To boldly go...
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s son, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, has been named as a judge in the Star Trek-inspired Future Vision XPRIZE film competition alongside StarTalk host and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
As our friends at TrekMovie reported back in March this year, the film competition wants to capture the spirit of Star Trek and inspire a new generation to look with hopeful eyes up to the stars.
Roddenberry and Tyson will be joined by Google Vice President Mira Lane and author Neal Stephenson, the latter being the person who coined the term “metaverse”. According to XPRIZE organisers, “the panel will help choose the grand prize winner, revealed live at Moonshots Live on September 25 in Los Angeles.”
Roddenberry adds further support to XPRIZE
Roddenberry was already heavily involved in the XPRIZE film competition — signing up the Roddenberry Foundation as a partner — ahead of today’s announcement that he himself will also serve on its judging panel.
“My father created Star Trek not just to entertain, but to show our potential,” Roddenberry said back in March. “At its heart was a belief that humanity could continue evolving intellectually, ethically and socially to ultimately better ourselves as a species. That vision inspired generations of dreamers to imagine a future of innovation shaped by curiosity, empathy and a deeper sense of shared purpose.
“The Roddenberry Foundation is proud to support the Future Vision XPRIZE because we need today’s storytellers to help envision a better tomorrow for all life on Earth.”
XPRIZE aiming for optimism and not “dystopian warnings”
Engineer, physician, and tech company founder Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, the organiser of the film competition.
“Star Trek showed us a world where humanity had overcome scarcity, united across borders, and ventured into the cosmos not as conquerors, but as explorers. Where technology amplified our humanity rather than diminishing it,” Diamandis wrote back in March.
“The scientists and engineers who built our modern world—the smartphones in your pocket, the GPS guiding your drives, the voice assistants in your home—grew up watching that show. They weren’t inspired by dystopian warnings. They were inspired by visions of Abundance. Here’s the problem: Where are those visions today?”
Diamandis further explains how Star Trek has inspired the film competition in the following video.
Entries for the XPRIZE film competition are basically closed
Open to filmmakers around the world, XPRIZE “invites three-minute film trailers or short films depicting compelling, hopeful visions of humanity’s technology-enabled future,” and will offer a series of prizes to help turn projects into reality. The grand prize will offer up $2.5 million in production funding to create a Star Trek-inspired feature film alongside a further $100K cash. Four additional runners-up will receive $100K each, and a further ten finalists will receive $10K.
Submissions for XPRIZE have been open since March and closed today, 16 August here in Australia.
For more details on the competition and how to submit, visit futurevisionxprize.com.
Winners announced in later September
Winners of the Future Vision XPRIZE film competition will be named alongside those of the Build with Gemini XPRIZE competition at an event called Moonshots Live, held on September 25 at Los Angeles’ United Theatre and Belasco. Applications to attend the event can be made here.
“Moonshots Live… brings together 1,500+ filmmakers, builders, and investors for a day of live competition and conversations with Peter Diamandis, Cathie Wood, Anousheh Ansari, Astro Teller, and more,” organisers detailed in a press release.
“The event features pitches from finalists of the Build with Gemini XPRIZE, a $2 million global hackathon challenging developers worldwide to use artificial intelligence tools to build scalable solutions to real-world challenges, and culminates in the Future Vision XPRIZE awards ceremony, followed by an evening of networking.”
We wish the best of luck to those who’ve submitted a trailer or short film!
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