I assume from various pieces of evidence I’ve encountered that there are a bunch of Star Trek fans out there making their own fan films based on the franchise.
I further assume that most of these are pretty lousy.
But I don’t know, because I haven’t seen them.
One fan-produced Star Trek effort has stood out, though, and I have actually seen some of it (though not enough to do a full review at this point).
The series is called Star Trek New Voyages, and it has managed to achieve unprecedented success.
The idea is that the series will use modern amateur film techniques (which are getting quite good) to produce the episodes that would have been needed to fill out the remaining two years of the original Enterprise’s "five year mission" (y’know: the two years they didn’t get to film because they got cancelled after season 3) and these episodes will be released direct-to-web.
The show thus features the original series cast of characters, though with different actors playing them (usually).
What makes the series unusual is the degree of quality that the folks behind it are trying to put into it. Their sets, for example, are virtually identical to those used on the original series–so identical, in fact, that when Star Trek Enterprise needed a copy of Mr. Sulu’s extendible console viewer thingie (as seen here) for their Mirror Universe episodes and the prop department didn’t have it any more, the producers of the TV show called the New Voyages folks to borrow the fans’ version of the prop rather than make their own.
The level of quality that they’re trying to put into the show has been so great (relative to other fan productions operating on a shoestring) that they’ve been able to get numerous professionals connected with the TV series to participate in New Voyages as well. This includes not only Gene Roddenberry’s son and actors who had minor roles in the original series but also writers from the original series, Next Gen, and Deep Space 9, including such noteables as D. C. Fontana and David Gerrold.
And now some of the main cast from the original series is getting into the act.
This September they’ll be releasing an episode in which Walter Koenig reprises his role as Checkov (an older version of himself who meets the younger version normally on New Voyages), and I’m anticipating that this episode will be used as Koenig’s swan song for the character (i.e., I’m expecting the older Checkov to die in it and thus tie up his character arc).
George Takei is also going to be reprising his role as Sulu in an upcoming episode.
Unfortunately, they’re only making one of these a year at present, so they may have to re-cast all the parts once again before they get to the end of the fifth year (if they get that far), but it’s interesting to note the success they’ve had thus far.
Now, there’s a specific reason I mention all this.
More on that later.
I like these even better. http://www.starshipexeter.com/
It’s about the Exeter (not the Enterprise), but it’s in the same time frame (TOS).
That guy looks like Fonzie.
I hope they don’t let Sulu turn it into some gay activist propaganda.
I saw these and they were fun — the modern equivalent of the fanzines I sometimes read when I was young.
I think that one of the things that really make them work is the fact that they use what appears to be some of the orginal background music. It’s funny how that kind of thing makes up for the actors being different and the acting not as good.
and the acting not as good
huh??? How can you get worse?
I watched it. It was ok, but I wasn’t too impressed. The effort put into it was enormous, but unfortunately they did a “fan” story. What I mean by that is that the storyline was one of those ideas that fans come up with because they think it is cool, but which would never be produced by a studio because it is just too.. I cna’t think of another word other than “fanny.” They tried to incorporate too many of the different characters and plot elements of Star Trek into one episode instead of just telling a good story. I am a huge Star Trek fan, and I have no problem with fans getting excited about crazy story ideas, but the thing is that these folks are trying to make it “official, so to speak, and are going to great lengths to do so. Unfortunately they got too excited and threw too many things into one episode so that by the end it was simply confusing and ridiculous.
A really good idea, and lovingly done, but they desperately need a better cast (at least for the major characters; Scotty, Uhura, and DeSalle were quite good) and a decent director. I also agree with Shane on the writing: it’s an homage, not a glimpse of what the fourth season would have looked like. Now, if we could get an actual network to pick up on the idea and re-cast it. . .