Interviews – Renegade Vic Mignogna

Hey guys, what's going on? You are listening

to ThisWeekInGeek .net's Future Imperfect. And

I'm your host, MikeTheBirdman. Well guys, we

are coming to an end of our Star Trek Renegades

series of interviews. We've talked with captains,

we've talked with lieutenants, we've talked with

pretty much everybody on this cast. And well,

I got tossed this interview very, very recently.

And you may have heard of this guy. He's done

stuff like Dragon Ball Z, Full Metal Alchemist...

Tons of other stuff. He's actually produced his

own Star Trek web series. If you haven't guessed

who I'm talking about by now, I'm talking about

Vic Mignogna. And, well, he's going to be starring

in the upcoming Star Trek Renegades project,

which is just coming to an end in terms of its

Indiegogo campaign in the next couple of days.

So hopefully you guys have had a chance to donate.

I know as of right now, they're over $90 ,000.

So hopefully they'll reach that $200 ,000 goal.

Like I've said before, maybe someone's taking

out a second... mortgage on their house, so we'll

have to wait and see. But without any further

ado, I'd like to welcome Vic to the show. Hi

there, Mike. How are you? I am doing remarkably

well. Vic, thank you for taking time out of your

retardedly busy schedule to come and speak with

us. Well, you know... Oh, yeah. I mean, I've

been following your work for years, and it wasn't

up until recently when I interviewed Grant Imahara

that I found out that you're this huge Star Trek

nerd. Oh my gosh, yeah. Beyond what any normal

human should be. So, how did you get involved

with Star Trek? And I guess we will tell the

origin story of you and the Trek fandom before

we talk kind of renegades. Let's get... Let's

get some of the meat out of the way first, if

you will. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, when

I was 10 and 11 and 12 years old, I discovered

the original series of Star Trek. It had only

been off the air for a couple of years at that

point, and it was in syndication, and I just

fell in love with it. There was so much about

the show that resonated with me, and I found

myself coming home every day after school. Sitting

in front of the television from 5 o 'clock to

6 o 'clock and watching the episodes and building

my own little phasers and communicators and picking

my own uniforms and even taking a cassette recorder

and sitting it by the speaker of the television

and recording the episodes on audio cassette.

And then I would stick them under my pillow at

night and listen to the episodes. So I basically

memorized and digested. Star Trek, the original

series, when I was a little boy, and I've loved

it ever since. It's just been a huge part of

my life when I was young, growing up, and now

I'm actually producing my own web series called

Star Trek Continues, where we've completely rebuilt

all of the original sets, and I'm fulfilling

my childhood dream of getting to play Captain

Kirk. And we've got a lot of other great people

involved, like Grant Imahara and Chris Doohan,

and a lot of great people involved in the project.

So when you got into the Star Trek fandom remarkably

young, what was... what was the the culture like

for being involved in that like because the 60s

and the 70s were a very different time in terms

of being a kid in fact i'm rather jealous that

you got a chance to grow up in sort of the golden

age of nerd um yeah Yeah. What was it like to

be a Trek fan back then? Because there weren't

many conventions. I know that didn't come until

mid -70s, so to speak, and the show was only

on in syndication. Yeah, well, you know what?

To be honest with you, Mike, to be honest with

you, you're exactly right. I was a Trekkie. There

was no such thing as Trekker. I was a Trekkie,

and I would go to Star Trek conventions. My mom

would take me to... The Star Trek conventions,

you know, where I got the privilege to meet DeForest

Kelly and Leonard Nimoy and James Doolin and

Michelle Nichols and all of these, all the cast

members when I was very young. And it was a really

neat time. There wasn't the kind of, how do I

say this? Being a geek, being a nerd back then

was not cool. It wasn't quite the same as it

is now. And, you know, so much of today's culture

with movies and Comic -Cons and Big Bang Theory

and cosplay, so many things have made being a

geek or being a nerd so much cooler, so much

kind of in vogue. But back then, you know, we

were much more underground. So when do you think

things kind of changed? Because as time went

forward and the Star Trek movie came out in the

early 80s and Star Wars had massive success in

the late 70s, when do you think the culture shifted

that were like, hey, these guys are around and

they're not all weirdos? You know, I think it

would be really hard to put my finger on when

that shifted, to be honest with you. it would

be difficult to put your finger on when it shifted.

I think, to be honest with you, I don't think

there was probably a specific time. It was a

gradual shift. I think that the enormous success

of Star Wars contributed a great deal to bringing

sci -fi into the mainstream. And then other productions,

Battlestar Galactica and... and the Star Trek

feature films, and Superman, and on and on it

went. I think other features built, other productions

built on the mainstream success that Star Wars

enjoyed. And I just think over the years, little

by little, the geek culture chipped away at that

perception that geeks and nerds were weirdos

that wore pocket protectors. white shirts and

floating pants and greased hair back and horn

-rimmed glasses. And people started realizing

that, you know, your friends next door and, you

know, people in your own family and people that

you considered kind of cool anyway, people suddenly

realized that they were, you know, they were

big sci -fi and, you know, fans. And they were

the very geeks and nerds that people had this

funny impression of. So as things started to

change and Gene Roddenberry wanted to originally

launch Star Trek Phase 2, which ultimately became

TNG, as you started to grow up and see things

evolve during the 80s and into the 90s, more

or less what I would consider the best time for

Star Trek, considering there was so many series

on television at that time, because you had such

an interest in it, did you ever think you would

get a chance? to do anything with Star Trek with

acting or anything? No, I never did, Mike. In

fact, I have to be honest and say my love affair

with Star Trek was entirely based on the original

series. All of the subsequent series that came

out, you know, Next Gen, Deep Space Nine, Voyager,

Enterprise, all of the subsequent series, I kind

of felt Each incarnation of Star Trek got a little

further and further away from whatever the magic

was that made the original series so endearing

and so wonderful. So I didn't have anywhere near

the kind of passion and enthusiasm for the other

series that I did for the original series. But

I will say that all along, I mean, I've been

acting since I was very young. In fact, I would

probably dare say it was my love for Star Trek

at 9, 10, 11, 12 years old that got me interested

in acting and making movies and doing special

effects and building props. And those are things

that I carried on throughout my entire life that

I never imagined that I would ever have the opportunity

to actually be a part. of any kind of a Star

Trek production. Huh. Now, here's a question,

Vic, because I hear the passion that you have

for the original series. I am starting to get

into it, and I'm finding it very intimidating

to get into the fandom for the original series,

and I'd like to hear it from you, because...

You obviously care about it so much. How would

you sell the series to someone like me who comes

from the Voyager era, so to speak? Well, I think

that's an easy sell, and I would say this. Star

Trek is arguably the most successful, long -running

franchise in television history. certainly in

American television history. I would say there

are very, very few rival franchises that I can

think of that have had the impact on culture

and have been such a huge shaper of pop culture

and been around as long in as many incarnations

as Star Trek did. And the easy sell that I would

tell you is the original series is what started

it all. Now, are there any episodes that stand

out in your mind as you must see these absolutely?

Oh, my gosh. Well, there were 79 in the original

series. And, you know, there were dozens and

dozens of fantastic episodes. Off the top of

my head, I would say the Doomsday Machine. City

on the Edge of Forever, Peace of the Action,

Space Seed, my personal favorite, Requiem from

Azuzela. There are a huge number of amazing episodes

from the original series. And you know what made

them so amazing is they addressed moral issues

and ethical questions and social... And those

kind of things are timeless, Mike. That's why

the original series and Star Trek itself holds

up so well through the decades. Because the concepts,

the human concepts, are so timeless that they

translate to any generation. Now... Oh, wow.

I'm definitely going to have to... I think I've

seen a piece of the ashes. Is that the one where

they go back in time to the 1930s? Well, no,

they don't go back in time. Or they find a planet.

They go to a planet that has adopted the culture

of the gangsters of the 20s. And everybody, like,

there are these mob bosses, and they put hits

out on each other, and Kirk and Spock and McCoy,

they kind of infiltrate the culture. Because

they find out that the source of the contamination

to the culture was actually a Federation ship

that visited this planet 100 years earlier and

left them with a whole bunch of books. And one

of the books was about the gangs of the 20s,

and this planet, which was very imitative in

their culture, ended up adopting this book in

much the same way as some cultures adopt the

Bible. for the Koran, and build their entire

culture around it. It was a great episode. The

only Star Trek episode to ever win an Emmy Award,

and arguably one of the best episodes ever made,

was City on the Edge of Forever. And that was

the one where McCoy gets accidentally injected

with a drug that makes him go crazy, and he jumps

through this portal On this planet, it puts him

back into the Depression era, the late 30s, and

suddenly the entire Federation is gone because

McCoy did something in history that changed history.

And Kirk and Spock have to go back in time, try

to locate McCoy, try to figure out what he did

that changed history, and to put it right again.

It stars Joan Collins. It was the only Star Trek

episode to win an Emmy Award. And it is a brilliant

piece of work. Wow, I kind of want to see this

now, Hashi, just because I've always heard about

the episode and title, but I never knew what

it was about. Well, it was written by famed sci

-fi author Harlan Ellison. So... It is an absolute

must -see. I encourage you to go and find it

immediately. It's going to be on the edge of

forever. It's neat to be able to talk with old

-school fans, Vic, like yourself, who really

sell the series more so than other fans, like

people who are discovering it now. Now I see

why people... who are older really dig it and

why it's so different from, say, the Voyager

episodes or Star Trek Enterprise. Now, one of

the things that I wanted to ask you about, Vic,

is the Star Trek Continues project that you were

involved with. Can you tell me a little bit about

that? Oh, I would be more than happy to, Mike.

I directed an episode for another fan group,

Starship Farragut. a couple of years ago. And

my degree, my college degree is in film and I

do a lot of shooting and directing and editing

and have for a long time. And the Farragut people

asked me if I would direct an episode for them.

And I said, sure. So I did and we really hit

it off. We had a great time together and an idea

started forming in my mind. And that idea was

this. I've seen a lot of fan productions and

they have strengths and weaknesses. But a lot

of them, you know, a lot of them have the same

weaknesses. And without going into detail, I

thought to myself, I would love to put together

a fan production that continues, picks up and

continues right where the original series left

off. And takes the production value and takes

fan films to a whole new level. doing things

to a quality level that had never been done before

with Star Trek fan productions. There have been

dozens of them, but a lot of them all have the

same weaknesses. The people are not actors, so

the acting is not as solid as it could be. The

sets are limited. The lighting is not right.

The storytelling is not strong. The editing and

the pacing is not good. So many little things

that all come together to make a project very,

very good. And so I set out to form a production,

cast the show, crew the show, and bring in a

whole bunch of people that would take the production

to a level that has never been done before. And

so in January of this year, we shot our first...

premiere episode called Pilgrim of Eternity,

which was actually a sequel to an original series

episode called Who Mourns for Adonais. And we

actually even got the actor who played the guest

starring role 45 years ago to reprise his role

in our episode. We shot the episode. I directed

it. I wrote the story and directed it. and played

Captain Kirk and edited the episode, and we premiered

it at Phoenix Comic Con in late May to a packed

room of 4 ,000 people, and then it went online,

and I'm very, very humbled and gratified to say

that everybody is absolutely loving the episode.

It feels, sounds, looks more like original Star

Trek. than anything that anybody else has accomplished

to date. And we are actually gearing up right

now in pre -production to shoot our next episode

in late October. equipment available to ordinary

people now it's easy exactly yeah it's so much

so much more accessible to produce content exactly

exactly and the people that i've brought into

this production are exceptionally gifted professional

people in their respective fields but the common

denominator the common denominator is that we

all loved star trek when we were young kids so

the chance to the chance to To bring together

our childhood passion with the skills that we've

developed in production over the years is a great,

great joy. Now, where in terms of continuity

does Star Trek Continues fall? Star Trek Continues

literally picks up immediately where the original

series left off. In fact, I would like to encourage

you and your listeners... to go to StarTrekContinues

.com, official Star Trek Continues on Facebook,

and click on episodes. We actually made three

little dramatic vignettes that we released as

teaser trailers leading up to our first full

episode. And the very first trailer that we released

literally recapped and recreated the last 60

seconds of the last episode that was ever aired,

Turnabout Intruder. And what happened, though,

was we recreated the last 60 seconds, but where

the original series ended, the last shot that

you saw in the original series, you get to that

shot in our teaser trailer, and it just continues

without missing a beat. It just continues right

on from where it left off. Our long -term goal

would be to be able to do year four and year

five of the five -year mission, which they never

did. I gotta say, that makes me tremendously

hyped for this. The fact that you guys cared

enough to make it like that. I'm not gonna lie,

that's actually really friggin' cool. Well, I

appreciate it, Mike, and I would love for you

to check out on the internet. Go and check out

our... Check out our website and watch our episodes.

I think you'll be blown away, as hundreds of

thousands of other people have been already,

by the production value. It looks exactly like

original Star Trek. It feels and sounds exactly

like original Star Trek. And I think you'll be

very, very... to see what we've accomplished.

I'll definitely be checking that out after the

show. Vic, one of the next questions that I want

to ask you as we start to kind of wind things

down here is I understand you've been asked to

star in the newest Star Trek project, Star Trek

Renegades, which has been running this Indiegogo

campaign since I think the end of July or the

beginning of July and it ends on Friday. Right.

And there's a tremendous pool of talent, which

sounds remarkably like Star Trek continues bringing

people with skills or even people who've been

involved in the original series, which they started

from. So how did you get the phone call to be

involved in this new one? Well, you know, actually,

Mike, when you get out here to L .A. and you

start talking about Star Trek and doing Star

Trek related, material you find that it's a very

small family of a lot of the same people and

the makeup people that are my makeup supervisors

for Star Trek Continues are the makeup leads

for Renegades and people that are working in

my costume area in my costume department for

Star Trek Continues are working in Renegades

and I've become good friends with with Tim Ross

over the years and Skye Conway and Ralph Miller,

who is the head of sound for Star Trek Continues,

is also, I believe, possibly working on Renegades.

So the point is there's a lot of overlap. And

I think that Tim and Skye and the different people

involved in the production of Renegades saw what

we had done with Star Trek Continues. They realized

that I was a big fan and also, you know, an experienced,

trained actor who also has a fair amount of recognition

from my own respective field of voice acting,

and so I guess it seemed like a good fit, and

I am extremely honored and excited to be a part

of Renegades. Now, I understand some of it's

been kept under wraps. You probably can't tell

us too much more about your character named Garrus,

correct? Yeah, I cannot say much about that at

all at this point, but I can... I can tell you

that it's a very cool character, and I'm very

excited to see how it's going to pan out. Yeah,

I've got to say, it's going to be different from

seeing a darker Star Trek. It was described by

Adrian Wilkinson to me as Black Ops meets Star

Trek, so I kind of picture 24 but with phasers.

So I've got to say, I'm really looking forward

to seeing your work in this, Vic. I'm really

looking forward to checking out Star Trek Continues.

So if people wanted to find out more about what

you're up to, Vic, where would they have to go?

Well, as I say, StarTrekContinues .com. That's

pretty easy. Our website, plenty of information

there, StarTrekContinues .com. Also, I'd like

your listeners to know that in the next couple

of weeks, probably, We're going to be launching

a Kickstarter to help fund Star Trek Continues.

We did not ask for any money for the first episode.

We funded it ourselves because I felt strongly

that we needed to prove to everybody what we

were capable of doing before we asked them to

give to it. So now that we've proven it, they

can see for themselves the quality of what we're

capable of. Hopefully, we'll get a good response

on our Kickstarter, and that will be in the next

couple of weeks. Official Star Trek continues

on Facebook. And for me personally, vixworld

.net. And my fan club website is www .risenbullrangers

.com. R -I -S -E -N -B -L -L -Rangers .com. I'm

also on Twitter, so people can follow me there.

And join in, be a part of the family, and we'd

love to have you. Awesome, Vic. Well, thank you,

like I said, once again for taking time out of

your remarkably busy schedule to come hang with

us today on Future Imperfect. My pleasure. Thanks

for having me, Mike. the gates on Indiegogo,

check the link below to find out more information

about that. Well guys, for Future Imperfect here

on ThisWeekInGeek .net, I've been Mike the Birdman

Dodd saying, live long and prosper.