though... If he won't let them use his image, then the recordings of his voice wouldn't really be useable either :-/

artan42

darthmeow504 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

darthmeow504 wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

I think that's because the license just alliws you to use names and visuals, the work itself (assets, scripts, voice work) is still original work and belongs to the creator, even if it looks like the IP.

But why is that? Work for hire clauses exist where all work created specifically to function inside an existing IP belongs to the owners of the IP. Comic books, for example, couldn't operate without them. It makes no sense that Trek work for hire wouldn't or at least shouldn't operate the same way. Then anyone working on stuff in the franchise has access to anything else made within the franchise. Again, like comics. A writer of Marvel Whatever Comic Number 354 doesn't have to ask the creator of Doctor Doom to use him in a story, she just has to clear it with editorial. It should be that way here as well. The fact that it doesn't for whatever reason is a failure to adequately handle the legal end of things.

Except it does work like that. Neil Gaiman owns the Sandman characters and DC needs permission if they want to use one despite the fact Sandman is owned by DC.
Terry Nation estate owns the Daleks and the BBC has to ask permission before using them in an episode even though the entire lisence for Doctor Who is owned by the BBC.

That's two examples, it's clearly not always the case. As I said, "work for hire" contracts exist. If I worked on a Star Trek project, I wouldn't expect to retain rights to anything I did under contract in CBS' sandbox any more than I would expect to retain anything I wrote for Marvel Comics. I can't imagine how you manage a shared universe without such contracts.

That's two because the first was given directly against your comicbook statement and the second I picked as Star Trek is a TV show like Doctor Who. If you want more examples I'll give them to you but the point still remains that content creators can own their own material even if working for an IP.

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artan42

darthmeow504 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

darthmeow504 wrote: »

artan42 wrote: »

darthmeow504 wrote: »

angrytarg wrote: »

I think that's because the license just alliws you to use names and visuals, the work itself (assets, scripts, voice work) is still original work and belongs to the creator, even if it looks like the IP.

But why is that? Work for hire clauses exist where all work created specifically to function inside an existing IP belongs to the owners of the IP. Comic books, for example, couldn't operate without them. It makes no sense that Trek work for hire wouldn't or at least shouldn't operate the same way. Then anyone working on stuff in the franchise has access to anything else made within the franchise. Again, like comics. A writer of Marvel Whatever Comic Number 354 doesn't have to ask the creator of Doctor Doom to use him in a story, she just has to clear it with editorial. It should be that way here as well. The fact that it doesn't for whatever reason is a failure to adequately handle the legal end of things.

Except it does work like that. Neil Gaiman owns the Sandman characters and DC needs permission if they want to use one despite the fact Sandman is owned by DC.
Terry Nation estate owns the Daleks and the BBC has to ask permission before using them in an episode even though the entire lisence for Doctor Who is owned by the BBC.

That's two examples, it's clearly not always the case. As I said, "work for hire" contracts exist. If I worked on a Star Trek project, I wouldn't expect to retain rights to anything I did under contract in CBS' sandbox any more than I would expect to retain anything I wrote for Marvel Comics. I can't imagine how you manage a shared universe without such contracts.

That's two because the first was given directly against your comicbook statement and the second I picked as Star Trek is a TV show like Doctor Who. If you want more examples I'll give them to you but the point still remains that content creators can own their own material even if working for an IP.

DEPENDING ON THE CONTRACT! What part of that do you not understand? Clearly "work for hire" contracts are legal and in use elsewhere in the industry, I'm questioning why they weren't used in these cases of past work for hire in the Star Trek IP. That decision is a failure of the legal department to do things in such a way that the rights owner of the IP retains control of things they license and pay to create in their own IP.

It's a good thing you know better than their legal team then. I imagine they're kicking themselves that the hired a bunch of lawyers when they should have just given you a call. It's almost like that might have perfectly good reasons why the say up works as it has and not how some randomer with no legal training at all thinks it should.

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