The new voyages of the starship USS Discovery are underway as of next week — and it’s all thanks to a little bit of codebreaking Starfleet stole from the Rebel Alliance.
The next iteration of the expansive Trek franchise, Star Trek: Discovery, will likely begin filming on January 24 in Pinewood Studios in London. According to the website for the International Alliance of Stage and Theatrical Employees, a project called “Green Harvest” will commence production in Pinewood Studios. Because “Green Harvest” is a CBS project and Bryan Fuller, Gretchen Berg, and Aaron Harberts are listed as producers, this is undoubtedly Star Trek: Discovery. Plus, “Green Harvest” is obviously a reference to “Blue Harvest,” the fake title used by Lucasfilm during the shooting of Return of the Jedi.
Back in 1982, the third Star Wars film was disguised during shooting as a horror movie called “Blue Harvest.” It even had a tagline: “Horror Beyond Imagination.” Lucasfilm created a fake logo for Blue Harvest to try to ensure fans wouldn’t get wind of the fact it was really Star Wars, a trick that didn’t really work. Fans figured out what Blue Harvest was and showed up to locations in Yuma, Arizona to spy on the Tatooine scenes on Jabba’s Sail Barge.
Now, the team behind the new Star Trek seems to have adopted a sense of humor and cloak-and-dagger from the galaxy of Star Wars. Back in the 1970s, the success of Star Wars was partially responsible for Star Trek’s shift from the medium of television into motion pictures. Now, as Star Trek returns to TV, it’s only fitting to give a nod to its one and only true sci-fi competitor. But, if Discovery truly did want to keep its production a secret, perhaps a less nerdier codename should have been selected.
Star Trek: Discovery debuts on CBS All Access in spring 2017.
