Podcast # 42 is up!
Since he was a small boy, Simon Lissaman has been drawing and painting, inspired by the fantasy worlds of Doctor Who, Blake’s 7 and Star Trek. A concept designer for films and games, toy design, illustration for print and web and model fabrication, Simon felt inspiration strike when he saw the short film, Prelude to Axanar, and immediately contacted Alec Peters to offer his assistance in creating the vision.
In this episode of the official Axanar Podcast, Peters is joined by Lissaman to discuss his design work for Axanar including a phasers, bat’leths, and costume design. In news, Alec and Robert provide new details on the trial and disucss the release of Rogue One.
Chapters
Welcome to Episode 42 (00:00:00)
News (00:02:45)
Welcome, Simon! (00:13:35)
A Time You Never Saw Before (00:16:05)
The Phaser (00:19:36)
Consistency (00:21:52)
They All Worked Together (00:25:58)
The Klingon Costume (00:27:36)
The Bat’leth’s(00:33:50)
Simon’s Other Designs (00:37:39)
Simon’s Real Life (00:39:34)
Final Thoughts (00:57:23)
Host
Alec Peters and Robert Meyer Burnett
Guest
Simon Lissaman
…Simon has done some excellent work on Axanar! =)
…i really hope we get to see it come to fruition!!! =P
In this episode you touch on one of the things that’s always bothered me about science fiction shows in general and Star Trek in particular and that’s the lack of any kind of sighting system on the hand phasers. This drives me freaking crazy!
My step-father is a gunsmith, I’ve been in the army, and I’ve been a competitive shooter so I’m very familiar with firearms and every time I see someone firing a phaser that has no sights on it, I’m just completely thrown out of the story and reminded that I’m watching a TV show and that everything’s fake.
The more powerful a weapon is, the more important accuracy is, so, to me, the lack of a sighting feature on the hand phaser is unrealistic, and even, unscientific. Which I find strange for a show that otherwise tries hard to be realistic and scientific (qualities that set it apart from something like, say, Star Wars).
This is one of the reasons why I love the era of The Cage so much. Not only are the women not exploring potentially dangerous planets in miniskirts, but the phasers have sights!
I also firmly believe there are numerous ways that the designers could have included some kind of sighting system while still being true to all of the wonderful aesthetics of the original design.
Even with today’s technology there are numerous kinds of sighting systems — there are the so-called “iron sights,” there are laser “red dot” sights, there are holographic sights, and others, and that’s just the technology that currently exists. There’s no limit to the imaginative sighting systems one could come up with for a science fiction weapon.
In the case of Star Trek, however, you’d probably want as simple a system as possible and one that definitely doesn’t interfere with the aesthetics of the weapon design. Something like the reticle of a holographic sight projected by the weapon only when the shooter’s finger is on the trigger. (Similar to the revolver sights in the video game shooter, Destiny, by Bungie.)
HEY YOU GUYS…!!!
Congrats on settling!!! =D
GREAT NEWS (on an otherwise sh*tty friday)!
so – (2) x 15 minutes… not TOO bad! =P …looking forward to seeing you guys get back on track! =D
Although you could have a holographic sight, or some contact lens-based Google Glass widget, these technologies would be vulnerable to being messed with by clever aliens. The simplest solution would be to have the beam emitter also function as a laser whenever the phaser is turned on (firearms have safeties energy weapons have on/off buttons.). The color of the aim dot would match the beam color, which goes by the light heat scale, not the pigment one IE Red=Stun, Yellow=Kill, Blue=Disintegrate. Love the new/old phasers, even if they weren’t in the Cage. ST Canon is kind of like the Prime Directive, sometimes you gotta break it for the greater good.
That’s an excellent solution, Steve. It’s not perfect as you can’t aim without giving your presence away, but it’s good enough for a TV show/film. Nice work!