NYCC INTERVIEW: The Hageman Brothers and Ben Hibon

Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman, and Ben Hibon. Image: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images.

DSTN was invited to take part in a press roundtable with the cast and creators of Star Tek: Prodigy at last weekend’s New York Comic Con. For these roundtables, seven news outlets are put at a table together and given 15 minutes to ask whatever questions they wish, in a “round robin” style. Then the celebrity moves to the next table to be replaced by a new one. This week we’ll be releasing these interviews, one by one. For the most part, each outlet got one question or two, depending on how lengthy the answers were, so not all the questions covered were asked by DSTN.

OCTOBER 17, 2022 - Our final interview at NYCC was with Kevin and Dan Hageman, known collectively as The Hageman Brothers, and Dan Hibon. The Hagemans created Star Trek: Prodigy and Hibon is a co-Executive Producer and director on the show.

The trio was very outgoing and friendly and the Hagemans, in particular, seemed to emanate joy when speaking of the show. They all genuinely love Star Trek and the property they’ve had the privilege of creating.

On bringing Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Thadiun Okona (Billy Campbell} on as a guest character for season 1, part 2:

DAN: I think we had a laugh about that episode, “The Outrageous Okona,” in the Writer’s Room, and we loved that he was kind of this two-bit Han Solo. And we just thought, like, “Can we?” and then when we found out we could get him, we were like, “Let’s do it!”

KEVIN: Yeah, he’s colorful, you know?

D: And Billy Campbell’s great, too. I remember the first artist renditions that we did of him were…more tasteful. And he’s like, “No, no. You should really let him go.”

K: Yeah, “Okona should’ve been on a lot of adventures since we’ve last seen him. He should have an eyepatch and give him a little belly.” I’m like, “YES!!!”

D: And that evolved to when he was on LOWER DECKS, we were like, “You’ve gotta get an eyepatch on him. You’ve gotta keep this canon.”

BEN: But he’s still wearing the same outfit.

K: [laughing] Exactly, yeah. When we were recoding Billy, he loved bringing the character back. Because he looked back and he was like, “I didn’t do a very good job.” And I think the script was going through changes or something, so he’s like, “I love what you guys are doing.” It gave him a second chance.

On how Star Trek has endured for 55 years:

D: I think it opens your imagination in an adult way. People have grown up with STAR WARS, and with STAR TREK, there’s s0mething a little more cerebral about it. a little bit of wishful thinking about where we could go as humanity carries on, you know? I think it’s very powerful.

K: I love the wish-fulfillment of STAR TREK and I love that you never know what you’re going to get every episode. So while we do keep a serialized story, we’re always trying to push ourselves with like, “Alright, you’ve got a Borg episode, or your haunted house episode, right? Well then we’ll do a comedic one, you know? Like ‘All the World’s a Stage.’” So we’re always trying to keep you surprised at what comes next.

B: Yeah, I think it also has so many different faces, TREK, as an idea, as a universe. But it’s just endless. It’s the story of many, not the story of one. It really is that. So with every iteration, with every new crew, with every new adventure, it adds a colorful, very diverse, hopeful set of experiences. So that keeps it always in some ways relevant to the time.

D: I remember we were talking about the artists and this ian’t a dig at STAR WARS, but STAR WARS is the same aesthetic throughout. And, I mean, I guess they’re changing some things here and there, but STAR TREK has always been, you never know. A new planet, brand new rules. So it really is an open playground, that anything can happen.

On the process of deciding what legacy characters to work with:

K: We would do these calls with the other showrunners and everyone would kind of pitch, “Here’s what we’re doing with season 2,” or whatever, and hope that no one else is picking the same actor.

D: Yeah, we all play nice. Like, if someone wants to use, like, again, with Okona and LOWER DECKS, the more Okona, the better!

K: Yeah. But we’ve got some fun surprise characters coming out in the back 10 episodes and in season 2, especially. [Later that day, they announced at the STAR TREK Universe panel that Admiral Jellico (Ronny Cox) would be appearing on the show.] So we’ve been talking very closely with other shows to make sure it all works.

D: Yeah, we conceived two new legacy characters in season 2, not counting Chakotay.

K: I think it’s three, actually.

D: It’s three, yeah.

K: Anyway, our kids are getting closer to the Federation, right? And I want to be in the same world. I don’t want our show to be “the little kid’s show” that’s on a totally different plane of existence.

B: It goes the same with species, I think. Because we have Klingons, Romulans, Borg. And it’s how much coverage and how much you want between all the different shows, not to have too much of one alien with them. So there’s definitely, you know, a lot of conversation between the shows because of that.

On how they write stories relevant to today’s world for kids:

D: I think in today’s time, there’s a lot of stuff that feels like it’s falling apart. I think we need Starfleet. more than anything right now. You know, we want to make sure that kids today can dream that we can get our stuff together, hopefully, down the line. That’s what empowers us, at least, wanting to tell those stories.

On whether PRO will cross over with any other current series:

K: [with a twinkle in his eye] You guys just want your crossovers! You want your mashups! Oh, my gosh. I am constantly looking at Brett [Gray (Dal0] and Ella as Gwyn and they could easily play their parts in real life if they want to. I would love that. We don’t have anything officially planned yet.

D: I don’t know if Rilee [Alazraqui (Rok-Tahk)] could wear that Rok suit.

K: Rilee would be a little difficult in a giant Rok suit, yeah, yeah, yeah. We’d love that. We haven’t done that yet. I think, you know, this is season 1 and we’re doing a season 2. LOWER DECKS is for the adult fans. They’re instantly going into the Easter eggs. You know, we’re trying to do the greatest hits right now. It was fun to do the “Kobayashi” episode. It was fun doing that. And I do love [“Trials and Tribble-ations”]. Brilliant, right? I love, you know, clever crossovers, too. But hopefully more.

On teaching lessons without talking down to kids:

K: Well, we’re trying to teach and remind ourselves of these same lessons, right?

D: Yeah, I think the best way to learn lessons is from failure. I think that’s what makes it difficult for these kids. They’re not…

K: They’re not great.

D: They have not gone through Starfleet. They have a lot to learn. And that’s okay, you know? They have Hologram Janeway there.

K: But it’ll be beautiful. To see them start forming and being a real crew and calling things out how they should, and stuff. You’re like, “Yeah. These kids are starting to get it.”

On PRO’s longevity:

K: Our hope is the show goes on forever, you know? I would love for it to keep going, and we told Rilee, “We’re not going to replace you.” I don’t want Rok to stay the same age season after season. When her voice changes, we’re going to continue to have her grow up. And I want these characters to become young adults And actually someday become adult crew members.

On what kind of merchandise they’re excited about coming out of PRO:

D: The Protostar ship!

K: Yeah!

D: And we’ve seen it. It’s lived up to our expectations.

K: It went above our expectations. And Ben’s been helping give notes. He loves toys, right?

B: I do like toys. The action figures are at a good price point, too. So that’s really exciting. And, you know, seeing this blank page and in time inventing designs and eventually all working together toward this one thing you can feel, that’s tangible…

D: The figures are beautiful.

K: My hope is just that the show…you know, we’re still so early, we only have 10 episodes out. We don’t even have a full season out and my hope is we’re going to get more kids, you know? I’m reading on Twitter and stuff, adult fans loving it, but, you know, young kids aren’t on Twitter, so it’s hard to say. But I really hope we hit more kids so that we can get more toys. We will be having our action figures. When I grew up, I had my STAR WARS action figures. And when a new movie came out, there’d be 30 different action figures. Like, even the smallest characters, you know?

D: Even when we worked on NINJAGO, even now there’s people who are just starting to watch NINJAGO. They’re loving it. And that show’s been on 15 seasons now. So it’s amazing to have kids grow up and then another set of kids come in.

K: Yeah, I would love that. That’d be my wish. I know we’re going to have our main cast of characters as action figures, but I would love to see a lot of our smaller…an Okona action figure!

On the design of the Klingons:

B: The way we’ve been looking at PRODIGY’s style is really to embrace what was there, and rather than completely reinventing, just to stylize it to fit within that visual reality. Because these designs are great. They have been created a certain way for a reason, and they’re very recognizable and they mean something.