Yesterday, we began looking back at many of the major (and not-so-major) Star Trek fan films released in 2025—and there were a LOT! So many, if fact, that I felt I needed to divide this Year in Review blog into two parts. Part 1 covered January through June. Now, let’s finish out the final six months and see what Trekkie fan filmmakers had to offer us. There’s some really great stuff on this list…
JULY
WHAT’S NEXT
GLEN L WOLFE and DAN REYOLDS like making sets and making fan films, and that’s why they launched WARP 66 Studios and the fanthology series THE FEDERATION FILES nearly a decade ago. Now they are expanding their TOS sets and jumping into the 24th century with the first TNG./DS9/VOY-era set pieces to be permanently available in America (Europe has had a number of them). They are also expanding into fan films with faster runtimes as they launch SCI-FI SHORTS. This first release, which takes place just prior to the launch of the Enterprise-D, was initially intended as an entry into the TREKS IN 90 SECS contest, but it ran over the 2-minute time limit (hey, it’s a challenge!). Still, this vignette is a great way to pass three minutes and 45 seconds…
AUGUST
RAKTAJINO (a STAR TREK parody of “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter)
Nothing starts a morning off right on Deep Space Nine like that wonderful Klingon coffee beverage Raktajino. And nothing starts August off right like another excellently-edited parody music video from IAN RAMSEY of the STAR REKT YouTube channel….
TRIBBLES ARE TROUBLE
LZB PRODUCTIONS released a total of four Trek-ish fan films during 2025. TRIBBLES ARE TROUBLE was their most recognizable Trek story, focusing on—you guessed it!—tribbles. This outing was shot at Neutral Zone Studios and is an example of fans just having fun creating a film on TOS sets without sweating details like what’s visible in the background or not having enough hands available to slide the sickbay doors open. It’s just a basic Star Trek fan film that felt no pressure to be anything else…
THE GREAT EXPERIMENT
The fourth Trek Shorts release of 2025 was Sam Cockings’ first foray into the Star Trek II-VI movie era, complete with monster maroon uniforms and late 23rd century CGI starship interiors. And then, of course, there are some wonderful shots of the USS Excelsior back when it was still NX-2000, as well as other starship classes from that era. Also notable is the first appearance in a Trek Shorts release of David Cheng of Star Trek Fan Productions International in his admiral’s monster maroon cosplay-quality uniform. David produced Time and Time Again (see previous blog), which came out in June.
STARFLEET COACH
Steve Shives’ third Starfleet Jobs release returned to a more lighthearted tone as he shifted from border guard to coach of a spaceball team. That isn’t to say that this latest release doesn’t have a wee bit of a political slant. But again, just like the best episodes of Star Trek, Starfleet Jobs often uses science fiction to hold up a mirror to our society and culture. And I will always maintain that a good story, told well, that also makes us think is absolutely worth our time. And Starfleet Coach definitely gives us all three of those…
STAR TREK: VENTURE – “A MOMENT’S PEACE”
JED T.E. ROHODES is a composer, actor, podcaster, and fan filmmaker from Yorkshire, England. Most of his fan film work has been in the Doctor Who sub-genre, but starting in 2024, he began producing his own Star Trek fan audio dramas, slowly transitioning into the occasional Trek fan film release as well. With limited resources, Jed’s initial efforts, like the fan film below, are essentially subspace video calls–the kind made famous by VANCE MAJOR and many of his CONSTAR saga fan films. Indeed, actor ROY IVEY, who appeared in several Constar productions, plays a character in Jed’s STAR TREK: VENTURE fans series, as well…
TREKS IN 90 SECS winners announced
It’s quite challenging to produce a Star Trek fan film that’s only 90-120 seconds long—but not impossible! For the second year of the now-annual TREKS IN 90 SECS contest, we had ten submissions voted on by fans and readers of Fan Film Factor. And this year, we saw a tie for second place. You can watch all ten submissions here, and here are the top four vote-getters (all released in 2025)…
SEPTEMBER
LORELEY – “PART III: ERSTKONTAKT” (“FIRST CONTACT”)
September kicked off with a quite a bang as the German wunderkinder from the (relatively) new fan series LORELEY dazzled fans with yet another masterpiece of fan filmmaking. Set in the Kelvin timeline, their releases nonetheless have a very classic TOS feel to them. But more than jus strong writing and acting (even in German, I can still follow what’s happening—although I do turn on English subtitles) is their amazing eye toward professional quality cinematography. For although they shoot primarily in front of a green screen, their CGI and VFX, rendered using the Unreal Engine, make everything look unbelievably realistic! See for yourself…
SECOND STAR TO THE LEFT
This latest offering from THE NEUTRAL ZONE and AVALON UNIVERSE was special for three reasons. First, it was one of the last fan films to ever be shot at the Kingsland, GA location of Neutral Zone Studios. Second, the lead actress, SARA McCARTNEY, is neurodivergent, and her mother, RUTH McCARTNEY, wrote this film as a biography/autobiography of both herself and her daughter’s experiences growing up. And finally, I was the film editor on this project, having been asked by director Josh Irwin to help lighten his editing load. The result is a very different—and emotionally-impactful—fan film than what you might be used to seeing, but definitely worth checking out…
A NEW LOOK FOR AURORA
Although only 35 seconds in runtime, this short vignette created a great deal of excitement amongst Trekkers who have been watching fan films for awhile. Back in 2006, 3D animator and fan filmmaker TIM VINING began working on STAR TREK: AURORA, eventually taking five years to complete the five-episodes of his first story. His second story, MUDD IN YOUR I, took another three years from 2013 to 2016 to complete its two episodes. Now, nearly a decade later, Tim has announced that he’ll be making more Aurora episodes, beginning with this amusing short…
FARRAGUT FORWARD wins the SHOWRUNNER AWARD for Best Fan Film
The fourth annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS ended up with 24 entries for a total runtime of ten and a half hours of top-notch fan films. And the top notichiest of them all, as determined by 11 fan film showrunners who served as judges, was 2024’s FARRAGUT FORWARD (not to be confused with 2025’s FARRAGUT 2024…see below). This movie-era fan film featured impeccable monster maroons and other costumes, amazing sets, a large cast, some very impressive acting, great VFX, wonderful music, and a revenge story reminiscent of Star Trek II: TWOK. Showrunner JOHN BROUGHTON led the cast, and director JOHNNY K really knocked it out of the park…
OCTOBER
STARSHIP ANTYLLUS – Series Finale
After more than a dozen years, the long-running fan series STARSHIP ANTYLLUS came to a conclusion in September with an 84-minute series finale. So why am I listing it as an October release? Showrunner GEORGE KAYAIAN worked extremely hard writing, starring in, directing, and editing this culmination of his 30-chapter storyline. But when it was first released on September 12, George felt that it wasn’t quite “perfect” yet. So he added in a few scenes he’d left out, tightened others to keep run-time nearly the same (two minutes longer) and released a “director’s cut” on October 26. Take a look…
STALLED TREK: “THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE”
Although originally completed in early November of 2024, creator MARK LARGENT kept his third animated TOS puppet parody off of YouTube for nearly a year, giving it a chance to win eight film festival awards in the meantime. “THE DUMBSDAY MACHINE” then made its Internet premiere on October 20, 2025 to uproarious applause and laughter (well, probably not applause, since most people were just watching it on their computer screens). Mark previously created parodies of TOS fan fave episodes “Amok Time” and “The City on the Edge of Forever”—as well as a parody of the Axanar lawsuit that he co-wrote and co-produced with yours truly. You can watch all of Mark’s Stalled Trek parodies here. And you can watch his latest triumph below…
TIME AND AGAIN – Episode 1: AFTERMATH
In January, Jefferson Kelly appeared as Captain Preston Sisko (great grandfather of Benjamin) in the one-shot fan film The Unmade Mind (see entry in the previous blog). Now in late October, Jefferson transitioned into the role of director, co-writing and co-starring in a fan film of his own making. The story is quite complex, endeavoring to explain the eternal question of Star Trek time travel: why do some incursions back in time “fix” a problem (a la “City on the Edge of Forever”), some not affect time at all (Star Trek IV), while still others create entirely new realities (JJ Trek 2009). STAR TREK: DISCOVERY‘s Director Kovich plays a role in a fan film that WILL leave your head spinning and your brain needing an aspirin. But then again, that’s why Janeway once said, “My advice in making sense of temporal paradoxes is simple: don’t even try.” Well, this fan film tries. Good luck…
TEN FORWARD TEST KITCHEN: PLOMEEK SOUP
AARON VANDERKLEY of the THESE ARE THE VOYAGES fan series, based in Australia, has always had the recipe for some cutting-edge fan film concepts. Aaron’s first series of projects was one of the initial attempts by fans to recreate Star Trek: Enterprise with physical sets and impeccable costumes. His second series of fan films leapfrogged into the 24th century with Voyager-era sets and costumes, followed by three SHORT VOYAGES which were initially intended for the Treks in 90 Secs contest but ended up running a little bit too long. Now Aaron has cooked up a new kind of fan series—the TEN FORWARD TEST KITCHEN—which combines Aaron’s 24th century sets and costumes with original short scenes, Trek clips from various series, and actual recipes intended to teach fans how to make certain traditional Star Trek alien dishes. Up first, the Vulcan Plomeek Soup…
NOVEMBER
FARRAGUT 2024
As you’ll see below, November was a busy month for Star Trek fan films. And it brought with it a “whale” of a project (although one without any actual whales) as the time-traveling FARRAGUT 2024 was released to much acclaim and excitement. This was arguably one of the most technically challenging Trek fan films to be produced since STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN back in 2006. It has impeccable costumes, top-notch VFX and music, custom-built sets, and was filmed in several indoor and outdoor locations throughout the Maryland/Virginia/Washington, DC area…including on the National Mall and Goddard Space Flight Center. Several dozen people (including me!) worked both in front of and behind the camera under the guidance of showrunner John Broughton and director Josh Irwin. Clocking in at nearly a full hour, this fan film doesn’t feel nearly that long thanks to tight editing by Josh (and me!), a really wonderful score, and some very nice acting…
STAR TREK: VENTURE – “IN THE AFTERMATH”
Another release from Jed T. E. Rhodes, this episode follows on the heels of the battle with the Phantom Fleet, which happened in a previous audio episode (thereby saving a TON on VFX!). While this episode includes another Starfleet “Zoom” call, Jed does get a little fresh air in the beginning—along with a temporary change of uniform…
MIND LEECH
There are two reasons in particular to watch this latest release from the fanthology series The Federation Files. The first is that director of photography Josh Irwin did a particularly excellent job this time out of lighting everything in a very TOS style. He’s usually quite adept at such things, but this time, the artwork of it all (what Josh calls “painting with light”) was especially well executed. The other reason for giving this fan film a viewing is, sadly, that actor E. WAYNE HAWKINS, who played the character of Doc Bell in this and other Fed Files episodes, passed away a few days after MIND LEECH was originally posted to YouTube. To honor him, showrunners Dan Reynolds and Glen L. Wolfe posted a special Directors Cut to YouTube with a tribute to the beloved fan actor. R.I.P. Doc…
TIME AND AGAIN – Episode 2: VALAGANT
The second episode of this fan series in as many months features the villain (or is he the villain?), General Valagant, as he confronts Director Kovich. Co-writer JASON WEDDELL does a very strong acting job portraying the intriguing general…
TASK FORCE 78: WHERE DO YOU GO?
STEVE “HAIRY” HARRIS releases a whole bunch of fan film-related content on his YouTube channel. Among these are music video compilations (with lyrics written by him and songs created using Ai), short edits, and reviews and discussions about fan film releases from multiple genres. And every so often, as part of his TASK FORCE 78 fan series, he’ll release a more traditional (and bare bones) Star Trek fan film of his own. As the month of November was starting to wrap up, Steve debuted a new film co-produced and co-directed with Steve’s wife LINDA HARRIS as well as long-time No-Budget Films creator VANCE MAJOR. Here ’tis…
DECEMBER
THE CASSANDRA EFFECT
December kicked off with the second release from the fledging Netherlands-based USS Cassandra fan series under the command of showrunner Thomas Argante. Their first release came in April and featured only a very sparse captain’s quarters/office set. THE CASSANDRA EFFECT, however, added a more elaborate TOS-era shuttlecraft interior, allowing for a story involving a scientific experiment outside of the ship and, somewhat expectedly, a major disco hit from the 1970s. Ya kinda have to just watch it…
STARFLEET JOURNALIST
While not all of Steve Shives’ releases in his Starfleet Jobs fan series are overtly political, his fourth and final offering for 2025, STARFLEET JOURNALIST, certainly was—as journalism and its slant, one way or the other, is currently a huge concern on both sides of the political spectrum here in the United States. And apparently, it’s still a concern 300 years in the future. Take a look…
TEN FORWARD TEST KITCHEN: HASPERAT
The second release from the TEN FORWARD TEST KITCHEN came just over a month after the premiere episode and shifted its focus from Vulcan to Bajor for some nice, super-spicy Hasperat. It includes a short skit, canonical history of the dish throughout Star Trek history (both on camera and behind-the-scenes), and a recipe that follows the three golden rules: 1) it must look like it does on screen, 2) be easy to make, and 3) actually taste good. This fan series is also launching another new innovation: vertically-oriented shorts like this one, which are becoming very popular on YouTube lately. Each short takes a brief portion of the full video and releases it as a stand-alone segment. Here’s the whole thing…
DECON GEL (a STAR TREK parody of “Silver Bells” by Dean Martin)
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas…at least as we come to the end of 2025. And to celebrate the joyous holiday, Ian Ramsey of Star Rekt released his second yuletide carol parody music video in three years. The previous one was MY BLUE UNDERWEAR (a parody of “Winter Wonderland”) back in December of 2022—featuring many shots of Chief Engineer Charles “Trip” Tucker sneaking around the Enterprise NX-01 corridors in his azure skivvies. This year, Ian has returned to the 22nd century with DECON GEL, a Star Trek-inspired parody of the Dean Martin version of “Silver Bells.” If this doesn’t get you into the holiday spirit, well, I’m sure something else will…
ECHOES OF YESTERDAY
This was the first time any Star Trek fan film used the new RENDER NETWORK to create its CGI effects. If you watch this sequel the 2023 Trek Shorts release THIS SIDE OF MORALITY, this new films looks like a simple enough vignette. But ECHOES OF YESTERDAY is presented at full 4K resolution, which would have taken Samuel Cockings’ poor computer in England months on its own to render out these moving interior and exterior CGI shots with at such high quality. Instead, thanks to the Render Network distributing the processing demands virtually across a series of Nvidia-powered GPUs around the world, this entire complex fan film was shot, fully rendered, and completed in only three weeks. Check it out…
WHEN THE PLOT WORKS AGAINST YOU
Two of the winners of the Treks in 90 Secs contest from August (see above) were created by ADAM SCHWARTZ. But Adam has been quite a busy little fan filmmaker! During 2025, he’s created and released nine different comedy vignettes (watch them all here), each parodying a different aspect of Star Trek lore—whether it be the holodeck, food replicators, exploding consoles, non-main characters, or “minor” missions that really don’t really require the fleet’s flagship to complete. To finish up the year, Adam released WHEN THE PLOT WORKS AGAINST YOU, taking a look at everything that tends to go wrong with otherwise very simple and straightforward missions…
CAPTAIN SIMIAN’S FIRST COMMAND
The fun-loving folks at Nature’s Hunger certainly weren’t monkeying around when they made THIS fan film! Clocking in at over two hours and fifteen minutes(!!!), CAPTAIN SIMIAN’S FIRST COMMAND jumps back and forth from TOS-era into movie-era , uses both the Georgia basement TOS sets of showrunner JOSE CEPEDA as well as the North Carolina bridge set built by FRANK PARKER, JR. for CROSSROADS – PROJECT: GEMINI (see the previous blog’s April releases), and incorporates animated AI sequences. This is also the first-ever Star Trek fan film where the protagonist is a damn, dirty ape. Honestly, you’ll go bananas over Captain Simian’s First Command…!
FIRE IN THE NIGHT
And to round out 2025, Sam Cockings made it back-to-back releases as he premiered a second Trek Shorts during December (scroll up a smidge for Echoes of Yesterday). This time, Sam shifted his focus to late DS9/TNG-movie era with a focus on the Enterprise-E and crewman Sam Harriman, played by trained actor MARCUS CHURCHILL. It’s a very ambitious story involving the AI “villain” Grathar and Species 8472. Also appearing were NICK COOK as Daniel Hunter (both commander and captain) and also the voice of Grathar, NIMRAN SAUND in a brief cameo, and MARIE-LOUISE SVALENG as Starfleet historian Louise Nilsson. It’s definitely worth watching…
And speaking of Marie-Louise, 2025 ended on a particularly exciting note for her when long-time boyfriend Sam Cockings finally proposed (and she said “yes,” of course!). Nick Cook was also there to take the following photo of the newly-engaged couple…
We wish Sam and Marie-Louise all the happiness, long-living, and prospering that the galaxy can provide. I am certain they will make beautiful Trek Shorts together!
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!
It’s awesome to see Star Trek: Venture get a mention on here I feel it’s worth mentioning, our audio efforts started in 2023 with our “Season 0”, and since have – alongside other production groups – spawned into what we call a “Fan Audio Shared Timeline” (with… well, quite a few productions, which surprises us every time we look at the playlist ). And on the film front, we have branched into the documentary style a few times with our 2024 film “The Battle of Midnight” (which has been something of an outlier in its success until recently), the Star Trek: Deimos film “The Black Mountain” on a sister-channel, and the film “The Last Charge of the Thunderchild” that came out on the 23rd. We were particularly proud of that one due to its larger cast for the documentary side and our first forays into Blender. Anyway, sorry to blather
Thanks for the extra info, Jed!