"The Element
of Surprise"
Star
Trek: The New Animated Series
reviewed by Fred Dixon
On the positive side, this animated short was well put together. The majority of the scenes are "repurposed" from the original animated episodes. However, it featured a number of new scenes not seen in the original animation series -- ones featuring new character of Ambassador Trelling, the transport ship, the scene of M'ress with an ear receiver, the reaction shot showing both Kirk and Spock looking forward and exchanging a glance, and a view of the bridge from overhead in the next to the last scene. The old and new animations are seamlessly put together. Well done, indeed.
On the other hand, the short is short on action and long on talking. Danhauser notes on his website:
Curt pretty much proved that Roddenberry was right. The Enterprise comes across the cargo vessel and is about to render aid. Then the psychic Ambassador Trelling goes into a rather tedious and boring speech about what danger was going to befall the Enterprise. Talk, talk, talk. No "element of surprise," no excitement. After she finished explaining her premonition, Kirk didn’t seem to have any problem destroying the cargo vessel and killing the thirty-two lifeforms on board. Then there was a good laugh to be had by the crew in the tag. Although somewhat disconcerting, Mr. Danhauser makes his point with a flourish --- if you know what’s going to happen in advance, you can just fire away with impunity."When Gene Roddenberry was first fleshing out the concept behind Star Trek, he stated that he did not want his science fiction show to feature robots or psychic phenomenon like mind readers or precognitives. "The Element of Surprise" was an explicit depiction of what would happen if psychic aliens were to be seen on Star Trek. Gene didn't want psychics in Star Trek because it made storytelling very difficult. What jeopardy could the crew find itself in if their resident precog could just tell them what dangers lay around each corner?"
A small quibble, but almost all (if not all) of the voiceovers seem to have been done by the same person. (There were no voiceover credits in the short to confirm this.) All of the dialog almost sounded the same. This detracted somewhat from the good technical work of the animation. (As Curt notes, he was just trying to make a point with this demonstration project.)
I give "The Element of Surprise" an A for technical animation artistry and an A for the concept. Warning: the story is a D (as intended by Curt), and the voiceovers are rough. However, this is a nice effort and worth a look. I look forward to his full up animated episodes.
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