Exploring the world of Star Trek fan films.
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…
Continue reading “2025 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW (part 2)”
It’s the end of another year, and I’m still here, you’re still here, and so are Star Trek fan films! Admittedly, I’ve been less prolific in 2025 than I have in past years because I’ve gotten involved with mentoring my sons Jayden’s high school robotics team, The Bagel Bytes (named after their first sponsor back in 2001, Noah’s Bagels). And I’ve kinda gone all-in, assisting the team with marketing materials and e-mail communication, finding sponsors (including RODDENBERRY ENTERTAINMENT!), filming and editing team videos, helping them set up a Patreon campaign, and a whole lot more. I’m with the team 2-3 times a week, helping out the coach, and just marveling at these amazingly talented teens! But putting in all of those free volunteer hours is leaving me with much less time and energy for this blog.
That being said, I’m still organizing the annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, interviewing many Star Trek fan filmmakers, and even assisting some of them with their fan films (as I did twice this past year!). And of course, my regular YEAR IN REVIEW blogs have been an annual tradition since my first one back in 2017. And each year, I remind my readers who predicted back in 2016 that CBS/Paramount’s fan film guidelines would utterly destroy Star Trek fan films that our little sub-sub-sub-genre is still very much alive and kicking.
And indeed, even nearly a decade later, Trek fan films continue to be produced and posted to YouTube—quite a lot of them! Buy, hey, don’t just take my word for it. Check it out for yourself below. In fact, there were so many to cover that I’ve split this year’s compilation blog into TWO parts!
Many of the following fan films were ones that I had intended to cover here on Fan Film Factor, but life and robotics got in the way. So instead, I’ll be spotlighting them here with short blurbs for each one. There’s probably at least a few you haven’t seen, and I strongly recommend that you check out any that intrigue you—and possibly some that don’t, as you might be pleasantly surprised. Let’s dive in…
Continue reading “2025 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW (part 1)”
Do you miss classic Star Trek? I’m referring to the Star Trek that most of us grew up with—whether it be TOS or the 24th century Star Trek sequels…pretty much anything produced by Paramount and not CBS Studios. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy LOWER DECKS, PRODIGY, or most of PICARD season three. But there was just this certain “feel” to the Treks from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s that simply hasn’t carried over properly to the new stuff.
Then came STAR TREK: KHAN, the new audio drama available as free downloadable a 9-part podcast. The series tells the story of Khan Noonien Singh (the genetically-engineered villain from the TOS episode “Space Seed” who later tried to exact revenge on James Kirk in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) after he andhis followers were marooned on the planet Ceti Alpha V. As I listened, I felt as though I were back in familiar Star Trek territory. Granted Starfleet and the Federation play a limited role in the story, there are no Klingons or Romulans to speak of, and life on Ceti Alpha V is generally quite un-futuristic. Nevertheless, the audio drama does an excellent job of transporting the listener back into a much more familiar and comfortable Star Trek experience.
HOW STAR TREK: KHAN CAME TO BE
This audio drama podcast project got its start sometime back around 2017 when Star Trek II and VI director NICHOLAS MEYER revealed that he was working on a new Star Trek project unrelated to STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, which he was working on as a a consulting producer and writer. The following year, when ALEX KURTZMAN signed a five-year deal with CBS Television Studios to expand the Star Trek franchise beyond Discovery, it was announced that a new “prequel” to Star Trek II titled CETI ALPHA V would be produced as a 3-episode TV miniseries, focusing on Khan and his people’s fight for survival on that doomed alien world. Meyer wrote a storyline for the project.
Continue reading “The review of KHAN!”
First, my friends, I must apologize for being a bit less diligent in my coverage of Star Trek fan films this past year. Granted, I’ve still published over 65 blogs since January 1, 2024, but that’s compared with 90 blogs in 2023 and 114 in 2022.
The reason behind my diminished output is that I’ve been spending much of this past year co-authoring a book, which I’ve only just completed (it will be out early next year). It was a paying gig, so it needed to take priority. It’s actually my third co-authored book, my first being Starship Spotter (with ADAM “MOJO” LEBOWITZ, ROB BONCHUNE, and ALEX ROSENZWEIG) and my second, Being Santa Claus, still available for purchase in various formats here on Amazon.
But enough about me!
Let’s get started looking at what’s been happening in world of Star Trek fan films for the last twelve months. As usual, I won’t have enough time or space to get to everything, but here are the biggest stories of the year…
IS CROWD-FUNDING STILL A THING?
Sadly, the year kicked off on a bit of a sour note as a debate began to rage on social media whether Trek fan films should continue crowd-funding. It began when RANDY LANDERS announced that POTEMKIN PICTURES would no longer do any public crowd-funding. But then he added (somewhat forcefully) that he felt that other fan productions shouldn’t crowd-fund either. Things got heated from there. And sadly, in part because I didn’t agree, Randy told me to no longer cover any of his Potemkin releases on Fan Film Factor…and I have, of course, complied with his wishes, albeit regrettably.
Perhaps ironically, not many fan productions chose to crowd-fund this year. In fact, I only counted four during all of 2024 (well, technically five, since FARRAGUT FILMS ended one campaign and began another shortly thereafter), and those were for:
In previous years, crowd-funding campaigns were much more prolific. Now, it seems they are diminishing in frequency and, in general, bringing in less money (although FARRAGUT FORWARD did reach $47.5K before wrapping). Will 2025 continue to see this phasing out of crowdfunding? I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out.
Continue reading “2024 Star Trek Fan Film YEAR IN REVIEW”
By now, a vast swath of Star Trek fans have viewed the new A.I.-enhanced “fan film” 765874: UNIFICATION released by OTOY, THE RODDENBERRY ARCHIVE, WILLIAM SHATNER, and the LEONARD NIMOY estate. It’s already had half a million views in just two and a half days. If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look…
Timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the 1994 release of Star Trek Generations, 765874: Unification premiered at the Star Trek Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, NY with WILLIAM (Kirk) SHATNER and ROBIN (Saavik) CURTIS both in attendance. Also present were LAWRENCE SELLECK, who is the stand-in for the A.I.-generated Spock, and MAHÉ THAISSA, who is the stand-in for J.M. Colt from the first TOS pilot, “The Cage.”
For more information on the making of this ambitious production, there is a wonderful article on TrekMovie.com based on information presented on the OTOY website. So I won’t get too into the weeds today discussing how they did it (although I have reached out to OTOY to try to get an interview with someone involved in the project). Instead, I’m going to look at the content of the film itself.
Fan reaction has generally been extremely positive with a few complainers here and there. If nothing else, the quality of the A.I. on both Kirk and Spock (as well as Gary Mitchell) is pretty spectacular, and the musical score by MICHAEL GIACCHINO (recorded at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London) is flawless and emotionally mesmerizing. The costumes, props, make-up, and green screen compositing are all amazing, and it’s obvious that no expense was spared in creating this content that OTOY will be using to demonstrate what their cutting-edge technology can do.
But amidst all the “I had tears in my eyes!” and “This was so beautiful!” plaudits posted to social media were a fair amount of “What the heck was that???” comments from the head-scratchers…which, admittedly, included myself. With only one piece of dialog (an original re-recording of Kirk’s final log from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) the rest of the presentation was essentially silent but for the music. Indeed, I got a very 2001: A Space Oddessey feeling of déjà vu. And just as sci-fi fans are generally confounded trying to figure out what was going on with Dave Bowman at the end of STANLEY KUBRICK’s 1968 masterpiece (I think he was mirroring the evolution of man himself), Trekkers are being left to their own devices to interpret 765874: Unification.
Having now read a wide range of postings on social media, I think I can clear up at least a few things about this film. Some items I’ll be sharing are straight-up facts and pieces of established Star Trek canon. Others require a little more open-mindedness about things that may or may not be canon. And then, of course, I’ve got some theories that could be right or wrong…and we may just never know for certain.
Okay, you ready…?
Continue reading “So you’ve seen 765874: UNIFICATION…but what did it MEAN???”
Jonathan Lane here with a quick introduction. Joshua Irwin is the showrunner and force-of-nature behind the AVALON UNIVERSE fan series, as well as a helper-outer on countless other fan films whose showrunners have requested his assistance. Josh’s skills as a filmmaker come from both film school and a quarter century working in the film industry in Arkansas. So I feel it’s fair to say that, when it comes to producing Star Trek fan films—from writing to directing to editing and everything in between—Josh knows what he’s doing.
With dozens of Star Trek fan films under his belt in various capacities, Josh has seen countless comments posted about his videos on YouTube, both positive and negative—although vastly more of the former than the latter. The irony about the negative comments, however, is that Josh never criticizes the work of any other fan filmmaker, at whatever level.
Sadly, other fans do not share Josh’s discretion when it comes to posting criticisms about his and others’ fan film projects. That’s not to imply that Josh’s work leaves no room for improvement. Josh himself can be extremely self-critical in very practical ways, and he is well aware that constraints on time, money, availability of cast and crew, and resources in general can severely limit what he is able to accomplish and produce. And indeed, Josh is always open to well-thought-out and reasonable constructive critiques of his projects.
However, YouTube provides very little of that. Instead, criticisms posted about Josh’s fan films—much like criticisms posted about most fan films—tend to be drive-by complaints and insults or unsolicited pieces of “friendly advice.”
Recently, Josh posted to Facebook a list of the kinds of criticisms he usually receives and why most of them tend to be pretty worthless. While some constructive critiques are indeed smart and insightful, the following ten types of criticisms are, for the most part, a complete waste of everyone’s time and brain cells. I asked Josh if he’d like to turn his Facebook post into a guest blog, and he happily agreed.
And now, here’s Josh…
Continue reading “The TOP 10 CRITICISMS of Star Trek fan films…and why they’re mostly B.S. (guest blog by JOSHUA IRWIN)”
I had been planning to publish part 2 of the interview with JOSHUA IRWIN about the final shoot at NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS two weekends ago. However, that will have to wait until tomorrow, as I need to print a retraction and an apology to KASEY SHAFSKY for something that was inadvertently included in the interview that should not have been.
Josh, in commenting about Kasey (who has been hyper-critical of Neutral Zone Studios for quite a while), included the following remark: “Kasey Shafsky was a part of the first two or three STC episodes ten years ago and was not invited back.”
Kasey responded indignantly on social media with the following two posts…
Josh has asked me to publish the following response, verbatim, to Fan Film Factor…
I want to offer a public apology to Kasey Shafsky. While talking on the phone with Jonathan for the interview a few days ago, I made a comment regarding a rumor about Kasey Shafsky’s involvement in the making of Star Trek Continues. It was an offhand remark during a part of the interview that I thought was off the record. I did not believe that what I said at that point would be either printed or connected to a previous answer.
I don’t know Kasey, I’ve never met him. I have nothing against him, nor do I seek conflict with him. I have no idea what his involvement with STC was because I wasn’t there. I was asked questions about the studio, and I answered them. IMDB does in fact list him as a producer for all 11 episodes. My remark was hearsay, and should be treated as such.
I feel it is important to clarify this because I believe strongly that only the confirmed truth should be reported in the public square, not rumor. If I’m going to stick up for others when rumor is thrown out there, I need to hold myself to that same standard.
I likewise need to apologize to Kasey for publishing that portion of Josh’s interview. I listened again, and it wasn’t clear whether Josh meant for that part to be off the record, but I should have double-checked with him. My apologies to both Kasey and Josh for that oversight.
I will say that others have mentioned to me in passing that Kasey was not directly involved with the production of STC episodes nor was he in attendance during shoots beyond the third episode of the series, although he did reportedly visit the sets from time to time. It was for this reason that I felt comfortable in including Josh’s comment in the interview.
However, no one has agreed to go on record in confirming (or denying) any of those above statements, so I cannot officially confirm nor deny them other than to say, “I was told off the record.” If anyone wishes to comment on the record, please feel free to post something in the comments or contact me directly. Otherwise, my apology to Kasey stands.
Part 2 of Josh’s interview will appear tomorrow.
Okay, folks, this was totally NOT on my Bingo card for, like, ever!
It’s been more than two years since I last wrote a blog about Trekzone’s MATT MILLER from Australia. And honestly, I was fine not talking about him ever again (except, of course, when he appears in a fan film that I’m covering, like this one).
But, man! When Matt takes the time to not only write a song about me but to have someone professionally sing and record it and then use it to kick off the latest video for his Matt Miller Fan Film Awards show—well, how can I not return the favor and sincerely thank him for thinking of me (apparently constantly!) enough to put in all of this amazing effort?
Anyway, without further ado, this is the song that opened this year’s Trekzone Awards. It’s only 2 and a half minutes, it’s totally surreal, but it’s definitely worth a listen…
Has a kinda JONI MITCHELL vibe, don’t it?
Frankly, I’d be way too embarrassed to ever do anything like that with the annual SHOWRUNNER AWARDS, as they’re meant to celebrate the achievements of fan filmmakers, not serve to extend some silly vendetta. But Matt’s gotta be Matt, I suppose.
And I personally wouldn’t be all that thrilled to win an award for my fan film knowing that the presentation was tainted by some cringe attack song at the opening. I’d probably think twice before showing the video to friends since I’d have to explain what the darn song actually meant. (And what did it mean, by the way? Which side is the “haters” and what “truth” will they see? I have no earthy idea!)
Matt was, of course, careful not to use my actual name or the name of ALEC PETERS (whom he calls “The Producer”—I am, of course, “Fan Film Blogger Dude”), although he does reference my AXANAR-inspired fan film INTERLUDE at one point. But I’m obviously living rent-free inside of Matt’s head for him to include this weird vendetta-ballad at the start of the video (which you can watch in its entirety here; I don’t mind if Matt gets more views, as he certainly needs them).
By the way, I do not typically cover the Trekzone Awards because one of Matt’s requirements for eligibility is that he doesn’t hate you, and he hates a LOT of people in the fan film community (including at least a couple dozen of my close friends—along with me, of course). So each year, there end up being many very deserving fan films that are capriciously excluded from even being considered for a Trekzone Award, as Matt selects all entrants himself and has only two judges: Matt and one other fellow from Australia.
Continue reading “Did MATT MILLER write a SONG about LIL’ OL’ ME? I do believe he DID!”
I hate writing eulogies. And when it’s the passing of an actor who was a significant part of Star Trek, it hurts even more. But when that actor was also a friend to fan films, that’s a Vulcan neck pinch, a phaser on stun, and a punch to the gut all at the same time.
GARY GRAHAM, who passed away yesterday from a heart attack and subsequent brain bleed at the age of 73, enjoyed a long career in Hollywood, beginning to act professionally way back in the mid-1970s when he was in his twenties. While he was never an “A-lister,” Gary achieved something few actors ever do: he became the lead in a network television series. In this instance, it was Alien Nation, adapted from the movie of the same name, which ran for a single season on the then-fledgeling FOX network and was later named by TV Guide in 2013 as one of 60 shows that were “Cancelled Too Soon.” However, Gary went on to star in five made-for-TV Alien Nation sequel movies that aired throughout the 1990s. Gary played human detective Matthew Sikes.
Although you can see Gary’s full filmography on his IMDb page, Star Trek fans are most familiar with his portrayal of the Vulcan Ambassador Soval on all four seasons of Enterprise. Gary also appeared as an Ocampan in the second season Voyager episode “Cold Fire.” But Soval was the character that fans really embraced, which was one of the reasons that Soval was one of only three non-main characters to appear in all four seasons of Enterprise (along with JEFFREY COMBS’ Andorian Shran and MATT WINSTON’s temporal agent Daniels…and no, VAUGHN ARMSTRONG’s Admiral Forest did not appear in season three).
Soval was so popular that ALEC PETERS brought the character into PRELUDE TO AXANAR back in 2014 and again in THE VULCAN SCENE the following year, and Gary knocked it out of the park both times. His line, “An Andorian acquaintance once said, ‘Don’t push the pink-skins to the thin ice.’ It wasn’t very eloquent, but the Klingons found it to prove quite prophetic…” became a fan favorite quote thanks to Gary’s incredible delivery.
Around the same time, Gary was also doing other Star Trek fan films. His original character of the mercenary Ragnar (nothing like Soval!) debuted in STAR TREK: OF GODS AND MEN in 2007 and then returned in STAR TREK: RENEGADES in 2015 and then RENEGADES THE SERIES in 2017.
Gary wasn’t just a gifted actor, he was also a talented singer and songwriter, and his band, The Sons of Kirk, would occasionally perform at conventions like the 2016 Creation 50th anniversary of Star Trek con in Las Vegas…
Two years later, fans would donate $21K to help Gary and his band produce their first album. Sadly, the pandemic interrupted the project, and the album was never completed.
I met Gary in person in late 2018 at the first Axacon gathering at ARES STUDIOS in Lawrenceville, GA. And let me tell ya, Gary was a trip and a half…!
Continue reading “R.I.P. – GARY “AMBASSADOR SOVAL” GRAHAM (1950-2024)”
Whether you like/love the new-era CBS Studios-produced Star Trek series, can’t stand them, or just feel ambivalent, I have to believe that most fans will agree that what has aired on Paramount+ within the last 12 months is a vast improvement over anything that was released in the five years prior. The final season of PICARD was a triumph…certainly better than its first two seasons or anything DISCOVERY has managed to produce yet. And even PRODIGY‘s second ten episodes of season one (when it became a true Voyager sequel) had many fans suddenly liking a children’s cartoon as much or more than most of the Star Trek premiering on Paramount+.
And then there’s STRANGE NEW WORLDS, which debuted last among the five CBS-produced series and, perhaps, learned the best lessons from each. Knowing that they were limited to only ten episodes per season, the SNW showrunners opted not to create a “10-hour movie” like Picard and Discovery and instead be more episodic (one story per episode).
But even though no main storyline would run through the entire season, the SNW creators decided to have character arcs continue across episodes, allowing fans to really get to know Captain Pike and his crew. Granted, season one was more about introducing all of the officers and establishing their basic personality traits and backstories. We learned of M’Benga’s sick daughter, saw the first hints of a romance between Spock and Chapel, and of course, there was Pike’s knowledge of his ill-fated future. But during that initial season, story was more in the driver’s seat than character development, although characters were still allowed to evolve a little.
But then came season two. And with all those character foundations in place, it was time to dive more into the personalities and interrelationships of these people and, beyond that, give them each a little more room to develop and grow over the course of the season.
Let’s take a look back at the arcs of the main characters during season two…
Continue reading “STRANGE NEW WORLDS wraps up the best character-driven season of ANY new-era streaming TREK series with “HEGEMONY”… (editorial review)”