See that comic cover up there? Go read that instead. It’s better than anything I’ve heard about Kurtzman’s namesake, even from the official marketing material.
Count me among those who didn’t even watch the free first episode. Nothing about Kurtzman’s alleged Starfleet Academy looks like Star Trek, I don’t care what Robert Picardo says. Alex Kurtzman himself said it’s less about continuing Star Trek and more about using the Brand to push his message, thus wrecking the brand with terrible stories, unlikeable and often stupid looking characters, and getting whatever facts wrong they can to the time period, the tech, the tone, and the heart of what Gene Roddenberry created. However, we aren’t here to talk about the show.
In previous installments of the Many Intros series we looked at Star Trek’s intros. For part one we did the original series, the 24th century spinoffs, and because it just came out at the time, the first Kurzman show, Discovery. In part two we looked at more Kurzman intros. There was a huge difference in how they went about things as only the parody Lower Decks and the kids show Prodigy managed to create what made previous intros work. Even Enterprise tried to make space travel look amazing, though thankfully the animated shows went to The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager for inspiration. Kurtzman is more into symbolism and flashy effects…and Starfleet Academy In Name Only continues that trend.
As of the initial writing I’m using the official video from one of Paramount’s YouTube channels…so did they forget to include credits or is that how the actual intro looks on the show? Where are the actors’ names? Where are the 15-20 producers whose credits have been all over Kurtzman intros? I swear, Secret Hideout is 50% producers.
Like I said, this intro seems more interested in showing off plants and building things than actually showing off how cool it is to be in space or attending an academy to train new astronauts-technically-speaking. Did they build the ship on top of a newly growing plant? Nobody tell Poison Ivy. It still lacks that Star Trek feel.
That aside, they are very pretty effects, though when you walk around the academy there are a lot of lens flares and sakura petals floating around. On a technical level they don’t look bad, which they shouldn’t if you’re going to be showing viewers (few as there are if indications hold true beyond YouTube and the numbers for the available for FREE pilot). However, the cartoons understood the assignment better than the live-action show set at a school. For a system that looks down on cartoons (though Kurtzman will rip off ideas from a failed cartoon pitch) that’s kind of pathetic.
I can’t speak to the quality of the show directly (though reviews say that’s even worse) but the intro reflects just how lame Alex Kurtzman’s take on this franchise is, which must make Les Moonves thrilled. He’s the reason Kurtzman has a solid contract do what he wants with the franchise on TV/streaming as a middle finger to both Star Trek and Shari Redstone (two of his least favorite things), and I’m sure he doesn’t care that right out of the box Skydance is getting hurt in her place. So at least the credits matches the show: flashy but barely resembling the source material.
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