Star Trek: Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds teamed up for a crossover that was most unexpected, despite the two shows' shared universes. What seemed like an odd pairing even to some of the cast members ended up being one of the more impressive episodes from Season 2, and that's saying something, given its all-around quality. In addition to being a magnificent crossover, it turns out the two shows helped influence each other, as CinemaBlend learned from one of the talented animators.
I had a chance to chat with Star Trek: Lower Decks' supervising director and animator Barry Kelly, whom I asked about the process of animating the Strange New Worlds crew, and about working the crossover overall. I learned a lot, relatively speaking, about what goes into the process of animating a legacy Trek character, as well as how that specific experience influenced Lower Decks' future work.
What Goes Into Recreating Live-Action Characters In Star Trek: Lower Decks?
A look at the Star Trek: Lower Decks voice actors will show that while some of the cast resembles the characters they play, not everyone does. Because the audience is not immediately aware of the voice cast, it's not a problem for the animators to take a little creative liberties in the design of their characters.
Of course, when it comes to drawing a legacy Star Trek character, Barry Kelly confirmed the rules are a bit different. There's an expectation on the audience's end on how that character should look compared to their live-action actors, and Kelly worked out how he and the team figure out how to adapt that when it comes to Lower Decks:
I'm always like, ‘What's the most iconic version of this that I can make?’ So that when you look at the live-action screen and you look at a cartoon version of it it's the same person. Our character designers have been doing it for three or four seasons now. We translated Mr. Sulu, we translated, Quark and Kira, and we've been really successful at that. So we tend to find the likeness, and then we kind of Lower Deckify it a little bit...It's definitely a burden though. I want [the adapted character] to match their iconic status as the live-action version of themselves. So we really put a lot of thought into hair color. Just like, ‘Maybe Pike's streak goes up to here, maybe not there’ [gestures to spots on his head].
When it comes to imagery that is iconic in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Pike's hair is certainly toward the top of the list. Ultimately, I think fans agree that Star Trek: Lower Decks' animation team did a great job adapting the crew for the ending scene it was responsible for. I also think some credit is owed to the Strange New Worlds crew, who made Jack Quaid's Bradward Boimler and Tawny Newsome's Beckett Mariner look just like their animated selves without looking too cartoonish. Wow, is anyone else feeling the urge to fire up that Paramount+ subscription to watch "Those Old Scientists" all over again?
How Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Influenced Lower Decks
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds had a little help from Lower Decks showrunner Mike McMahan on its crossover, who has collaborated with the series in past episodes. This time around, Barry Kelly noted that the Lower Decks team walked away from the crossover feeling inspired, especially when it came to animating certain elements of the Enterprise.
Kelly elaborated more on the influence while continuing his conversation about how important it is to ensure the animated version of a Strange New Worlds character lives up to the audience's expectations:
Everything is a little nuanced decision. As technical or as minute as it might be it’s where we're trying to make the best version of what we think it should be. Hopefully, when you all watched, it lined right up with what you thought the characters were and it was awesome. It was great to work with the Strange New Worlds team. Getting to do a painted Lower Decks version of Pike’s Quarters. It’s a beautiful set design and, and being able to translate that, Maybe it gives us a little bit of an idea of like, ‘Oh, we can do these kinds of shapes in our show because we never really went that direction before.’ It shows what other designers that we don't have on the show are thinking, and then maybe we rub a little bit off on them too. Like thinking about what would translate well into a cartoon world might have been in their head for making a portal or something like that, that we can really make a good iconic version of.
It would be cool to see more of the aesthetic of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in Lower Decks, as style doesn't have to be tied to one specific time period. I also wholeheartedly agree that Pike's quarters look so damn slick, and I want a room in my house that looks just like it. In any case, it's great to hear that these two shows, as different as they may be, were able to find ways to impact one another and potentially carry that forward into their own shows.
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 4 kicks off on Paramount+ on Thursday, September 7th. Once it's over expect a wait for the next upcoming Trek series, as the final season of Discovery won't begin until 2024.
