OTOY and The Roddenberry Estate Unveil the First Immersive Roddenberry Archive Experiences, Multi-year Roadmap to Preserve the History of Roddenberry's Star Trek Work across Movies, TV and Literature

News provided by

Aug 25, 2022, 20:26 ET

At Creation Las Vegas, OTOY and the Roddenberry Estate showcase the first real-time interactive and fully immersive previews of the Roddenberry Archive, a multi-decade collaboration to preserve Gene Roddenberry's lifetime of work for future generations to experience in next generation media formats.

LAS VEGAS, Aug. 25, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a year of production work after announcing the Roddenberry Archive during Gene Roddenberry's centennial celebrations, OTOY Inc. and the Roddenberry Estate previewed the first interactive life-sized recreations of the Starship Enterprise at Creation: Las Vegas 2022. The 1:1 scale Enterprise models and sets are being recreated to visualize the history of Star Trek in new holographic mediums for future generations to experience Gene Roddenberry's legacy with the highest levels of immersion and historical fidelity.

Roddenberry Archive 1 Year in Review Featured at Creation 2022

Mahé Thaissa as J.M. Colt (c. 2267) based on the character’s portrayed in Captain's Log: Pike (IDW 2015)

The fully immersive, interactive 360-degree experience allows fans to navigate through every filmed location of the Starship Enterprise as shown in “The Cage”, and interact with the ship’s environment as if they were on board the actual ship in the year 2254 during that episode.

Presented for the first time were breathtaking holographically captured recreations of scenes from Star Trek’s early TV, literary and film history

Roddenberry and OTOY showcased "The Cage" experience, enabling viewers to explore the Starship Enterprise as created by Gene Roddenberry for the initial pilot of Star Trek. The fully immersive, interactive 360-degree experience allows audiences to navigate around the Starship Enterprise Bridge and even sit in Captain Pike's chair as if they were there on-set of the episode in 1964.

Also unveiled at Creation were breathtaking recreations of scenes from Star Trek's early TV and film history that can be explored in 3D with actors Mahé Thaissa and Lawrence Selleck bringing the Cage's Yeoman Colt and Mr. Spock to life. Recreations of the "The Cage" set and Enterprise Bridge was overseen by preeminent Star Trek cast and crew including Denise and Mike Okuda, authors of Star Trek: The Encyclopedia, and renowned Star Trek Visual Effects artists Doug Drexler and Daren Dochterman.

On a panel on the main stage, moderated by Gates McFadden, Dr. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation to Star Trek: Picard, OTOY's Founder and CEO, Jules Urbach, Rod Roddenberry, President of Roddenberry Entertainment, Denise and Mike Okuda, and Daren Dochterman discussed the past year of work on the Roddenberry Archive.

The team presented "765874" - a concept video exploring the world of Gene Roddenberry's vision for Star Trek - from the Cage to The Motion Picture - using cutting-edge virtual production technologies as well as innovative LightStage scans of original Star Trek uniforms, props, and archival materials. "765874" was also accompanied by a second teaser "765874: Memory Wall" - unveiled specifically for the event - that builds on the previous teaser with an additional minute of groundbreaking visuals.

Rod Roddenberry closed the panel with an experimental test of how this technology might one day be used to potentially bring the Star Trek animated series to life - as if it were filmed in live-action as a continuation of the 1960's TV show created by his father.

Rod Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said "We started archiving materials from my father's life over a decade ago hoping to preserve not just the iconic objects that made Star Trek such a successful franchise but more importantly the personal notes, internal documents, and never seen prototypes that fueled the various iterations of Star Trek. We wanted to provide a behind-the-scenes personal story about Gene and the evolution of the series, which has made such a profound impact on the development of humanity in the 20th century, inspiring so many around the world." Roddenberry added, "With new real time and holographic technologies it is getting more and more possible to immerse new generations who didn't experience Star Trek first-hand into my father's universe, and we are thrilled to push forward on this new frontier in collaboration with 3D graphics pioneer, OTOY."

According to CEO and Co-Founder of OTOY, Jules Urbach, "For over a decade we have been collaborating with The Roddenberry Estate to preserve Gene Roddenberry's legacy. Today's release marks the first steps towards capturing Gene's work in a new way that is fully immersive and interactive for future generations to experience Star Trek as if they were there in 1964." Urbach added, "Gene Roddenberry saw into the future and projected a vision of the future where remarkable technologies affirmed the human spirit and ethical powers. Technological advances today in holographic imaging and real time graphics are making recreating his vision ever more possible and we are thrilled to work with the Roddenberry Estate to preserve Gene's salient messages for humanity in the most authentic and open ways possible."

The immersive experiences and new concept videos were accompanied by the release of three supplemental video logs providing archival behind-the-scenes testimony for the creation of the first Star Trek pilot, "the Cage". The videos featured interviews inside fully recreated life-sized Star Trek virtual production sets with Star Trek historians Denise and Michael Okuda; Chis Hunter, son of Jeffrey Hunter who played Captain Pike in The Cage; Sean Kenney who played Captain Pike in "The Menagerie", and Robert Butler, director of "The Cage". The videos feature fully recreated 3D models as well as archival photographs of "The Cage" production, set designs, costume designs and behind the scenes material drawn from thousands of documents that have been digitally archived by The Roddenberry Estate in collaboration with OTOY.

The Roddenberry Archive immersive experience and behind-the-scenes video logs are available for the public to view during the span of the convention this week. Original Roddenberry Archive materials are preserved on the Render Network, providing an open blockchain digital archive of all of Gene Roddenberry's lifetime of works in an open format for future generations to access.

About OTOY Inc.

OTOY Inc. is the definitive cloud graphics company, pioneering technology that is redefining content creation and delivery for media and entertainment organizations around the world. OTOY's Academy Award^®-winning technology is used by leading visual effects studios, artists, animators, designers, architects, and engineers, providing unprecedented creative freedom, new levels of realism, and new economics in content creation and distribution powered by the cloud. For more information, visit www.otoy.com.

SOURCE OTOY Inc.