The life’s work of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, including hundreds of thousands of memos, sketches, scripts, notes, blueprints, models and anything else saved from his creative years, will be digitized as part of an effort to preserve his legacy.

Eugene Wesley “Rod” Roddenberry

The multimedia Roddenberry Archive will produce everything from holographic and digital renderings of the famous Starship Enterprise vessel to TV and movie sets. It was announced at the Star Trek convention Creation in Las Vegas this past Friday. The panel featured the Roddenberry estate and artists Denise and Mike Okuda, Doug Drexler and Daren Dochterman.

The project, coming in time for the 100th anniversary of the birth of Gene Roddenberry 100th birthday, is being spearheaded by his son Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry along with the tech company OTOY, and was formally unveiled at the 55-Year Mission Creation Entertainment Star Trek convention in Las Vegas last Friday.

“I cannot think of a more capable and innovative company to trust with these materials. OTOY’s work will allow generations to experience my father’s contribution to humanity with the greatest historical accuracy possible. This project will protect an optimistic vision of the future, that has inspired so many and remains so important today.”

Rod Roddenberry, in a Variety.com interview

Also working on the project are Rick Berman-era Star Trek creative wizards Mike and Denise Okuda and Doug Drexler, as well as Daren Dochterman (VFX supervisor for the Director’s Edition of The Motion Picture, and designer on Star Trek Trek Beyond and Star Trek: Picard).

The project will include key texts and documents from the career of Gene Roddenberry career (the show predicted tablet computers among many other gadgets, after all), as well as images, blueprints and models. The archive will span the flagship “Star Trek” series, original films, and subsequent spinoffs. The immediate benefit of the archive will be the ability to generate NFTs from the collection for Trek diehards. It will also, as well as offer the public life-sized hologram installations that promise to be “indistinguishable from reality” via Light Field Lab.

Denise and Mike Okuda, Star Trek artists and authors of the Star Trek Encyclopedia, said, “we are delighted that Gene Roddenberry’s work is being collected and preserved for future study. In particular, we are excited that reference models of his most famous creation, the Starship Enterprise, will not only allow future fans to experience the magic of Gene’s imagined universe, but it will allow this icon of science fiction to be preserved so it can be re-created authentically in years to come.”

The Okudas added, “Gene’s work was not only an important part of popular culture, but his creations – including Star Trek – have to show us that science and technology can enable a brighter future for humanity if we work hard, and if we are ethical and compassionate.”

Mapping out the life-size USS Enterprise in maximum detail. The Roddenberry archive includes records of covering the 8-foot/11-foot physical studio models shot on film (in the possession of the Smithsonian and Jeff Bezos, respectively), as well as a 1:1 scale in Universe model with all sets and rooms seen on film. An additional layer includes areas of the ship not on seen on film, but that the curation team collectively agrees reflects the likely continuity of such assets being placed there, from reference designs, blueprints and 30 years of research, as noted in the weekly meeting minutes which are stored in the archive.

Founder and CEO of OTOY, Jules Urbach said, “When watching Star Trek, I was inspired by Gene Roddenberry’s belief in human ingenuity, creativity and imagination to leverage technology to push the boundaries of what we can accomplish as a civilization.” Urbach added, “At OTOY, our mission to develop technologies that empower artists to realize their creative visions is deeply inspired by Gene Roddenberry. It is an absolute honor to use these same technologies to preserve and bring his legacy to life for future generations. Growing up with Rod and spending so much of my formative years in the Roddenberry household makes this a deeply personal project for me as well.”

The public can also visit roddenberry.x.io to view an introductory video about the project and get additional details about the archive – including blogs, behind the scenes production photos, and more.

Rod Roddenberry will be featured on an upcoming episode of SCIFI.radio’s flagship talk show, The Event Horizon. Watch this space.

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