From XXX to TNG: how a Star Trek PORN FLICK became an awesome NEXT GENERATION fan film!

WARNING – THIS BLOG IS RAUNCHY!
(But no nudity!)

Let’s talk about porn. (I knew that would get your attention!) There is something called Rule 34 which basically states: “If it exists, there is porn of it.” This is especially true for established television and movie franchises. If you don’t believe me, here’s just a few examples of actual porn films that even have their own Wikipedia entries:

• 30 Rock: A XXX Parody
• BatfXXX: Dark Night Parody
• Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros
• Down on Abby
• Muffy the Vampire Layer
• Play-mate of the Apes
• Seinfeld: A XXX Parody
• Superman vs. Spider-Man XXX
• This Ain’t Avatar XXX

And it doesn’t stop with live action. Not even children’s cartoons are safe! This is a rabbit hole that you probably DON’T want to go down (I’m actually kinda sorry I did), but if you absolutely must prove to yourself that Rule 34 is real, lock the door, go to Google, toggle to image search, and type “Disney porn” or even “Bugs Bunny porn.” (On a lark, I typed “Star Trek Lower Decks porn” and…holy crap! It’s everywhere!!!!)

Why don’t studios like Disney or Warner Brothers or Paramount stop all of this smut that is obviously exploiting their intellectual property, cheapening it, and displaying it in ways it was never intended to be seen? There’s a few answers. For one thing, the cost of legally going after so many infringers (even finding them all!) would likely bankrupt the studios. Remember that the AXANAR lawsuit cost CBS and Paramount an estimated $1 million over a year’s time. Multiply that by infinity—which is probably how many pornographic images and videos of copyrighted content there are out there online—and you can probably understand the “see no evil, hear no evil, sue no evil” philosophy that prevails.

But there may also be another factor in play: pornography might legally qualify as PARODY, and parody is protected speech under the doctrine of Fair Use. In other words, can you just slap a XXX-rating on something, show some nudity and sex, call it a “parody,” and go to town with whatever copyrighted content you want? Or is that just a myth? I could easily write a lengthy blog about this very debate, but fortunately, I don’t have to because STEPHEN CARLISLE beat me to it seven years ago…and you’re welcome to read it here.

Of course, Star Trek is well represented in the “porn parody” arena. And while I am certainly not a connoisseur of fine (or not-so-fine) pornography, I checked out a few examples while researching this blog and was quite underwhelmed. I ended up fast-forwarding through the sex scenes looking for plot, and was always left disappointed. If I had to review the few bits of Star Trek porn I saw, the words “stupid,” “awful,” “boring,” “disgusting,” and “a complete waste of time” would appear frequently.

But there is one Star Trek porn parody that not only bucks that trend but is truly worth watching…albeit without the sex scenes. And indeed, that’s pretty easy to do, as there is a special 27-minute cut of the film that has ZERO sex scenes and is actually a really, REALLY good Star Trek: TNG fan film!

To understand how this porn parody/fan film came to be, we first need to travel back to 2009 when sci-fi-fan-turned-porn-writer-director SAM HAIN completed his first porn parody film The Sex Files: A Dark XXX Parody. And the following year, he released a sequel.

Although I haven’t watched either film, the reviews compliment Hain for remaining very true to the look and feel of the original X-Files series and characters, creating a strong story in addition to all the schtupping. (Yes, I just said “schtupping.”)

But The X-Files wasn’t the only sci-fi series that Hain was a big fan of. Growing up, he LOVED Star Trek: The Next Generation. And so, when he set out to write a script for a TNG porn parody, he worked in the opposite order of most of his contemporaries, who would write the sex scenes first and then tie them together with short lead-in sequences designed to get to the sex as quickly as possible. Hain, however, came up with the TNG story he wanted to tell FIRST and then added the sex scenes much later on in the writing process.

The story he decided to tell is actually quite strong, utilizing all of the seven main characters from Next Gen plus a few other very recognizable fan favorites. The story feels very much like it could fit into canon, taking place somewhere early in the sixth season of TNG (one site listed the time frame as just before the episode “True Q”).

Of course, having a script is only part of the, er, trek. Hain had to also assemble a cast. Granted, there’s a LOT of porn stars out there, but they’re not necessarily known for their, um, acting. As a hard-core Trekker, Hain wanted actors who were at least familiar with TNG…and preferably be fans themselves. And he found quite a few. In fact, most of his cast admitted in interviews to being serious fans of the various Trek series.

For example, porn actress BOBBI STARR gave an interview to io9 and revealed a total geek-out cringe moment when she met JOHN “Q” DeLANCIE in person…

Another porn actress, APRIL O’NEIL (who took her stage name from the character who is the human ally of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) grew up watching Next Gen and Doctor Who and all sorts of other sci-fi shows. When she heard about this project, it sounded perfect for her—“a dream come true,” as she called it. But she worried that she wouldn’t get a role because, with her long, straight dark hair, she didn’t look like any of the TNG characters. But thanks to an awesome wig, April became Counselor Deanna Troi. April also shared with io9 that she had gone back and watched a ton of TNG episodes, trying to perfect MARINA SIRTIS’ hybrid British/Mediterranean Betazoid accent.

Another cast member who was “saved by the wig” was INDIA SUMMER, the actress playing Tasha Yar. India, who was born JODY JEAN OLSON, has dark hair but wore a blond wig that, while not as perfect as the Troi wig, helps to sell her as a fairly convincing Yar. She also does a very decent acting job, which probably shouldn’t be surprising. If you look on India Summer’s IMBd page, you’ll see that she won the CAVR Award for MILF of the Year in 2009, AVN Awards for Best Actress in 2011, MILF/Cougar of the Year in 2012, and XRCO Awards for both Unsung Siren and MILF of the Year in 2012. Seriously, I did not make any of that up!

Incredibly, the most convincing actor of the entire cast wasn’t a porn star at all but rather a Jean-Luc Picard impersonator from London named GILES ASTON. Beginning in the early 2000’s, Giles would make fans do double-takes as he strolled through Star Trek and sci-fi conventions all around the world. He did TV spots for the BBC, performed weddings on the Enterprise-D bridge in Las Vegas at Star Trek: The Experience, and even provided instruction on mixing cocktails…

Sam Hain ran into Giles at a Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in 2010 and knew he’d found his lead actor. The only trick was convincing Giles to take the role. Believe it or not, this was not the first time Giles had been approached to do porn! But he had always turned down the offers. However, he was willing to at least consider Sam’s invitation, assuming he could read the script and find out everything about the production companies making the film—Revolution X and Digital Sin—and the people involved. It turned out that Sam had a copy of the script with him in Las Vegas (imagine that!), and after reading it and doing some due diligence, Giles agreed to appear in the film…with one non-negotiable requirement: there would need to be a body double for any sex scene involving Picard. Sam agreed, and XANDER CORVUS, who also played Data in the film, became the stand-in for Giles during a final scene in Picard’s ready room with Beverly Crusher. (Hey, she’s his doctor; she’s seen it all before! Ahem.)

Two years later in 2013, Giles would appear again as Jean-Luc Picard…this time in a non-porn fan film. The long-running fan series STAR TREK: INTREPID in Scotland released an ambitious 30-minute episode called “THE STONE UNTURNED” where Picard arrives on the USS Intrepid looking for an archaeological artifact. Sadly, though, that was the extent of Giles’ involvement with Star Trek fan films, and he is reportedly no longer doing Picard appearances.

And speaking of Data, Xander Corvus himself was cast in that role at the last minute, replacing the original actor selected to play Data, ANTHONY ROSANO. Anthony showed up, got into make-up, and found the yellow contact lenses that he had to wear to be too uncomfortable for him to remain in for the many, many hours required to perform. So instead, Xander ended up having to arrive super-early to get into all of that Data make-up. But Xander was no stranger to the unique requirements of franchise-themed porn “parodies.” Among his more than 600 parts showing his…er, parts, Xander appeared in porn films based on Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and a whole bunch of superhero fare including Spider-Man, the Avengers, X-Men, and Supergirl.

Another cast member requiring large amounts of make-up was LEE BANG (real name LEE BANK), who played Worf. Like MICHAEL DORN on Next Generation, Lee had to show up three hours early to get into make-up. Lee himself has an interesting backstory. Born in 1965, Lee was by far the oldest member of the cast at the age of 46. Most porn actors get involved in the profession in their twenties or very early thirties at most. But according to his IMDb page, Lee didn’t enter the business until 2004 when he was 39 years old.

A final cast member requiring make-up, although not nearly as much, was DANA DeARMOND, who played Ensign Ro. In her case, though, the make-up was so convincing that she actually received a tweet from WIL “Wesley Crusher” WHEATON. As many are aware, Wil is a super-fan himself. He found out about the TNG porn parody that was being filmed, and on the Sunday of the shoot, tweeted out: “”Apparently, there is a XXX parody of TNG being filmed this weekend. I hope the producers are crediting a generation of fan fiction writers.”

Dana quickly responded, “I’m playing Ensign Ro,” and tweeted a photo of herself from the set.

Wil then replied, “Holy crap. You look just like her!”

The following day, after filming wrapped on the four-day shoot, Dana let the world know how big a fan she was when she tweeted, “And @wilw tweeting to me yesterday made the 12 year old me die. What a sweetie. Used to crush on Wesley Crusher so hard back in the day.” Of course, with the episode taking place in TNG‘s sixth season, Wesley Crusher was already away at Starfleet Academy and was therefore not represented in the cast of the porn parody (probably a good thing!).

Wil continued to tweet about the production, even though he wasn’t involved. After his interactions with Dana, he tweeted the following to April O’Neil (playing Troi), “Speaking from experience: remember to invert a neutrino pulse through the navigational deflector every time you set the DVR.”

Heading into the end of 2010, things were moving along quickly for Revolution X and Digital Sin, as the production design team constructed a full 360-degree Enterprise-D bridge set that took up nearly all of the space available in their Chatsworth, CA film studio. At the time, Chatsworth was known as the Porn Capital of World, home to numerous “studios” located in unmarked industrial warehouses and even in private homes. From the 1970s until the 2010s, the vast majority of pornography in the world was produced in Los Angeles’ San Fernando (“San Pornando”) Valley…and specifically in Chatsworth. Then the advent of Internet video and free porn pretty much killed off most of the industry there. But back in 2010, Chatsworth was still the place to be to make the “P”!

In addition to what was an amazing bridge set—even though it was not a perfect recreation, it was still very impressive for a TNG fan film—simpler sets were constructed for Picard’s ready room, Tasha’s quarters (essentially just a bed with a big window looking out into space), and a ship’s workout room (which wasn’t much of anything). There was also a green screen, which allowed the actors to be digitally composited onto the planet’s surface as well as into the holodeck. But it was obvious that the lion’s share of the budget went into building that bridge.

The green screen was also used to create the visual FX for the space scenes, utilizing models built specifically for the film. In the case of the Enterprise-D, the design was altered slightly to avoid copyright issues—although, one wonders why they worried about that and not the use of nearly a dozen established Star Trek: TNG characters! Similarly, even though the crew all wore screen-accurate Starfleet uniforms, the production decided NOT to use the familiar “arrowhead” emblem on the crew’s comm badges, despite replicas being commercially available from numerous vendors. Instead, oval comm badges with no insignia appeared on everyone’s uniform.

The 4-day shoot took place in early February of 2011, and the finished film was released on DVD shortly thereafter with the title STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – A XXX PARODY.

The boxed set featured a DVD of the full porn film with a runtime of about two hours. However, a second DVD contained what was called the “Party Version”—a 100% clean edit with no sex scenes and cuts that still allowed the story to flow naturally (something that Sam Hain had carefully planned while writing the script, shooting the footage, and supervising the final edits). There were also bloopers included, as well as behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and production crew.

Response to the release was generally quite positive, although reviewers disagreed on the quality of the actual sex scenes (most loved the Star Trek aspects of the story and attention to detail). Some reviewers applauded finally cutting through the seldom-addressed sexual tension that marked seven years of TNG by letting “couples” like Riker and Troi, Picard and Beverly, and Data and Yar actually do the nasty (yes, I just wrote “do the nasty”)—as well as finally acknowledging what the holodeck would most likely be commonly used for. Others complained that the sex scenes were boring, too long, unoriginal, and shot too darkly to really see much.

For those wanting to see the raunchy parts of the film, you’re welcome to look for it on the Internet. But the full porn film might be lost to time…although some sites still have the trailer, which includes short clips of the “naked nows” (yes, I just wrote “naked nows”…and yes, I’m running out of euphemisms for sex).

Fortunately for fans who do NOT want to see Star Trek porn, DAN ARMITAGE, a fellow fan from Europe who digitally remastered STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN to HD quality back in 2021, also uploaded the “Party Version” of ST:TNG – A XXX Parody to YouTube…renaming it Star Trek TNG: A Tale of Two Cities so as not to have it removed from YouTube for having “XXX” in the title. Dan also changed the opening credits to those of Next Gen‘s later seasons but replacing the names of the actors. It’s somewhat odd, however, as the opening monologue of “Space, the final frontier…” is dubbed into German. But this is the version that’s on YouTube. And Dan added the episode title “A Tale of Two Cities” just after the opening credits. (The original porn film had no such title.)

And now, free from porn and safe to watch at work or even around the kids, here is the “Party Version” of ST:TNG – A XXX Parody, more cleanly known as Star Trek TNG: A Tale of Two Cities…