Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

Been catching up today on an ST forum I follow but have neglected lately...

Starship Exeter has finally come out with it second episode, 10 years in the making.  Haven't watched this yet.

Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

The second episode of the fanfilm series STARSHIP EXETER began
filming in 2004. The teaser and first three acts have been floating
around in cyberspace for years, with promises that the episode would
eventually be finished.

Well, it's finally happened!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jkuJG1_2MnU


I must say that, of the various TOS-inspired fanfilms I've seen, this is
my favorite. It's exactly what I would want a TOS fanfilm to be--it's
essentially STAR TREK, but set on a different Constitution class
ship.

The acting is expectedly hit-and-miss, but the story, characters, and
style are pretty darn solid. There's very little wink-wink fannishness to
be seen here, especially in comparison to some of the more well-known
fanfilms, like NEW VOYAGES/PHASE II and STAR TREK
CONTINUES.

Fun they may be, but the fanfilms which recast Kirk and crew don't
quite sit well with me. I prefer the idea of using the established TOS
framework, but with a new and different ship and crew.

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=46870&PN=1&totPosts=3

[Buster's Uncle]

[Buster's Uncle]

From what I read of control of Star Trek, it is as convoluted as Alpha Centauri. Some folks control some aspects of it, others control others.

Interesting example of this from what I understand from John Byrne, who did a lot of Trek comics (Crew, about the early career of Number One, was great, the Romulans stuff good, and Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor meh,) for IDW, the company that currently holds the license, before embarking on the current original-story photonovels as seen above, is that there's been a lot of back-and-forth from the licensing department.

When he started playing around with shooping up a comics-format photo version of The Man Trap strictly for fun because he's an artist and a fan at the beginning of last year, his fanboys on his forum were instantly "IDW!", and he was all "No, Word From Above is, NuTrek only. "

It mutated into an original story just to see if he could patch together the available screenies, and he liked the results.  So, no hope of making a buck off his fanfic, but he showed it to the president of the company anyway, and a couple of months later, Word From Above was "Go." [shrugs]

I'm sure it was in this thread or the Valjiir one that I posted the news story about JarJar taking over the Trek franchise because he wanted to be an action figure billionaire like George Lucas, and Trek looked like his chance - he may not be a fan, but it's kind've a gimme.  Star Trek is undeniably a name to conjure with, and he could make it into more the sort of thing he liked that made Lucas Richer Than God, and less like what didn't make Roddenberry all that rich when HE was struggling for control of the franchise in the 80s.  The news story is what it is, and I'm not making this up, or even extrapolating boldly - just combining everything I know into a coherent picture.

SO - just like when Rod was stepping on pro fanfic novel ideas he didn't like as part of studio politics circa 1987 (and the poor man HATED Wrath of Khan and all the other movies he was shut out of) JarJar couldn't make a cent off dolls of the real Spock, and it makes every kind of sense that Bad Robot insisted on pushing the Abomination version on all spinoff licensed properties.  I despise him for that, but I certainly understand why.

But like Rodenberry before him, studio politics are what they are - so IDW publishes a series recreating Real Trek episodes as Nu, which I've heard are at least better than the movies, but without any participation from Byrne, by an order of magnitude the company's biggest star, but a Real fan who doesn't need the money bad enough to prostitute himself doing stuff he holds in contempt, and meanwhile, also publishes his Real Trek photnovels that he says are his favorite project in his entire long career.

Studio politics - just not fan-friendly.

[Lorizael]

When he's gone, others will want to move in and cash in, and we could get lucky - and Jarjar demonstrated that the original has power and pulls in the 100 millions here in the future, and broken out of the TNG mold that long (mistakenly in the eyes of suits who didn't understand) overshadowed the archetypical appeal of teh Spock that had never gone anywhere.

I don't want people going back to the well of trying to animate De Kelley and Jimmy Doohan's corpses, actually - but maybe the next people to take over will find a fourth way more satisfying to (the real) fans of old and new, if not the DumbTrek.

What I REALLY want to see?  The idea for Enterprise done right.  Captain Robert April on the first voyage of the real Enterprise.  Go all retro Forbidden Planet on that mother.

I remember hearing late last year about two Star Trek shows in development. Basically Star Trek:CSI and Star Trek:EMS.

[Buster's Uncle]

They oughta be looking to do the Captain Sulu show as a cartoon, too, while the voice actors are still able.  Walter Koenig  hasn't got ten years left, I guarantee, so time's a-wastin'.

[Buster's Uncle]

Been catching up today on an ST forum I follow but have neglected lately...

Starship Exeter has finally come out with it second episode, 10 years in the making.  Haven't watched this yet.

Starship Exeter: The Tressaurian Intersection

The second episode of the fanfilm series STARSHIP EXETER began
filming in 2004. The teaser and first three acts have been floating
around in cyberspace for years, with promises that the episode would
eventually be finished.

Well, it's finally happened!

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jkuJG1_2MnU


I must say that, of the various TOS-inspired fanfilms I've seen, this is
my favorite. It's exactly what I would want a TOS fanfilm to be--it's
essentially STAR TREK, but set on a different Constitution class
ship.

The acting is expectedly hit-and-miss, but the story, characters, and
style are pretty darn solid. There's very little wink-wink fannishness to
be seen here, especially in comparison to some of the more well-known
fanfilms, like NEW VOYAGES/PHASE II and STAR TREK
CONTINUES.

Fun they may be, but the fanfilms which recast Kirk and crew don't
quite sit well with me. I prefer the idea of using the established TOS
framework, but with a new and different ship and crew.

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=46870&PN=1&totPosts=3

So I listened to over half instead of watching, but got sucked in towards the end.  Gonna have to actually watch it all the way through, 'cause...

...I think this is the best fan production ST I've ever seen.  The comment I quoted goes way too easy on the acting, which is mostly terrible -really bad-  --- so you know there's serious compensating factors.

Probably hands-down the most solid script I've ever seen in a fan production.  Just hit all the right marks, good pace, nice mixture of thoughtfulness and action.  Solid.  Excellent, really.

And the production values were first-rate and avoided some minor missteps both the imitation Kirk ones suffer from in a minor way - whoever did the color balancing/leveling in post-production is a genius.  Other fan productions, with their meticulous recreations of the often-garishly colored sets, tend to end up too bright and colorful on modern cameras.  This did not have that.  The colors look like Star Trek for once.  Same thing on all the ship exteriors - even professional CGI guys frequently make the mistake of leaving the color saturation too high, and that's a dead giveaway.  This stuff looks like top-grade model work, which is how ST should be...

Again, best fan production ever, maybe, and that's despite not-at-all good performances.  The other elements were THAT good.

[Impaler]

Agree that Exeter is by far the best fan recreation Trek, the thing I like best about it is the core premise to use a DIFFERENT SHIP (of the Constitution class), it's simply so fresh in what it allows complete freedom in creating a cast from the production teams available acting talent.  Now obviously their Captain is very Kirk-ish and most of the rest have overtones of the famous characters but the positions are scrambled up, the Captain's old friend is the Engineer rather then his first officer.

On top of the originality of the premise they do balance the action and pacing of their episodes brilliantly, and while their acting is far below TV grade, I would say it is far better then most fan work.

Huge props btw for their use of an Andorian, they are fresh and classic at the same time, Exeter makes better use of them then the Enterprise prequel show.

[Buster's Uncle]

Yes, exactly. 

The script did a nice job of setting up characters who were individuals and their relationships with each other - that it could easily be rewritten into KirK-Spock-McCoy w/o doing much violence to much of anything but Kirk's backstory is not a minus.  It was solid writing, and if the writer is fast enough, I'd say (s)he is easily good enough for professional television work.  (S)he is ready.

I'm very much on the bus with the "do Star Trek, but on another ship" thinking.  Everyone loves Spock, but we've never seen a single soul who wasn't Leonard Nimoy play him satisfactorily.  Spock's always weak in fan productions, every single time.

[Geo]

Watched the 'pilot' of starship Exeter yesterday.
God, they used awful effects back in the days.

The captain was doing pretty fine qua acting, with a second place for the Andorian comm crewman for hilarity.

Two dialogues I found hilarious: the one about Andorians living underground because they considered themself the apex lifeform ln their planet while giant predators still ran galore on the surface, and the lne at the end, "I understand completely, you wanted to cover all your bases."

[Buster's Uncle]

On those original Byrne original story photonovel comics I post about occasionally -

Chris Ryall forwarded to me an email from Walter Koenig. Apparently he was impressed with "Strange New Worlds."

Initiating warm, fuzzy glow!

Now THAT's gotta be a moment for a fan...

...Contact with Walter where he wasn't rude...


Has anyone read any of those photonovel comics?  Cher?  Anyone?

[Valjiir1]

On those original Byrne original story photonovel comics I post about occasionally -

Chris Ryall forwarded to me an email from Walter Koenig. Apparently he was impressed with "Strange New Worlds."

Initiating warm, fuzzy glow!

Now THAT's gotta be a moment for a fan...

...Contact with Walter where he wasn't rude...


Has anyone read any of those photonovel comics?  Cher?  Anyone?

I don't read any ST graphic/photo novels, have never seen the ST series you all are talking about, have never read any ST novel with the exception of the novelizations of TOS and the one which the Valjiir Shadow Captain stories are based on.  I did read fanzines back in the 80's.  And I've seen some New Voyages and another of the re-creations (the one with John Cho as Sulu).  Other than that, I'm totally ignorant about any 'other' ST - except for Valjiir, of course.  So, unfortunately, I really don't have much to contribute.

Except to say that I've met George Takei twice and he's a dear, wonderful man.

[Buster's Uncle]

I never heard a single story against him...

[Valka]

He's the only cast member I ever saw in person. Unfortunately it was on a day when the flu was creeping up on me all day and by the time for autographs, I was so sick, I could barely stand up. I enjoyed his presentation earlier, though. This was in 1979.

[Buster's Uncle]

Spock's World by Diane Duane.  On the strength of Duane's previous The Romulan Way, which was magnificent until a crap ending, and Valka's recommendation, Mylochka picked this up.  I keep falling asleep without making it many pages, sometimes less than one, but that reflects my current circumstances, not the quality of the work so far.

I didn't agree with every single little thing in there about the Vulcans, but this is basically the way I see them - some work harder at the logic-and-self-control stuff than others.  (Kirk called Spock "more Vulcan than the Vulcans" at one point.)  They have a regard for ceremony and tradition that may not be entirely logical, but it IS there and a thing.

Possibly Dr. McCoy's finest hour, playing against expectations nicely , even straining credulity.

A decent yarn.  It was no (most of) The Romulan Way, alas, but still recommended.

[Sava]

Who is the only person to portray themselves in the Star Trek universe?