more on them at cubicspace.wordpress.com

larryr
cube3.com

really- only genre works… you need a world, not a story. to truly succeed across disparate media.

larryr
cube3.com

I totally see what you’re getting at, but I still think that Star Trek – at least where it is now, counts philosophically… and probably because of fan interaction. After Next Generation came out, the word canon started getting thrown around Trekverse and questions started forming that fans wanted answers to: What is the exact timeline? Is The Motion Picture still accurate? Why did Khan recognize Chekov? Where does the Animated Series fitin?

The Trek higherups – Rick Berman especially – had to start working at where all this fit in, then they made expansions to the whole with that in mind. Voyager wasn’t an accident, it purposefully expanded a part of the universe that hadn’t been hit before and brought those themes full circle, especially where major factions like the Borg were concerned. Likewise, Enterprise fleshed out the begining of the entire thing, showing the proto-Federation moving towards the ideals that Kirk ignored and Picard upheld. It didn’t originally fit your philosophical definition (and I do not mean that to sound antagonistic, just acknowledging what you defined)but after the new shows came out it did. This is not even touching the non-visual media.

And I totally get you are not attacking Trek, and I am honestly not having a fanboi defend reaction. I do feel that it fits the philosophy of transmedia as you defined it though, and I am happy to debate it. However, that debate is also stopping me from writing, so I am gonna need to put it on hold. I will say that one of the things I dig about new areas is how debates like this is what hammers out what the topic is – I would say right now, it is very difficult to define what is right or wrong, and that all of this will contribute to the greater whole in time.

Well, not this particular conversation. The last thing I want to see is a transcript of this sitting in the Media Smithsonian for future school kids to ignore.

Something that is philosophically transmedia has nothing to do with where it ends up, and has everything to do with where it begins. Star Trek was simply created at a time where transmedia opportunities did not exist. They weren’t on the radar. The TV show was it, just a TV show. A movie came out of that, but not because it’s what was necessary for the storyworld — it’s because the TV show failed and someone wanted to see if they could punch some life into the property.

Further, Star Trek really gets a few films under its belt before it starts to spread itself out — new TV shows, novels, and eventually games. And a lot of that comes out of licensing. Meaning, it wasn’t necessarily a centrally-driven property. The company controlled the property, not Roddenberry. He planned a second TV show, not a film. And when time came to do a second film, his film was rejected, and he was replaced. No cohesive whole, there. Nobody was identifying that “central bullet hole.”

For it to be philosophically transmedia, someone would’ve — from the ground up — conceived of how Star Trek could’ve been X, Y, and Z. It would’ve grown these things together from the beginning. Further, part of the plan from the beginning would also be how to include audience investment and some degree of audience control.

To be clear, I’m not insulting Star Trek. Technically, it’s a transmedia marvel. But philosophically, it just ain’t there.

Star Wars is perhaps a closer example to something that’s philosophically transmedia, because Lucas had unprecedented control over his property. But even with that in mind, he didn’t have a lot of room for audience involvement (though the toys might count). That’s kind of my point, ultimately: now is the time for transmedia. Not then. Now. Then, we didn’t have the tools, the understanding, the interest. Now, we do.

And to speak to Shoe’s point: transmedia, to me, has nothing to do with cultural viability or visability. Those are two separate axes — something can be transmedia without ever making a ripple, without ever selling well or worming its way into the public consciousness. Further, something that’s in the public consciousness needn’t be transmedia to do so.

– c.

I completely understand where you are coming from Chuck, when you call it on being unintentional; I don’t think that holds up in saying it didn’t become massively successful in the transmedia boat. To me, that seems like saying Magellan or Amerigo Vespucci weren’t explorers because they didn’t intentionally discover new land masses – they just kind of found the land.

To me, Star Trek seems like it would be one of the founders, one of the ways that boldy broke new ground, where no ground was broke before (alright, others had, but I had to get the reference in). Now that the transmedia cherry has been popped, its up to us to refine the idea and make it sing, sing like a little fat kid bribed with a pudding pop. We can see where franchises like Trek (and others) hit it right by accident, then replicate, refine, and expand upon those results – it’s the very basics of any new discipline. Until we do this, the old crowd will keep it’s head in the sand.

As always, that’s my 3.6 cents (adjusting for CAD).

I’m surprisedto hear mention of Star Trek as Transmedia technically, but not philosophically. Truth is, when I saw that, I smacked my head that I hadn’t thought of it sooner. I am coming from ignorance of Star Trek, but that’s valid: a good indicator of a robust storyworld is when people who’ve never dipped in a toe could still recite pertinent facts and mimic a few characters. I might have read one book, maybe, seen one movie (it had Patrick Stewart and robots in it.) and..I think someone made me watch an episode with bouncy darling murderwiggles in it because they said it was part of my Cultural Education. Or PopCultural, at least.
So from someone wholly outside, Star Trek seems very Transmedia in philosophy. Not only did it insinuate itself into the mass culture, it seems like all the bits of it I know of did wind in and around and about one another, and you could find people from the movies in the books and such. No wait, the book I had Grand Moff Tarkin. Scratch that bit. ANYHOW, it seems that way to me. Then again, early examples of things are exciting to me.

You are much more aware of pop culture and modern entertainment that I am, you know. Me, I’m inspired by this to think of Transmedia in other centuries, even. Before radio. I have a feeling Mark Twain had to’ve thought it up. I mean, he thought up the intertubes.

@Rob: You’re right — really, everything has a genre, I was admittedly using the genre in the more dismissive, “Genre = fantasy, sci-fi, horror, etc.” Drama is a genre. So is comedy. Transmedia usually seems like it should only apply to things that are more… well, let’s call them “geek-flavored.” I think transmedia nicely goes beyond that.

– c.