StillPaisleyCat

While kdramas having been established in global popularity, cdramas are having a bit of a moment with international audiences.

Pursuit of Jade was recently the first to crack mainland China production to crack the Netflix non-English language top ten, and stayed on it for several weeks.

Outside China, cdrama fans seem to intersect with Star Trek fans more than one might expect. Perhaps it’s the willingness to watch massive numbers of episodes to enjoy a series? cdramas typically come in with 40 episode series, and in earlier years some had 60 or 70 episodes.

So, it seems inevitable that Star Trek cdrama fans would want to fancast reboots of classic Star Trek legacy characters with top Chinese Idol drama actors.

u/universalaxototal created these and posted them on cdramafans subreddit today. Shared with permission.

More are in the works for some of the women characters.

From the original post:

• ⁠Tan Jianci righteously commanding as Xiang-Luc Picard mic drop 🎤

• ⁠Liu Yuning looking so natural in Starfleet uniform. He definitely plays the saxophone […and towers over everyone at 1.91 metres.]

• ⁠Hou Minghao as Captain Kirk, absolutely seducing an alien woman on a distant planet while the away team pretends not to notice

⁠Deng Wei as Spock/Data 🖖

• ⁠Deng Wei also somehow managing the wearing of a hair accessory on his face (it is the future, luxury brands have collapsed, so the House of Chanel has had to pivot into quantum optics and interface technology)

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/38194424

Here’s the Godzilla Minus Zero ‘First Look’ teaser.

It short but there’s a lot to be hyped about. The cinematic feature will reportedly be released in IMAX.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/38193355

The THR article has details but no link to the actual teaser-trailer.

There are unconfirmed reports on YouTube that the official first teaser-trailer should be posted within the next hour ~ 7pm EDT.

The Artemis NASA

mission has a mascot named Rise — a stuffy that acts as a zero-G indicator.

At a certain angle, it’s face looks a lot like a favourite bone-drinking horror called Moopsy.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37765690

This Salon feature from two weeks back provides a good overview of the 70+ year Godzilla franchise and its relevance to current audiences. There’s an analysis of where Monarch: Legacy of Monsters fits in the franchise’s themes.

Our relationship with Godzilla changes from movie to movie and age to age. Some films cast the King of the Monsters as a protector unconsciously joining humanity – and occasionally, King Kong – to fend off some mammoth existential evil. More often, he is a reckoning, reminding us of how puny we are in nature’s schemes...

…each springs from the same mutated DNA, mapping the source of Earth’s monster problems to mindless warfare, along with the intellectual vanity compelling man to seek an upper hand over nature instead of figuring out how to coexist.

Godzilla and the other Titans stampeding in his wake are post-World War II creations; Ishirō Honda, who directed the OG “Godzilla,” was a veteran of that war marked by his travel through the ruins of Hiroshima after the United States bombed its civilians and Nagasaki to force Japan’s surrender. The Geneva Conventions’ protocols made such acts illegal, but as we’re discovering with alarming frequency and force these days, laws are only as effective as our willingness to abide by them…

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37655947

Mastdon post on creator’s account.

Not available yet at gricklemart.com but, his earlier Godzilla ones are there.

The first change.org petition to Renew “Star Trek: Starfleet Academy” for a third season hit 30,000 signatures today, and is over 31,000 at the time of this post.

The one at the post link is the one launched from the UK with the regrettable, unofficial (likely AI) image. But it was up first and has been getting momentum.

There’s another one Renew Star Trek Starfleet Academy for a full season three, with the official key art poster that is about to break 5,000 signatures.

Between these two, Starfleet Academy now has more signatures than did Prodigy when Netflix picked up its second season.

Clearly this is causing consternation among some of those who have opposed the show from the outset. There are now opposing petitions Urge Paramount to shelve Star Trek: Starfleet Academy season two; Keep the Academy series permanently cancelled; and similar. None of these has significant traction.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37528189

An interesting analysis of GvK’s place in the industry’s recovery as the COVID-19 pandemic emergency wound down sufficiently that theatres reopened.

Godzilla vs. Kong eventually earned $470 million worldwide, making it a true, unqualified success. It was the first sign that en masse moviegoing could still exist in whatever our new normal would look like.

The sigh from me is wondering why Andy Weir felt it necessary to use a platform like ‘criticaldrinker’ to go out of his way to trash recent Star Trek.

“They didn’t accept my pitch so, you know, fuck ‘em,” doesn’t really sell me on putting my dollars and eyeballs towards the success of his movie — no matter a great performance by Ryan Gosling or great production values.

Rather tells me why all Weir’s heros are lone-guy-saves-all-on-his-own tropes.

Quoting Weir in the interview:

Later, Marsden brought up the divisive Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, which Paramount+ recently confirmed will end after its already-shot second season.

“I think we can probably safely never talk about it again,” Marsden quipped. 

“It’s gone baby!” Weir cheerfully agreed. “It’s all gone.” 

Marsden said his advice to Paramount is to de-canonize everything Star Trek from Enterprise onward.

“Okay, you’re a little more severe than I am,” Weir said. “I’ll give you my opinion and I’m just a consumer. I like Strange New Worlds. I think it’s pretty good. I didn’t hate Enterprise. I thought it was kind of weird. Lower Decks I thought was entertaining and fun. All the others, they can go. And here’s another thing: I pitched a Star Trek show to Paramount and I was in Zoom with the showrunners with all the shows and spent a lot of time talking to [executive producer Alex Kurtzman]. I don’t like a lot of the new Trek. He, as a person, is a really nice guy. But at the same time, those shows are shit. He is a nice guy. But they didn’t accept my pitch so, you know, fuck ’em.”

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/37146040

While those of us who were already fans of the Monsterverse extended Godzilla universe continuity have been watching Monarch: Legacy of Monsters on AppleTV, it turns out that Amazon Prime has had a licence to stream it until March 31st.

Currently, the second season of this popular action epic is rolling out on Apple TV, but season 1 is one of the most-watched Prime Video shows on the planet at the moment. This brief stint on Prime Video will be short-lived, however, since the series will be removed from Prime Video less than 2 weeks on April 1, 2026. Don't miss your chance to binge this celebrated series before it's gone.

If you’re thinking of giving Monarch a try, and don’t have AppleTV, this may be a good opportunity.

cross-posted from: https://startrek.website/post/36676851

For those interested in creature models — both practical physical models and vfx — as well as anything Monsterverse or kaiju in general, this new AppleTV official featurette is a ‘must see.’

When to see it will depend on your interest in or willingness to be spoiled as it does give some things away about what’s upcoming in season two of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

It seems to make clear that Le Gran Dios de le Mar aka “Titan X” is a wholly new creation for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. There remains nonetheless much to speculate about.

Bill C-3, which came into effect Dec. 15, removes the first-generation limit to citizenship

A new piece from CBC on the coming into force of the legislative changes to Canadian citizenship by descent.

A couple of interesting points from further down the article:

Vermette says many Franco-Americans have long felt invisible on both sides of the border.

He believes Bill C-3 presents Quebec with a unique opportunity to repatriate or reclaim those who feel a connection to the province’s culture and language, even amid heightened controversy surrounding immigration and pressures linked to cultural and linguistic preservation.

"The Franco-American population is an untapped natural resource for Quebec," he said. . .

In a statement to CBC, the IRCC said it does not have an exact estimate of how many people might be affected by Bill C-3, but says it expects tens of thousands of requests for Canadian citizenship certificates over time. 

According to the IRCC website, at the beginning of March, almost 48,000 people were waiting for a decision pertaining to their certificate application, with an estimated processing time of 11 months.