World premiere of ‘The Child’ at Dragon*Con
Poster art for 'The Child' by Jeff Hayes.
ATLANTA — The latest episode of Star Trek: Phase II, “The Child,” had its world premiere Labor Day weekend at Dragon*Con, America’s largest fan-run scifi and media convention, featuring the work of Blue Seraph’s Carlos Pedraza and J.T. Tepnapa.
A rough cut of the episode, featuring most of the finished visual effects, was screened as part of the Star Trek track at the 23rd annual convention. On hand for the presentation were Carlos, J.T., Ben Alpi (of Blue Seraph’s partner, Runic Films) and James Cawley (Phase II’s executive producer).
This year was Carlos’ fifth as a guest at Dragon*Con. He appeared on panels for both the Star Trek and Writing tracks at the convention.
Carlos edited the script with its original author, Jon Povill,
who penned the teleplay for Paramount Pictures’ Phase II series in the 1970s. In addition, Carlos served as a producer and first assistant director of this production.
J.T. appears as a series regular, Mister Sulu, and worked as an on-set acting coach.
Povill also directed this newest production. Another version of “The Child” was produced as an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG) during the 1988 writers’ strike.
Povill, not a fan of the TNG adaptation, wanted to helm a production that was true to his original story, which introduced the Deltan race that was later seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Phase II News
“The Child” is still in post-production and isn’t likely to be released on the Web until sometime in 2010. Still up for release this fall is “Blood and Fire, Part 2,” written by Carlos, along with longtime Trek scribe David Gerrold.
Further down the Phase II pipeline is:
- “Enemy: Starfleet,” which Carlos co-produced and assistant directed, and in which J.T. stars as Sulu. The episode awaits additional principal photography this fall, though some of its post-production is complete.
- “Kitumba,” which Carlos story-edited, and which was shot this past summer.
For more information, see the Star Trek: Phase II Web site.
