Author: Jonathan Lane

A history of STAR TREK CONTINUES (feature, part 2)

WARNING!  SPOILERS AHEAD!

Cover 2Last time, we looked at an overview of what made STAR TREK CONTINUES unique among fan films.  This week, we’ll take a closer look at how this fan series got its start and some of its earliest fan film releases.

Months before producing and releasing its first full episode in 2013, STC filmed three short vignettes in May of 2012 to “introduce themselves” and get their space legs.

THE VINGETTES

The first vignette, about four minutes long, recreated the ending of “Turnabout Intruder,” the final first-run episode of TOS to air on television. But instead of ending on the depressingly somber line from Kirk, “If only…” the vignette CONTINUED the scene (get it?), following Kirk, Spock, and Scott into the turbolift and onto the bridge. Joined a few seconds later by McCoy, the somber mood is lightened by a good-natured poke at Spock by the doctor, and then Kirk orders the Enterprise to rendezvous with the Potemkin. The music shifts to an uplifting, optimistic melody, portending new and exciting adventures into the future. The camera pans out to reveal the entire bridge crew as the credits roll.

You can watch the vignette here…

And if you’re curious, here’s a couple of still-frame comparisons to the original version of that same scene from TOS…

STC-8
A comparison of the original “Turnabout Intruder” (left) and the recreation of the scenes by STAR TREK CONTINUES.

This first vignette was released onto the Internet on July 31, 2012 and served to do more than simply say, “Hey, we’re here! Look what we can do!” It also introduced four of the main actors who would be starring in the new series.

Continue reading “A history of STAR TREK CONTINUES (feature, part 2)”

Is STAR TREK: DISCOVERY getting TOO PREDICTABLE? (editorial review)

SPOILERS AHEAD!  BIG, HUGE, MASSIVE, GINORMOUS, HULKING SPOILERS!!!  (Don’t say you weren’t warned!)

Last week, I commented on the fan theory that Captain Lorca of the USS Discovery isn’t from “our” universe but rather from the Mirror Universe.  At first, it sounded like a pretty wild theory.  Now, I’m pretty well convinced that it’s the truth.

Is that the “discovery” that the series is named for?  After all, these show-runners are all about things having multiple layers of meaning, like episode 5’s title “Choose Your Pain.”  Maybe Discovery is not just the starship’s name but also alluding to the crew’s discovery that their captain is from another universe…a much meaner and nastier universe, as it turns out!

What?  You don’t believe me?  (Well, actually, some of you probably do.  This theory is already spreading rapidly through fandom—at least those watching the show—and a growing number are, like me, getting on board with the idea.)

Here’s the clues…

Continue reading “Is STAR TREK: DISCOVERY getting TOO PREDICTABLE? (editorial review)”

YOUR Star Trek fan film could WIN $500!

Hurry!  You’ve only got until November 3, 2017 to enter your Star Trek fan film for a chance to win $500!

(Of course, it’ll cost you $35 to enter on their website.  But hey, it’s worth a shot, right?)

Yesterday, I told you about how some independent film festivals are beginning to add a new category specifically for FAN FILMS.  The Berlin Sci-Fi Filmfest has already completed its entry period.  But there’s still a week and a half left to enter the New York-based IndieBOOM! film festival for a chance to win that $500 cash prize.

Created by the team at the award-winning Art of Brooklyn Film Festival, IndieBOOM! is for filmmakers and short-form content creators working everywhere, in all genre categories. There are no restrictions on completion date, as long as the films run no longer than 40 minutes.  So a Star Trek fan film that’s already been out for a few years is still eligible as long as it’s shorter than 40 minutes.

Here’s the description for their Fan Film category:

Are you a super-fan who has created an amazing “trailer” for the superhero (or super villain) film you wish existed, a lightsaber battle set in a galaxy far, far away… or a film that dares to trek where no-one has gone before? Or maybe you made a film about one ring that rules them all. Whatever your fandom, we want to see your fan film!

IndieBOOM!’s official selections will be chosen by a panel of industry professionals: critics, producers, writers, directors and actors.

It’s also an interactive festival. IndieBOOM will give entrants tools to help them promote their films to their networks and increase their fan-base. The most-viewed film in each category (Comedy, Sci-Fi, Documentary, Fan Film, etc.) wins an award.

“Ah, I know that trick!” I can hear you say.  Just get a bunch of friends to keep refreshing their browsers a few thousand times, and you’ll win.  Bah, humbug!”

Well, not this time.  IndieBOOM! will keep track of total views and also overall time viewed for each selection. (So just refreshing a web page over and over won’t help you win.)
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Their jury of industry professionals will acknowledge a single standout film with a special Jury Prize, regardless of the views/votes.  ​All winning selections will get a one year non-exclusive streaming contract on Brooklyn On Demand (which is carried on Roku to a worldwide audience and already has 16,000 subscribers).

And the selection (from all the categories together) with the most views overall wins the Fan Favorite Award—and a $500 cash prize!

So what are you waiting for?  (Well, assuming you’ve produced a fan film, that is!)  The submission deadline is November 3, 2017.

Click here to enter.

INDIE FILM FESTIVALS are starting to add a NEW category: FAN FILMS!

While studios like Paramount, CBS, Warner Brothers, Disney, Fox, and others try to figure out what to do about fan films, Independent Film Festivals already have a solution: CREATE SPECIAL CATEGORIES FOR THEM!

Up until recently, if you were a Star Trek fan film, your options were pretty limited when it came to entering your production into a film festival or contest.

For the last few years, the annual Treklanta convention has held the Independent Star Trek Film Awards (now called the “Bjos”). Obviously, entries are limited to only Star Trek fan films.

And then there are the independent film festivals that allow entrants from all genres and production backgrounds.  There’s a lot of these.  In fact, Prelude to Axanar won awards in 19 different film festivals, including the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, Creative Arts Film Festival, Widescreen Film & Music Video Festival, Nevada Film Festival, IndieFEST Film Awards, and California International Shorts Festival.

Star Trek Continues has also taken in its fair share of awards at the Accolade Global Film Competition, The Burbank International Film Awards, and most recently was given awards in five categories of the International Independent Film Awards.

And while some award shows, like the Geekie Awards, limit the range of entrees to specific genres like sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc., Trek fan films are still competing with “real” independent films with professional production teams and budgets that are often into the six or even seven figures.  Micro-budget Trek fan productions often face almost insurmountable competition.  And if the awards show is not limited to just sci-fi and related genres, the competition becomes even more wide ranging.

With high budgets, Hollywood actors, and professional production quality, Prelude to Axanar and Star Trek Continues were able to make their mark. against stiff competition.  But with the guidelines now limiting how much fan films can spend and who can work on them, will Star Trek fan films be able to be competitive again in film festivals?

Perhaps…

Continue reading “INDIE FILM FESTIVALS are starting to add a NEW category: FAN FILMS!”

A history of STAR TREK CONTINUES (feature, part 1)

NOTE: About a year a half ago, I published a 3-part blog tracing the fascinating history of STAR TREK CONTINUES.  In honor of their penultimate episode being released this past week and their series finale next month, I will be reprinting these blogs and adding an additional blog or two covering what happened between then and now.

Cover 1“If only…”

Those were the last two words uttered by Captain Kirk before Star Trek the original series was canceled in 1969.

“If only…”

Kirk was referring to the tragic descent into hate-filled insanity of his former love, Dr. Janice Lester. But for me, these two words were so much more powerful: If only Star Trek hadn’t been canceled. If only Star Trek could have…

…continued.

TOS fans always felt a pang of frustration that the five-year mission of the USS Enterprise was cut short after only three years in space (and on the air).  Sure, in 1973 an 1974, we got to see 22 animated episodes of the series, voiced by the same original actors, but we never got to see the end of that five-year mission.

Even when Star Trek crossed over into motion pictures, the end of Kirk’s first mission was still a mystery.  And the days of seeing those those bright red, blue, and gold uniforms and those amazingly colorful starship Enterprise sets—those days were gone forever…except in reruns, of course.

I used to have this dream where I was watching an episode of TOS that I’d never seen before.  Of course, I’d seen every episode dozens of times, so when I woke up, I’d sadly remember that there were no “lost” episodes of TOS.

Until there were…

Continue reading “A history of STAR TREK CONTINUES (feature, part 1)”

STAR TREK CONTINUES releases their 10TH EPISODE: “To Boldly Go, Part 1”!

Ten down, just one more to go!

Back in 2013, STAR TREK CONTINUES came in like a lion with a sequel to the TOS episode “Who Mourns for Adonais” that featured Michael Forest reprising his role as Apollo.

Now, as 2017 comes to an end, so does the 5-year mission of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 as Star Trek Continues goes out with a bang!  Their series finale “To Boldly Go” is making its debut to the public today with the first of two parts.  The conclusion will debut in 11 days at a live screening at L.A. Comic Con, and then the final episode of STC will be released onto the Internet for the general public on November 13.

Both parts were written by noted Canadian sci-fi author ROBERT J. SAWYER (his first-ever work for STC).  He is one of eight authors in history to win all three of the science-fiction field’s highest honors for best novel of the year: the Hugo Award (which he won for Hominids), the Nebula Award (which he won for The Terminal Experiment); and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (which he won for Mindscan).  Sawyer is a huge Star Trek fan, which you’ll be able to tell almost immediately when you watch the episode.

NICOLA BRYANT with the 6th Doctor, COLIN BAKER, in 1986…and today in the penultimate episode of STC.

I don’t want to give away any plot spoilers, so with the exception of gushing about a top-level performance by guest star NICOLA BRYANT (companion “Peri Brown” to the 5th and 6th Doctors on Doctor Who), I’ll simply tell you to note how awesome the music sounds.  A full orchestra made up of more than 40 student musicians from New York’s Empire Film Music Ensemble in Rochester, as well as several professional instrumentalists, recorded the brilliant compositions of Andy Farber.

While Star Trek: Discovery darkly reminds us that it is now 2017, this penultimate episode of STC is a like a warm, comfortable blanket wrapping us up once again in the TV magic of the 1960s (or if you weren’t there in the 60’s, then the 70’s or whenever you first discovered TOS).

Perhaps more than any other episode of STC, “To Boldly Go” will remind you of everything that Star Trek was, is, and can be when there is love and dedication…something the STC team has shared with us fans during the course of their own five-year mission.

And now, please enjoy the first half of this most wonderful gift to Star Trek fandom…

Are YOU a CAPTAIN LORCA? Am I??? (editorial review)

Spoiler warning!   Beige Alert!

“Choose Your Pain.”

That was the title of the fifth and possibly best-yet episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY.  Like many of the strongest stories of literature and cinema, the title “Choose Your Pain” works on multiple levels.

  • “Choose your pain” is what the Klingons say to the captives on their prison ship before beating the living crap out of one of them.
  • Michael Burnham is, arguably, choosing her pain when she holds onto the loss of Captain Georgiou and wallows in her seemingly endless morass of un-Vulcan-like self-pity and guilt.
  • Saru, likewise, is holding onto the loss of Captain Georgiou but also to his pain at having not been chosen to be her first officer and thereby not being able to learn from her experience and wisdom in the same way Burnham did.
  • Captain Lorca can and should get his eyes fixed, but he chooses not to.  He holds onto the pain the light causes him and lives in mostly dark places, a harsh reminder of the heartrending decision he made during his previous command of the USS Buran.

(Please note, there’s a theory currently making its way around fandom that the Lorca we’ve seen so far is actually a Mirror Universe counterpart of the “real” Lorca.  The reason the Buran was destroyed was to eliminate any witnesses—including the “good” Lorca—and that the whole interchange was orchestrated by Section 31 in order to acquire a captain who knew how to be ruthless in fighting the Klingons.  The reason that Lorca refuses to get his eyes fixed—a problem stemming from being transported to this universe—is that he doesn’t want the doctors to discover what he really is.)

Obviously, my blog today assumes that the above theory is NOT the case.  Instead, let’s just assume that Lorca is merely a man who was forced to make a tragic decision to destroy his ship and kill his crew to save them all from slow, painful deaths on Qo’Nos.  For this, Lorca has chosen to keep his pain as a reminder…and potentially as self punishment for what he did.

Like Lorca, I and many other Trek fans who are either not watching the show or frequently complaining about it are choosing to hold onto our “pain.”  We simply can’t seem to let go of our issues with the new series and  enjoy Star Trek: Discovery for everything it gives to us as fans.  Like Lorca, we choose to continue living in our dark places.

In short, WE ARE LORCA! Continue reading “Are YOU a CAPTAIN LORCA? Am I??? (editorial review)”

3 new parody music videos added to FUNNY STUFF: “DISCOVERY gets DIZZY!”

After the fourth episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY introduced the new spinny-winny “spore drive” that makes the starship whirl like a Dervish, someone decided to create a short parody music video using the chorus of the song “You Spin Me Right Round” by Dead or Alive.  Well, Jonathan decided to take it one step beyond by doing a parody music video using an ENTIRE song.  And which song, you ask?  How about the 1969 bubblegum pop hit “Dizzy” by Tommy Roe…

Earlier on, I “honed my craft” by trying to edit together a couple of other spinning songs.  Here was my first attempt using the rock classic “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” by The Beatles…

While fun (and a great song), that was a little too repetitive to really keep my interest.  So I tried again with the oh-so-perfectly titled “The Twist” by the legendary Chubby Checker…

Better, but not quite there yet.  And that’s when I remembered the song “Dizzy,” and well, you already saw the result at the top.

So forget about warp speed!  Toss out transwarp conduits and quantum drives!  We’re even leaving ludicrous speed in our dust!

Thanks to Lt. Stamets’ mushrooms, we get to moldly go where no fan has gone before!!!  Spore speed—when you absolutely, positively have to be there a second from now…

The BEST TWO Trek fan films you’ve NEVER seen! (interview with AARON VANDERKLEY, Part 2)

Last week, we met AARON VANDERKLEY, the Australian filmmaker behind the two excellent Trek fan films, NEEDS OF THE MANY and THE DERELICT.  After graduating with a Bachelor of Media degree, majoring in Screen Production, with minors in both Scriptwriting and Screen Acting, the 24-year-old Aaron went on to do film production professionally in Western Australia.

As I did in Part 1 of this interview—to avoid you folks inadvertently reading any spoilers—I heartily recommend that you watch the two fan films first (last week, about a thousand people did so) and then read the interview:

And now, let’s conclude an awesome interview with Aaron Vanderkley…

Continue reading “The BEST TWO Trek fan films you’ve NEVER seen! (interview with AARON VANDERKLEY, Part 2)”

Why STAR TREK: DISCOVERY makes me sad… (editorial)

WARNING – some spoilers from the fourth episode of  Discovery.  Read at your own risk.

It seems that I’m now doing weekly reviews/ editorials about this show.  Not sure how long I’ll keep it up, but with each new episode, I realize something else that I want to share with you guys.

But before I do that…!

I AM ENJOYING STAR TREK: DISCOVERY!!!  It’s a very well-written and well-produced show with strong visual effects, amazing production values, fast-paced editing, interesting characters, fantastic music, and a very compelling story line.  It’s excellent television, and I am truly entertained when I watch it.

But it’s still not Star Trek to me.

Star Trek doesn’t make me feel sad about the present and possibly the future as well.  Star Trek doesn’t remind me of how much the world has changed (for the worse) since the terrorist attacks of 9-11.  Instead, Star Trek gives me hope for a BETTER future than what we have now.

Star Trek always made me believe that human beings can and will achieve something better for ourselves and for others.  Want to make America great, or better yet, make the world great?  Then make HUMANITY better, and the rest of what we do will follow.  Star Trek used to demonstrate those possibilities to me…episode after wondrous episode.

So why does Star Trek: Discovery make me feel sad?  And why the heck do I have pictures of a Pakled, Hugh the Borg, the USS Voyager alongside the USS Equinox, and the Tardigrade creature from this week’s episode of Star Trek: Discovery?

Because I’d like to make a point about this new series—one of many, I admit, but continuing on with my central theme that, as good as this show is, it isn’t “my” Star Trek…and why that makes me sad.

Continue reading “Why STAR TREK: DISCOVERY makes me sad… (editorial)”