Star Trek Prodigy's opening titles give us a great look at the USS Protostar. Plus casting and character updates.

Paramount+ have released the opening title sequence (albeit without any credits at the moment) for Star Trek Prodigy, the new animated series for younger viewers. They have also announced some new casting, and character details. Continue below for all the latest on the series.

The sequence is a beautiful montage of shots of the series ship, the USS Protostar, giving us a great look at the new design and it's interesting engines! Check it out (also up on StarTrek.com, YouTube, or Twitter if you prefer to Instagram embedded below):

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The title sequence features stirring music by Michael Giacchino, the composer of the brilliant soundtracks of the Kelvin timeline movies, as well as the Short Treks episode Ephraim and Dot, which he also directed. While Giacchino has created the series theme, the episodic soundtrack will be composer by Nami Melumad.

Note the various things the USS Protostar flies around are not just random space and sci-fi stuff, but either giant representations of the series' main characters, or beautiful abstractions of some of their features.

Of course for starship lovers this couldn't be a more satisfying tease, with numerous shots of the USS Protostar in action, giving us a great look at the ship's design from all angles. This also reveals the Protostar has Voyager-esque moving nacelles, and takes that a step further by adding another engine that appears from within the engineering section, pushing the ship into what seems to be much faster speeds - I'm inclined to jump to the conclusion this will be some sort of slipstream drive, but we'll have to wait and see what the series reveals it to really be.

Paramount+ have also announced news of two further members of the cast, the series villains. The main bad guy will be "The Diviner", voiced by John Noble - Who I know best as Denethor, in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, but you might also recognise from the likes of Elementary, Sleepy Hollow, Fringe, and many other roles. Here's how his character is described, giving us a new insight into one of the main younger characters in the series, Gwyn:

A ruthless tyrant who controls the asteroid of Tars Lamora, The Diviner exploits wayward species and will stop at nothing in his hunt for the Protostar ship, no matter the cost. Though his goals are shrouded in mystery, his body is failing him and he created his progeny, Gwyn, to one day carry on his mission when she is ready for it.

The Diviner is aided in his quest by a robotic spider called Drednok, voiced by Jimmi Simpson - Who you might know from roles including Westworld and House of Cards. Here's his bio:

The Diviner’s deadly robotic enforcer is heartless and cold. His sole purpose is to keep The Diviner on task and ensure that the Protostar is found. Drednok is a friend to no one, including The Diviner’s own daughter Gwyn and uses his menacing spider-like form to impose The Diviner’s will.

Paramount+ have released two new stills showing these characters. A rather distant shot of The Diviner, and a much clearer look at Drednok:

In less official casting news, Robert Beltran, aka Chakotay, let slip at 55-Year Mission Star Trek convention (as reported by TrekMovie) that he has been doing some voice work for Prodigy. He didn't say if he's be reprising Chakotay or a new character, alongside the holographic Captain Janeway we know will be in the series.

Prodigy will launch on Paramount+(ad) in the US later this year, and will also be shown on Nickelodeon. In Canada it will be found on Bell Media services such as CTV Sci-Fi. It has been confirmed it will be coming to the new Paramount+ service in parts of Europe, which wont launch until 2022 (so looks like Europeans will once again have to wait months to see a new series in a frustrating repeat of Lower Decks' launch). Further international distribution has yet to be announced. 

To keep track of all the latest Prodigy updates, check back through my Prodigy tag.