It’s the final day of 2017’s Las Vegas Star Trek convention, and one of the highlights is our first look at the in-development What We Left Behind documentary centered around the legacy of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Hosted by documentary director Adam Nimoy, the panel featured producers Ira Stephen Behr, Kai De Mello-Folsom, David Zappone, and more — all wearing Behr-esque blue goatees and sunglasses on the big stage in Vegas — first rolling out a short preview video of the upcoming film showcasing interviews with DS9 cast members Nana Visitor, Terry Ferrell, Rene Auberjonois, Alexander Siddig, Armin Shimerman, Cirroc Lofton, James Darren, as well as a number of fans.

While there is still no confirmation that the documentary will contain high-definition Deep Space Nine content quite yet, the team is still working to make that happen and Behr commented while on stage that he’s been speaking with Mike Okuda – who worked on the TNG remastering project – and has been hearing “very positive” comments about the possibility of that happening.

In addition, on the topic of the CGI elements used in the series, the team revealed that there have been discussions with some people who still have some of the digital content from the 1990s, and specifically called out that there “will” be HD clips of the “Sacrifice of Angels” space battle sequences in the documentary.

Nearly 100 hours of interview content has been amassed over the last four years of the documentary’s development, revealed David Zappone, with more fan interviews happening through this week’s STLV event. They have a goal of completing projection around January 2018, with release to the public later in 2018 to coincide with the 25th anniversary of Deep Space Nine.

Behr also spoke with great anticipation on the “DS9 Season 8” feature, where he and former DS9 writers Ron Moore, Hans Beimler, and more get together and pitch their ideas for what a premiere episode following “What You Leave Behind” may find the DS9 crew – and hopes to somehow make the full “six to seven hours” of filmed discussion available to fans.

Regarding the participation of series lead Avery Brooks, there is still at this time no on-camera involvement from the station commander – and the documentary team says Brooks feels he has nothing new to contribute. He has, however, been provided several clips from the documentary, and Behr maintains that Brooks has given the project his “full support.”

In terms of archival content featuring Brooks, the documentary team revealed that they not only have access to past interviews with the actor from The Captains and other documentary interview – but they also have film of all of Brooks’ on-stage appearances at Creation Entertainment Star Trek conventions to mine for clips to include.

Director Adam Nimoy also shared praise the documentary team has received from CBS, sharing that the studio not only supports the project but has also opened up their archives (photos, etc.) for the team to access – and in their quest to dig into the CBS vaults, the team is also planning to include original DS9 cast audition tapes in the documentary, and also expressed their hopes at digging up possible cut scenes and other deleted episodic content as part of the process.

Just like many of you, we’re extremely excited at the prospects of all the opportunity to see this Deep Space Nine content when the documentary premieres next year – so keep checking back here to TrekCore for all the latest news on this project!