Author: Jonathan Lane

JONATHAN LANE appears as a guest on the SHANE PLAYS RADIO SHOW!

A week and a half ago, I taped an episode of the SHANE PLAYS GEEK TALK RADIO SHOW.  Shane talks to guests about all things geek, from sci-fi to fantasy to horror, movies, television, comic books, video and role-playing games, you name it!  It’s an actual hour-long radio show (like, you can listen to it in your car if you’re driving through parts of Arkansas) and also posted as a podcast.

Usually, it’s a live show, and I’m not always available to be a phone-in guest on the Saturday mornings when it’s broadcast, but this particular show had to be recorded so Shane could fulfill a family commitment.  And that allowed me to appear, as Shane has been wanting to focus on the world of Star Trek fan films.

The show was just posted online, with me discussing Star Trek Continues, the new Star Trek Film Academy, Axanar, Renegades, Potemkin Pictures, Pacific 201, the newly renamed Fan Film Forum Facebook group, and a host of other fan film related news and topics.

If you’re curious to know what I sound like, or if I can hold my own in a live recorded interview, here’s your chance to find out (and yes, I noticed the typo on the YouTube still image–don’t tell Shane!)…

AXANAR update…the news is actually GOOD!

Every so often, just for a shats and giggles, I head over the the Axamonitor blog site to see the latest “news” CARLOS PEDRAZA has to “report.”  It’s funny because, while some people like to see the AXANAR glass as half-full (if not more so), Carlos does his best to convince folks that the Axanar glass is 99% empty.  I noticed, in one of his latest updates, that Carlos included such catastrophic sub-headlines as…

  • Axanar Could ‘Take Years’
  • Failed California Studio
  • Indiegogo Failure
  • Hemorrhaging Money
  • Abandoning Nonprofit Plans
  • Bait and Switch?
  • No More Axanar

And that’s just ONE blog update, folks!!!

Sheesh, with “news” like that, it’s hard to imagine any reason to smile in the land of Axanar fandom.  So why am I and so many others still smiling?

Despite naming his blog site “Axamonitor,” Carlos seems to be very—what’s the word?—selective in what he actually “monitors” and chooses to include.  So if there are any positive things to say or good news or report about Axanar, you’re unlikely to find it there.

Fortunately, there’s other places on the Internet to get the rest of the story…including here.  And so that’s the subject of today’s blog: all the GOOD news that’s happening right now in the world of Axanar….

Continue reading “AXANAR update…the news is actually GOOD!”

THE ORVILLE – not bad for a STAR TREK FAN FILM! (editorial/review)

At first, I was thinking, “Yeesh!  This is as bad as the critics were saying!”  I thought of all the things I could say to try to sugarcoat my disappointment in this new series that I’d been looking forward to all summer.  “Hey, the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation wasn’t much to write home about either.”  (And it wasn’t!)  “Come to think of it, the pilots for DS9 and especially Voyager kinda sucked, too.”

But hey, if you’re gonna try to prop up the pilot of a new series by saying that other pilots sucked, too, then you’re pretty much admitting that the pilot for The Orville sucked, right?  And even if TNG, DS9, and Voyager eventually did get better, there was no guarantee that The Orville would follow suit.

But then a strange thing happened: it did get better!

In fact, by the time the episode came back from the midway 30-minute commercial break, the pilot was actually quite a lot of fun to watch.  It was exciting, engaging, well-paced, and intelligent.  Even the stupid jokes weren’t falling quite as flat as they had in the first two acts.

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A Tale of II Trailers!

To mark this 51st anniversary of Star Trek and the theatrical re-release of the Director’s Cut of STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (in theaters September 10 and 13), I’ve decided to feature a somewhat different kind of Trek fan film today.

Most fan films feature fan-written scripts with fan actors, fan-generated visual and sound effects, etc…some with small budgets and others with big budgets.  But as far as I’m concerned, fan films don’t stop there!

Sometimes fans can show their innovation and cleverness by taking existing Star Trek footage from the five decades of countless episodes and 13 feature films, editing and manipulating it in new and creative ways.

One of the best examples I’ve seen of this recently is a fan-edited version of the trailer for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  JONATHAN WORMAN is a talented video editor based in Toronto, Canada who has worked on commercials, music videos, shorts, and documentaries over the past eight years.  Last summer, he released a brilliant “modern” version of a trailer for this beloved fan favorite feature film.  Imagine if you had seen THIS trailer back in 1982…wouldn’t it have blown you away???

And as a fun comparison, here is the actual trailer that Paramount Studios released for the second Star Trek feature film…

Happy 51st anniversary, Star Trek!  And happy 35th anniversary, Wrath of Khhhaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnn!!!!

UPDATE: In November, Jonathan Worman released a new modern trailer, this time for Star Trek: The Motion Picture!  Take a look at the finished product on this blog page…

Did CBS doom STAR TREK: DISCOVERY by putting it on ALL ACCESS? (editorial, part 2)

In yesterday’s blog, while many Star Trek fans are debating uniforms, starships, bridge lighting, hairless Klingons, and adopted human sisters, I decided to look at a much more fundamental question regarding the new Star Trek: Discovery television series.  Was it a good or bad business decision by CBS to make the new show available (at least in the U.S) exclusively via subscription to their ALL ACCESS streaming service?

We already looked at CBS’s decision to target the series to a younger audience, based on a statement made be CBS President and CEO Les Moonves back in May.  This means that the older, more loyal Star Trek fans, “yesterday’s fan-base” as I call them, aren’t the primary target…which is kinda why Discovery isn’t sweating the details in hewing to established Star Trek canon.

Instead, CBS is focusing their attention and hopes on younger viewers who are more likely to subscribe to a brand new streaming video on demand (SVOD) service than the older fans.

Ah, but therein lies the rub!

These younger viewers don’t have an existing, decades-long relationship with Star Trek.  They weren’t watching TOS when it first aired in the 1960s or grew up with it in the 1970s.  They didn’t even watch TNG in the 1980s and 1990s as kids.  All those folks are already pushing 40 (or 50 or 60 or 70!)  CBS is targeting viewers in their 30s or even 20s.  By the time these younger viewers were old enough to watch Star Trek, the ratings for the show had already plummeted and few people were watching at all.

In other words, the vast majority of these young viewers aren’t really Star Trek “fans.”  To them, Discovery is more like a new science fiction show based on an old series that their parents or grandparents used to watch…except this version has cool sets, dazzling VFX, action, adventure, and a TV-MA rating.  And there’s nothing inherently wrong with that.  I don’t fault CBS for choosing to make the new series young and hip.

But they made another choice to put the new series exclusively on the ALL ACCESS subscription service here in the U.S.  And today, I want to look at some of the consequences of that decision—not from the perspective of an angry fan (which I’m not; I actually want the new series to succeed), but as a business analyst.

Continue reading “Did CBS doom STAR TREK: DISCOVERY by putting it on ALL ACCESS? (editorial, part 2)”

Did CBS doom STAR TREK: DISCOVERY by putting it on ALL ACCESS? (editorial, part 1)

(NOTE FROM JONATHAN – I’ve decided to take a two-part break from fan films to answer the question I keep getting asked: “What do you think about the new Star Trek series that’s coming out?”)

Many Trek fans are hotly debating whether or not it was the right move to “modernize” the production design of the new STAR TREK: DISCOVERY series and put a TV-MA rating on it.  I’ve read passionate posts going back and forth arguing about the new uniform styles not matching those worn by Captain Pike in “The Cage” back in 1965; how the “hairless” Klingons don’t look like the ones we’ve seen on TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise; and why after 50 years we’re only just now finding out that Spock had an adopted human sister!

In my opinion, none of that is the problem.  That’s not where I think CBS has steered the wrong courae, and that’s not what I’ll be discussing in this blog.  I’m actually planning to check out Discovery at some point down the line.  But am I the exception or the rule?

I honestly think I’m going to be the exception, and that CBS made an unwise decision to offer their new series solely through their ALL ACCESS subscription service (at least here in the U.S.).

It’s not that Trek and sci-fi fans aren’t ready for CBS ALL ACCESS—it’s that ALL ACCESS might not quite be ready for the fans!

Let’s discuss…

Continue reading “Did CBS doom STAR TREK: DISCOVERY by putting it on ALL ACCESS? (editorial, part 1)”

BATTLECRUISER KUPOK production crew releases its fourth fan film: “The Soul of Honor”!

A bright and happy Q’Plah to everyone in fan film land!  The BATTLECRUISER KUPOK production crew from POTEMKIN PICTURES has just released the fourth fan film to feature the warrior crew from that honorable warship (pronounced “kuh-POOK”).

This time, there’s a wedding happening, and you’re invited.  But don’t start drinking the bloodwine just yet.  This wedding has some surprises in store.

Potemkin Pictures has multiple production teams all producing fan films featuring the crews of different starships, and “Team Kupok” is the only one to focus on a Klingon crew.  You can watch all the various fan films that Potemkin Pictures has released over the past seven years on their website.

And now, you are cordially invited to view their latest offering, “The Soul of Honor”…

STAR TREK CONTINUES will premiere their final two episodes in NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES!

And then there were two…only two more episodes of the cutting-edge and widely-celebrated fan series STAR TREK CONTINUES.  The final duo of episodes will be a two-parter entitled “To Boldly Go” and will bring a long-awaited conclusion to Captain Kirk’s 5-year mission on board the U.S.S. Enterprise…something fans never got to see when the original series was canceled in 1969 after only three seasons.  The story of Star Trek picked up again a few years later (Trek time) with the first motion picture, but fans never got to see how the 5-year mission actually ended.

Now they will…thanks to the folks at Star Trek Continues.

STC has a long-standing tradition of premiering their new episodes at conventions before releasing them onto YouTube.  Their most recent offering, “What Ships Are For,” was shown to cheering fans at Florida Supercon in Ft. Lauderdale the weekend of July 27-30 and then uploaded to the Internet shortly thereafter.

The initial plan was to debut “To Boldly Go (Part One)” at the Salt Lake City Comic Con the weekend of September 21-23…and then to bring their marvelous series to a triumphant conclusion with a screening at the New York City Comicon the weekend of October 5-8.

However, those plans were made before it was announced that Star Trek: Discovery would premiere that same weekend as the Salt Lake City con on September 24.  Not wanting to step on the toes of CBS with an unnecessary Trek distraction, STC decided to move the Part One premiere to New York and then debut Part Two a month later (or so) at a convention to be determined.

Now that finale date and location have been announced, and it’s a biggie:  STAN LEE’s L.A. COMIC CON!  It’s not quite San Diego’s Comic Con (thank Zod!!!), but it’s a major event here in Los Angeles and one I’ve attended for the last few years with my son.  Naturally, we will both be going this year, and on Sunday just before the convention ends, stars VIC “Kirk” MIGNOGNA, TODD “Spock” HABERKORN, CHUCK “McCoy” HUBER, and GRANT “Sulu” Imahara will be on hand to screen the series finale for convention attendees!

Currently, plans are set to release “To Boldly Go (Part One)” onto the Internet on October 18 and “To Boldly Go (Part Two)” on November 13.  If those dates change, I’ll be sure to let you know.

SMALL ACCESS is now FAN FILM FORUM!

Well, that didn’t take long!  Yesterday, I began asking members of SMALL ACCESS, who had voted to rename and re-brand our Facebook Group, whether our new name should focus on Fan Films or Star Trek: Discovery.  After all, they had both brought people to our group, but only one name could be on the sign over the front door.  (And no, I didn’t feel that “Fan Film Discovery” was a workable name…sorry, Reece.)

I’d expected to leave the poll up for a few days, but after less than 24 hours, the vote was 102-to-3 in favor of focusing on Fan Films.  I doubt another day or four would have made much of a difference.  Many comments mentioned that there was already a Discovery group, and the show would either succeed or fail without another Facebook group either supporting or resisting it.  Fan Films, however, deserved a wider following and more support.  So “Fan Film…Something” it would be!

A number of names were suggested in the comments.  Some, like “All Things Trek,” were already taken.  Others had potential, like “Fan Film Focus,” “SciFi Fan Film,” “Fan Film Trek,” “Fan Film Federation,” and “Fan Film Fans.”  A few gave me a chuckle: “Fundamentally Fantastic Fan Film Factor Forum for Freedom,” “Fan Film Funyuns,” and “Frankly Fans are Furious.”

But in the end, it was moderator Dave Heagney, Jr.’s suggestion of FAN FILM FORUM that just kinda grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.  It was clean, simple, and you know how much I love things that abbreviate down to “FFF.”

In fact, FAN FILM FORUM allowed me to do a visual tie-in to Fan Film Factor since I had many of the logo elements already set up in Photoshop…so creating a Facebook cover image for the group was relatively simple:

The visual tie-in between the Facebook group and this blog site makes sense.  Aside from the fact that the same guy (yours truly) runs them both, there’s also the fact the Fan Film Factor is currently the #1 blog site focusing on Star Trek fan films.  (This site gets more web traffic than the other two.)  So why not have a tie-in, right?

So let’s welcome FAN FILM FORUM to the world of Facebook groups.  If you never joined Small Access but you love Fan Films, then I invite you to click here and become of a part of the fun at Fan Film Forum.