Mojo: Firstly, your description alone has me slobbering, and I can't say I've bought anything from Pocket since the DS9TM. 128 pages at that size in full colour ought to inflate the sticker like mad, though. Is this thing going to run in the order of 70 bucks?

One thing that would cause the ship-heads to renounce pornography for good would be if, in the name of gleaning images from the archives, you could see about tracking down the lost Wolf 359 battle footage that Robert Legato had shot but later had to discard from "Emissary." Presumably you'll be sprinkling in all-new CGI renders of the battle... having the real unseen stuff (in there with your new art or as a starting point for the new stuff) would make it oh-so-much cooler from the fanboy point of view.

Note the warp nacelles' glow and the thin red lines going around the front of the hull to the registry and name. Oh well, I wonder why the computer model would be modified.

On a lighter note, I did get the book after several trips to the bookstore.

[ November 06, 2001: Message edited by: Ace ]

quote:

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Originally posted by The_Tom:

One thing that would cause the ship-heads to renounce pornography for good would be if, in the name of gleaning images from the archives, you could see about tracking down the lost Wolf 359 battle footage that Robert Legato had shot but later had to discard from "Emissary."

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1) Being in Australia - it'll take forever for them to release the fekking new book. Could you jump on someone to get their act together!?! I *STILL* haven't seen the new Calendars yet... although there are reports trickling through that they are appearing.

2) If you're going to do 'history' shots for this Unseen Frontier's book... we should start a new thread for suggestions!

We definately have to have Original Enterprise stuff (I'm talking KIRK and co. here).

I had a thought about something from DS9 - a few things?

Maybe a 'departure of the Cardassians' from a week or two before the events in 'Emissary'? Or even a depiction of the battle by the Rouge Jem'Hadar in "To The Death"?? where they blew off an entire upper pylon on DS9!

Please maybe a peak at some ships that we never saw much of in action? The destruction of Walker Keel's Ambassador class ship from "Conspiracy" Or the orbiting ships of Dytallix B in that episode - 2 New Orleans, 1 Amassador and 1 Galaxy class starship!

- The book WILL be more expensive than most, but I don't think it will be more than 30 or 40 bucks.

- Even if I could track down 'lost' battle footage of Wolf 359, it would only come from video masters and look fairly fuzzy and grainy when printed. This means ALL the battle scenes will be NEW!

- Everyone also needs to remember that this book is not a Foundation Imaging effort - I will be the sole author. Mind you, I'll be using the Foundation models, having new ones made and getting A LOT of help from other artists!

- It would be VERY time consuming and expensive to effectively take new live action pictures. Costumes, sets, actors... with such a wealth of photography at my dispsoal, the ends would not justify the means. That being said, I plan to go through both Paramount and Pocket Books' Star Trek photo archive with a fine tooth comb and use (as often as possible) photo material that has not been seen before. Also a possibility is, as opposed to taking new pictures, digitally manipulating existing ones. 'Nuff said.

- Most of the chapters will deal with major events - the kinds of things that would have made headlines if we were living the the 24th century. Perhaps the 'showstopper' of the book will be a huge, chronological history of the Borg - taking every event from the Raven to 'Endgame' and mapping it out through pictures (this is where we will see Wolf 359). I also have a few surprises in store, but I can't say anymore until things get approved!

- By all means, I'd like to hear suggestions. Nothing is set in stone yet, so...

If there a thread for this book yet?

You've discussed your plans an concepts for "Unseen Frontier" here many times. Throughout it all, you've kept mentioning a variant or the same phrase: "The events we know as seen through something like National Geographic." This line is what has really stuck with me.

Like most of the people here I'm sure, I've grown up reading NG all my life. I don't really look at it that often nowadays due to fiduciary concerns, but when I do, the images are always what grab me, even if they concern an article I'm not particularly interested in. I've had the good fortune to meet and talk lengthily with many NG photographers, both staff and freelance, and so the stories they have to tell are stuck in my mind as well.

One of the reasons NG is held in such high regard is because it excels at its primary goal: to bring understanding of the world around us home to the average person. Whether it be through funding expeditions to the Weddell Sea and the Kalahari or simply sending a field reporter to live in Brussels or Ville De Qu�bec for three months, the experiences and stories of other places are brought to us in a short, hardhitting and striking form. Many of us on this forum are naval history fans; who among us can forget the late 1985 issue of NG in which Bob Ballard published his first mosaic images of Titanic? I was ten years old and they still take my breath away. I remember leafing through old issues with articles about the circumnavigation and later polar voyage of the Nautilus. I remember seeing the shots of Robert Falcon Scott's final fateful encampment in Antarctica. I've seen underwater shots of black smokers and aerial images of a barren glacier with three small dots on it--a Norwegian scaling team.

These are the same things that should be captured in "Unseen Frontier," the same breathtaking feel. Some of this can come from ships, yes, but let the word "unseen" by the guide. We've seen Wolf 359; what about the aftermath, the cleanup effort? Was there one, or is it now like the Arizona memorial? The comings and goings of a busy spaceport; all DS9 has shown us is a few floating vessels--nothing like a real harbor. Are there festivities for Federation Day like Independence Day? Did they have something like OpSail on the Federation's 200th birthday in 2361?

But the Trek galaxy--like the real world--is more than just starships. There's people. Legends. Heroes. Cultures. So many unknowns. Celebrations after the end of a war, whether it be the Dominion War, Cardassian Wars, Romulan Wars. The memorial service for James T. Kirk in late 2293. Someone suggested the signing of the First Khitomer Accords. There's interstellar phenomena, natural wonders of black holes and pulsars and nebulae. These are all things that the average Federation citizen wouldn't know about. Even other worlds in and out of the Federation: Betazed, Andor, Tellar. Trill's oceans were said to be purple in a DS9 episode; who knows from purple water?

"Omnipotent observation" is fine for calendars; there it's not expected. For "Unseen Frontier," as a reader, I'd like it to be more first-person. I'd like to feel that there was a person there who saw this perfect image and captured it so that others may share and revel in its power, its beauty, its sense of amazement. That sense of humanity is what would set this project apart from all others. (Indeed, an idea has just hit me on a way to help accomplish that feel. Often in NG itself and most definitely in its compilation tomes, there are comments from photographers and staff on the power of the imagery--what they felt when they saw the sight, how they decided to choose that particular one, how that perfect combination just happened to come together at the right moment. Comments like that--not just from humans, but others--would definitely help with the touch.)

I encourage you to take all of the above to heart. Following this train of thought, this overall feeling and setting will almost guarantee that the book will reach beyond the hardcore audience that the more recent offerings have pandered to. I know for a fact that this is something many friends would be overawed at and by, not so much because it's Trek, but because of what it could BE. They are not the kind of people to purcashe technical manuals and don't care if a bird-of-prey has been rescaled or not. They are the "casual fans," the one who enjoy the stories and imagery, the ones who've been left in the lurch. This is a chance to reconcile the two ends of the markets in a most spectacular way.