Fan Film Factor – Page 24 – Exploring the world of Star Trek fan films.

With two and a half weeks remaining, the FARRAGUT FORWARD Indiegogo passes $15,000!

On the one hand, $15K is only halfway to the $30K goal of the current Indiegogo campaign for FARRAGUT FORWARD, the movie-era sequel to the long-running fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT. And with only 17 days left, that means they’ve got just about 25% of the time left to get the remaining half.

On the other hand, few Star Trek fan films have managed to get even as far as $15K since the publication of the fan film guidelines back in June of 2016. And they also spent their first four weeks struggling to get over $3K. So really, they’ve taken in nearly $12K in donations in just the past three and a half weeks…and that is VERY impressive!

One of their donors gave $5K, and three others threw in $1K each…which certainly helps! They’ve also had three $500 donors and eight $200 donors. So that’s $11K right there from just 15 donors. The other 70-or-so backers have given at levels ranging from $5 or $10 up to $150.

So how are they managing to generate so much enthusiasm and support so quickly? Things started rolling after they had a table at the annual FARPOINT Convention near Baltimore, MD at the end of February. And since then, showrunner (and lead actor) JOHN BROUGHTON and director JOHNNY K. have been on a tear releasing engaging behind the scenes content! One of their most exciting offerings so far has been this new video released last week:

But there have been a dozen other, almost daily (sometimes twice daily!) updates posted to this page on their Indiegogo campaign in the last twelve days…some of them rather elaborate and filled with images from pre-production like in-depth looks into building the practical ship models that will be used for the visual FX…

Sneak peeks at the Klingon make-up and costuming…

Updates on early set construction and those awesome monster maroon uniforms…

Plus there are cast spotlights, links to podcast interviews (they’ve been doing a lot of those), and the announcement that the Grand Chieftain of CGI, SAMUEL COCKINGS, has joined the team to provide digital VFX to augment their practical model effects.

And of course, this is the point in the blog where I provide a link to the Indiegogo campaign and ask you to please help support this project if you can because it looks so amazing. Also, it would be totally awesome if a fan film could once again raise $30K—almost like the good ol’ days!

Here’s the link…

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/farragut-forward-a-star-trek-fan-production#

STAR TREK: PICARD goes TWO-FOR-TWO for season two! (editorial review)

SPOILERS ARE YOUR PENANCE, JEAN-LUC

This week, I’ve decided to separate my STAR TREK: PICARD and DISCOVERY reviews back into two separate blogs. It’s really not fair to combine them, as they are such totally different shows. Some have gone so far as to say that it’s not fair to call Picard a better show because it has characters with literally hundreds of Star Trek episodes between them (Picard and Seven-of Nine) plus guest stars playing characters equally familiar to fans…like Riker, Troi, Data, Hugh, Guinan, and Q.

Frankly, I don’t believe it’s fair to call that “unfair,” as Discovery has now been on the air for four years. And even though Michael Burnham, Saru, Stamets, and the others haven’t appeared in the 180 TNG episodes that Picard was in (or the 100 episodes of Voyager for Seven), there have still been well over 50 episodes of Discovery (54 as I write this).

No, the reason it’s unfair is simply that Picard is a vastly better show than Discovery…at least for these first two episodes of Picard‘s second season. At this point, there’s been so much positive being said about Picard these past couple of weeks that if you’re one of those people still clinging to the “They all suck!” rhetoric, you really need to let go of your anger and hatred because you really are missing out on something amazing.

One of the reasons I believe Picard to be the significantly better of the two shows is the characters who are featured. Both Discovery and Picard employ excellent actors and actresses. And while I wouldn’t put the leads of the two shows in the same class, most of the rest of their casts do a lot with their characters. It’s simply that the Picard writers are allowing their actors more opportunities to do so.

Case in point, let’s look at how things were handled in this second episode, “Penance”…

DISCOVERY’s “Species 10-C” episode was 37% intriguing, 45% annoying, and 18% frustrating… (editorial review)

SPOILERS ARE THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE!

I was originally going to title this blog “Close Encounters of the 10-C Kind,” but I felt it more appropriate to share my mix of reactions in the same way that Species 10-C communicated in ratios of their pheromone emotions. And if you don’t know WTF I’m talking about, then you haven’t watched the penultimate episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY‘s fourth season, “Species 10-C.”

This episode was a true conundrum for me when it came time to try to think of how I felt about it. On the one hand: GREAT EPISODE! On the other hand: DREADFUL EPISODE!

You see my problem?

LET’S START WITH INTRIGUING

One of the most far-fetched aspects of Star Trek over the decades is just how convenient first contacts tend to be. Throughout the first four TV series, it seemed that, no matter where you traveled in the galaxy, everybody looked mostly human (just maybe a strange forehead or ears here and there), and they all either spoke colloquial English immediately or else could learn it quickly or have it universally translated. And it kinda spoiled us fans, didn’t it? Of course, without such tropes, we’d have to spend the majority of each episode just figuring out how to communicate, and that would leave little time to tell compelling sci-fi stories.

Granted, Star Trek did have a few episodes that focused on communicating when the universal translator wasn’t up to the task. Most notably, the excellent Next Generation episode “Darmok” devoted the entire storyline to Picard and the Tamarian captain trying to find a way to understand each other because the languages were just too different for the universal translator to figure out.

Unfortunately, if you think too hard, even a wonderful episode like “Darmok” collapses under the weight of strained credulity. Obviously the Children of Tama were able to communicate beyond simple metaphors. After all, how can you build a starship without saying something like, “Pass me that #3 hexagonal hyper-spanner…”? And in order to say, “Uzani, his army with fists closed,” you have to know the words “army,” “fists,” and “closed.” In other words, the universal translator should have been able to do better than it did.

But hey, it still made for a great episode dedicated to bridging a language barrier. And so it was for “Species 10-C.” It was fascinating watching the methodical process of trying to bridge such vastly different methods of communication. But again, you kind of have to turn off your brain to accept how far-fetched the concept is…

The animated STAR TREK: THE PARADISE MAKERS (video interview with GASTON HUCKABAY)

Back in 1973-74, a production company called FILMATION produced 22 episodes of an animated Star Trek series featuring Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the rest of the original series crew (except Chekov). The animation style was simple and relatively inexpensive to produce. Nowadays, animated Star Trek series like LOWER DECKS and PRODIGY are positively stunning, but back then…well…we were just happy to have ourselves some new Star Trek stories on TV on Saturday mornings (even if half of the voices sounded like JAMES DOOHAN!).

The illustrated, simple cartoon style of the original animated series has been recreated over the years several times by Star Trek fan filmmakers. Among them are the many Trek fan films of CURT DANHAUSER, all of which can be accessed from this playlist) as well as two animated episodes from the long-running fan series STARSHIP FARRAGUT, “Power Source” and “The Needs of the Many.”

I’ve sometimes wondered which would be an easier project to produce—a live-action Star Trek fan film or an animated one? The former, of course, would require costumes, makeup, sets, lighting, sound, and proper camera work. The latter, however, would require hand drawings of each new scene, and frame-by-frame animations of the various characters…even if the only things moving are the lips and eyes. Both kinds of productions could easily take months or even years to complete, each with its own time-consuming challenges.

But no matter which format you choose, let me assure you: completing a single fan film story that is more than TWO HOURS long…that is a Herculean task just by itself! But that is exactly what I recently discovered on YouTube: an epic length, high-quality animated Star Trek fan film done in a style similar to the Filmation episodes from the 1970s. Titled STAR TREK: THE PARADISE MAKERS, this production was posted to YouTube in two parts back in 2017. Trust me, you’re gonna want to take a look…

Yeah, it’s a LOT of fan film to get through, but isn’t it really impressive? I certainly thought so! And so I tracked down the fan behind the film, Mr. GASTON HUCKABAY of Dallas, TX, and asked him for an interview.

Gaston has a lot to say about this passion project, how many years it took to complete, which major Star Trek novelist helped him with the production, and the heartbreaking tragedy that happened while Gaston and his team were working to complete it. He also explained why he believed it would be okay to release a two hour and fifteen minute long fan film one year after the fan film guidelines limited the length of Star Trek fan films to 30 minutes.

Here’s our eye-opening conversation…

PICARD soars while DISCOVERY snores (editorial review)

DOUBLE THE SPOILERS, DOUBLE THE FUN!

At first I was kinda dreading having to blog TWO reviews this week because we’ve got both STAR TREK: DISCOVERY and STAR TREK: PICARD each premiering new episodes on the same day (for the next three weeks, no less). And lord knows it takes me long enough to write just ONE blog review!

But this week’s episode of Discovery was such a nothing-burger that I have relatively little to say about it. On the other hand, the season two premiere of Picard completely blew me away, and I can’t stop thinking about how awesome it was. And if what I’ve read of reviews and reactions on social media, I’m far from alone in my reaction.

So I’ve decided to combine the two reviews into a single blog and see if I can cover both episodes in less than 3,100 words.

I actually wondered which episode to watch first and ultimately decided to begin with Discovery. I suspected that Picard would be the stronger of the two (although I had no idea how much stronger), and I wanted to end the evening on what I hoped would be the higher note.

Following that same logic, I’m going to start this blog with a little bit about Discovery‘s 11th episode of season four, “Rosetta,” and then move on to Picard‘s lead-off episode of season two, “The Star Gazer.” Buckle up, grab a Saurian brandy from behind the bar, and let’s do this thing…

At the halfway point, FARRAGUT FORWARD Indiegogo is 40% of the way to its $30K goal!

Since the announcement of the guidelines back in 2016, few Star Trek fan films have managed to crowd-fund into the five-figures. Of those, only INTERLUDE, THE ROMULAN WAR (Part 1 and Part 2 combined), and the still-not-completed TEARS OF J’KAH have managed to exceed $25K. Interlude just barely made it, although the last couple of thousand were a late add-on to replace PAUL JENKINS’ damaged green screen. The Romulan War probably shouldn’t count because it was actually TWO fan films, although they combined to reach just under $30K. And finally, Tears of J’Kah was funded to $49K, but that was from only 13 backers, most of them wealthy Hollywood connections that showrunner BENNY HALL asked for donations from.

And then there’s FARRAGUT FORWARD.

Last month when they launched their Indiegogo campaign, showrunners JOHN BROUGHTON and JOHNNY K. explained in a video interview why their goal was set at $30K. They’re planning on building screen-accurate Star Trek movie-era sets, based on those that became the U.S.S. Reliant in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Considering that Farragut Films had built most of the meticulously-crafted TOS sets that were used for STARSHIP FARRAGUT, STAR TREK CONTINUES, and now are NEUTRAL ZONE STUDIOS in Kingsland, GA, one expects the Farragut Forward sets to also look amazing.

And speaking of looking amazing, their “monster maroon” uniforms are studio quality (maybe even better!), as are their Klingon uniforms, and can cost up to one thousand dollars apiece…and the Farragut folks are planning to make about two dozen of them! And that’s how you get to $30K (not to mention make-up, props, food…and other production expenses).

Even so, $30K is a LOT of money to generate in a post-guidelines world with global inflation and rising fuel prices also becoming an issue of late. And of course, back in 2015, there was no new Star Trek on television, so fan films were all we had. Nowadays, fan films are “competing” with five different weekly TV series from CBS/Paramount. And even before the guidelines, Starship Farragut‘s last campaign back in late 2015 reached its goal $15K but didn’t get much further ($15,787). Can they really DOUBLE that in today’s crowd-funding environment?

To be certain, they started off frustratingly slowly, languishing in the low four-figure range for the first four weeks. But that all changed this past weekend. John B. and Johnny K. had a table at the long-running FARPOINT convention in Hunt Valley, MD along with a presentation of their “PROLOGUE” vignette, which is a must-see…

The above video along with the promised return of Farragut got folks at the con VERY excited, and thousands of dollars in on-site donations came in by Sunday evening. And then on Wednesday, they received their first donation at the $5K level. Other smaller donations have followed, and they are over $12K…which is 40% of the way to their goal!

John Broughton remains extremely optimistic. In a Facebook post earlier today, he said the following…

SOLE SURVIVOR is a “one-man show” Star Trek fan film! (interview with STEVE INGLIS)

I’ve said it many times: anyone can make a fan film. You don’t need elaborate sets or meticulously crafted costumes. You don’t need expensive equipment or a cast of many (or even any) actors/friends/fellow fans. Sometimes all you need is, well, you.

In today’s blog, the role of “you” is being played by Scottish Trekker STEVE INGLIS, who just released his first Star Trek fan film, SOLE SURVIVOR. He posted it to YouTube and linked to it from a comment on the Fan Film Forum Facebook group.

As I began playing the video, it looked like I was gonna have to sit through 15 minutes of a static shot of some guy talking to the computer. Oh, well…no such thing as a bad Star Trek fan film, right? But much to my very pleasant surprise, this production turned out to be much more than just that. I mean, yes, it was a static shot of one guy talking for 15 minutes, but that was just the foundation of was turned out to be a very engaging viewing experience. The main character was masterfully played by Steve himself, and the story moved along at a decent pace with an unexpectedly suspenseful ending.

Take a look for yourself…

Considering it was a first-time effort with only two people listed in the credits—Steve Inglis and writer/director TOM DUNE (plus clip music from ZAKHAR VALAHA from Pixabay)—this was a pretty impressive fan film! And to underscore the “do it yourself” nature of this project, the credits also listed the following:

Wardrobe – Ikea
Hair – Yes
Makeup – No
Lighting – Borrowed

Naturally, I wanted to learn more about these two Scottish fan filmmakers, although I could only find one of them, Steve Inglis, on Facebook. Tom Dune didn’t appear to be listed anywhere…not even as a Facebook friend of Steve’s. I would soon find out why that was when Steve agreed to do the following interview…

DISCOVERY’s “The Great Barrier” was a lot to get through… (editorial review)

THE GREAT WALL OF SPOILERS

Perhaps I should have realized it when I heard Dr. Kovich reference Gilligan’s Island in the opening scene of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY‘s tenth episode of season four, “The Great Barrier.” Realized what? Well, those castaways set out on a “three hour tour” and ended up spending a LOT more time stuck in the same place. And that’s kind of what’s been happening with Discovery this season.

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with the decision to have season-long story arcs—as Discovery has done since season two and arguably since season one)—it does present a challenge for properly pacing out the general plot line. Thirteen hours (give or take) is a massive of time to fill locked into the same overall narrative. It’s certainly not impossible to keep a storyline going for that long, but it often takes a little bit of “padding” to stretch things out a bit. And a little bit is good. It gives the creators a chance to develop the characters, something that was frustratingly absent with the manic pace of the first two seasons. So, yeah, a little bit is good. A…little…bit.

For the first half of season four, the pacing of the overall story arc was decent. The anomaly (DMA) wasn’t even introduced until the end of the first episode, and it kind of took a back seat over the course of the next few episodes, although the second episode dealt with the trying to collect data on the distortion while spotlighting Book’s emotional devastation. But then we had episodes dealing with (in this order) finding a rogue Romulan ninja nun, Tilly leading a group of Starfleet cadets (and Adira) to safety after a shuttle crash while Burnham and Saru try to talk Ni’Var into rejoining the Federation, and then freeing trapped prisoners in the path of the DMA’s destruction while an experiment on board Discovery nearly destroys the ship (and introduces Ruon Tarka).

Five episodes in, and there was a steady build-up of the DMA in importance. That led to episode six, where Discovery has to actually enter the subspace rift to collect otherwise irretrievable data on the DMA. And now the main story arc had taken center stage, exactly when it should have, building to a big clash in episode seven (just before the holiday hiatus). Michael and Book lock horns over what to do about the device generating the DMA: destroy it or try to contact Unknown Species 10-C and ask them politely to turn it off. Both arguments sounded reasonable, something which has been a part of Trek since TOS.

Perfect pacing so far. The first half of the season ended with a strong cliffhanger and the promise of even more revelations and action in the final six episodes.

And then Star Trek: Discovery kinda got stuck…

New trailer announces YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL will premiere on APRIL 5th…really!

It’s been a loooooooooooong road, getting from there to (almost) here. And when I say long (with all those o’s), I mean from 1985 to 2022…THIRTTY-SEVEN YEARS! Seriously, if you think AXANAR is taking a long time to finish, that’s just peanuts compared to YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL…starring GEORGE TAKEI as Lt. Commander Hikaru Sulu (yep!) and the late JAMES SHIGETA as Admiral Nogura.

Every so often, like a dad taking his kids on a long road trip, I get a fan asking me the “Are we there yet?” question: Do you know when Yorktown is supposed to be coming out? And it’s a totally reasonable question. There seem to have been countless announcements of premiere dates over the past several years that never seemed to pan out. Most recently, a trailer promised a release date of Christmas 2020, and then a slightly pushed-back release date of December was announced instead. Then early 2021. Then, well, nothing specific after that.

It’s now a year later, and we FINALLY have a hard, locked-in, carved-in-stone, cross-my-heart-and-hope-kiss-a-salt-vampire date for the anticipated debut of this fan film that saw its first raw footage shot in the Angeles National Forest just three weeks after the introduction of New Coke!

So what has taken so long to finish this fan film? For the answer explaining the first 35 years of production, I invite you read this 6-part (hey, it covers three and a half decades, people!) blog series filled with quotes from show-runners STAN WOO and JOHN AKTIN. As for the most recent year delay, that’s another story that includes, sadly, a personal tragedy.

Initially, the delay from late 2020 into 2021 came because of continuing issues with sound-mixing for the film. There were still significant challenges to overcome, and they were simply taking longer to address and correct than John Atkin had originally anticipated.

But then, on October 2, 2021, MIRANDA GERMANI, John’s wife and mother of their three-year-old son, passed away unexpectedly from complications caused by Crohn’s disease. The impact on John was devastating, and it is totally understandable that John would step back from working on Yorktown for a bit.

Miranda Germani as Dr. Amanda Cruz in the upcoming YORKTOWN: A TIME TO HEAL

After that, I stopped checking in with John to ask about progress on Yorktown and instead simply offered him the hand of friendship and support (and tossed a few dollars into the GoFundMe to pay expenses for their son’s post-secondary eduction).

But John has finally completed work on the film, and we now have a firm date for the premiere of Yorktown: A Time to Heal—APRIL 5, 2022…First Contact Day!

ST: DISCOVERY’s “Rubicon” was the perfect episode with one major flaw: PREDICTABILITY! (editorial review)

YOU JUST KNOW THERE ARE GONNA BE SPOILERS!

Oh, man! They were SO close…SO close to having a perfect episode! And considering how many times I have found at least one thing to criticize about each episode of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, a truly flawless episode has still eluded them.

Granted, is there really such a thing as a “perfect” Star Trek episode? Fans could probably find nits to pick for some of Trek‘s greatest triumphs like “The City on the Edge of Forever,” “The Trouble with Tribbles,” “The Best of Both Worlds,” “The Inner Light,” “The Visitor,”…and I could go on. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. What I mean by “perfect” is an episode where even the little flaws don’t bother you (or me). And the latest episode of Discovery, “Rubicon,” COULD have been that most coveted of episodes. It was gorgeous to look at, exciting, well-acted, well-paced, dramatic, and it had some really good action sequences (especially the scenes with all the jumps). It even featured some minor bridge characters getting a chance to actually LEAVE the bridge. It could have been a “perfect” episode except for one not-so-small problem…

It was WAY too predictable.

Part of the problem is that I knew, before the episode began, the title: “Rubicon.” Now, technically, Discovery episodes don’t display their titles to viewers (unlike most of the other Trek series), so I’m not sure this is a completely valid criticism. But I’m still counting it. Titling the episode “Rubicon” would be like titling “The City on the Edge of Forever” instead “The Tragic Death of Edith Keeler.”

For anyone not familiar with the Rubicon River in Italy or the phrase “Crossing the Rubicon,” it comes from ancient Roman times. Before Julius Caesar conquered Rome, he was the governor of a neighboring province and the general of that province’s army. When his term ended, the Senate ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome. He returned to Rome, all right, but he didn’t disband his army. In fact, he took his soldiers with him, which was a HUGE no-no (like, treason and insurrection illegal), and once those soldiers crossed the Rubicon River, the die was cast. Caesar’s army had entered the Rome province, and civil war ensued.

For the past few episodes of Discovery, the decision facing the Federation (with Michael and Book on opposite sides of the issue) was whether to try to make peaceful first contact with Unknown Species 10-C or risk a war with them by striking first at their DMA generator and preemptively destroying it. With a title like “Rubicon,” I pretty much knew from the first moment that the episode would end with the action that would lead to war.

Of course, there were other “tells” in this episode (and the ones leading up to it) that also cemented that inevitability…