See The Epic Star Trek Drone Light Show From Paramount
This light show would do Scotty proud!
Is there a more fitting franchise to honor with an incredible drone light show than Star Trek? The universe Gene Roddenberry created has been inspiring new technology for decades, and over the weekend some of that technology paid homage to the narrative at Vivid Sydney. Dozens of lighted drones came together to form the iconic USS Enterprise, complete with music and voiceovers to match.
Paramount put together the drone show which, truth be told, the Star Trek homage is only one part of. In fact, the light show begins with a tribute to another Paramount property, Mission: Impossible. The M:I countdown transitions into the reading of the introduction of many of the Star Trek series from voice actors we’re pretty sure are not the original speakers but other actors impersonating Trek legends like William Shatner, Walter Koenig, Jonathan Frakes, and James Doohan; all accompanied by music from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. With the conclusion of the intro, the empty night sky comes alive as the drones form into the Enterprise. You can watch the video below.
If you watch the light show all the way through, then along with Star Trek you’ll notice other Paramount properties like Spongebob Squarepants, Paw Patrol, Halo, and Top Gun getting their due. As mentioned earlier, the show was part of Vivid Sydney — a festival of “lights, music, and ideas” that has taken place annually in Australia’s most famous city since 2009.
At the risk of sounding cynical, Paramount’s Vivid drone show likely has less to do with the studio’s adoration for Star Trek and its other franchises and more to do with its long term strategy. At the end of last year, the studio announced it was pursuing strategy focused heavily on streaming while announcing tons of new projects such as the long-marinading Star Trek 4 and the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 spin-off series Knuckles. As 2022 has unfolded, Paramount has continued to do whatever it can to grab the largest slice of Netflix’s lunch as possible. While Netflix and HBO Max are announcing layoffs, the news from Paramount+ consistently seems to be toward expansion.
That expansion doesn’t stop in the United States, either. In June, news surfaced that the streamer was planning to have over 150 original projects from countries outside the US in various stages of production by the end of 2025. One of the first projects announced is the Mexico-based mini-series The First Lady of Sinaloa starring John Leguizamo as the infamous drug lord El Chapo. With a global push in the works, Paramount’s drone show was likely in part a reminder of exactly which beloved franchises, along with Star Trek, are going to have homes on Paramount+.
The drone show tribute comes just as we’re close to the longest break from new Star Trek content we’ll see this year. The season 1 finale of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams on Thursday, and after that we don’t know exactly when new Star Trek episodes of any of the five current series will stream. While new seasons of Discovery, Lower Decks, and Prodigy are all expected to arrive before the end of 2022, no firm premiere dates have been released for any of them. To fans of the current series, this will be the first break since February. The second season of Picard premiered in March before Discovery‘s fourth season had concluded, and Strange New Worlds enjoyed its series premiere the same day — May 5 — Picard had its season 2 finale.
