Holy Moley!
Now that's a weird flashback for me! In my '80s Small Press Comic "Captain Saucer", a race of weird aliens called the Weird Aliens had giant plywood shaped spaceships.
So is there a zeitgeist building of geekdom getting nostalgic for where it was in the late '70s with this and Super8?
DS9 in the first episode. I liked and could relate much more to the darker vision with the hardship tour in an obscure place. It was much better than Trek Lite with those space yuppies spreading political correctness thoughout the galaxy.
What was the Robot Planet pitch like?