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Fan-Made Star Trek Episode Available for Download
Minnesota trekker writes "Two Minnesota fans of the original "Star Trek" series spent seven years, off and on, creating an all-new episode in the 1960s style using their own actors, sets and props. Behold, the U.S.S. Exeter (www.starshipexeter.com). The episode's look and feel is amazingly authentic. The story is inventive and the acting surprisingly good. The damn thing, dubbed "The Savage Empire," is actually watchable. The site gives lots of details on how the episode was created, and even more background is available on the Pioneer Press site."
This is pretty cool. I remember a similar community effort being discussed several years ago to bring the Timothy Zahn Star Wars sequels to the screen (or to tape, whatever). Never got off the ground, AFAIK.
I am a little worried as to how this will be treated by Paramount. They are notoriously evil when it comes to "protecting" their copyrights, especially when it comes to Trek.
Also, why the Exeter? Is there any reason given as to why the Federation would name a ship after an East Coast prep school with a history of buggery?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Is it just me, or the old fashioned klingons were far better vilains that the new ones? I mean, old klingons were cynical, smart, dissimulated, and very dangerous.
But NG's (or motion-picture) style klingons are irracional, fanatic, even dumb, and it's by no way credible that this kind of civilization would ever manage to build any kind of science or engineering.
Note that both know how to be brutal, but the first ones used brutality as a tool for their objectives, and, for the new ones, it's an almost biological characteristic.
I remember that I've read, in a magazine, that the klingons of the 60's represented the enemies of the U.S. in that time (China, USSR), and, the klingons from 80 to date, represented the new ones (fanatics). It may be, but, as vilains, the previous generation of Klingons were way more fun.
I'm sure many of the comments here will amount to "these guys have too much time on their hands" or "haw-haw, these guys can't get laid," but I say good for them. Criticizing and tearing something down by making snarky comments on the Internet is the easiest and least impressive thing in the world.
Actually doing something is hard. Especially something as eccentric as this. These guys had the passion and the perseverance to make something -- to start a project many people would consider too expensive and time-consuming to bother with, and they saw it through to completion. I have to respect that.
More than once I've heard people say something like "wouldn't it be cool to build some cheap sets and make our own episode of (Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Files, My Mother the Car)", but these guys actually went ahead and did it. Which, despite whatever shortcomings the film project might have, is a hell of a lot more impressive than sitting around talking smack about it.
I watched this a few days ago, actually, and it was fun to watch. The people who made it have a lot of love for their subject matter, and put a lot of work into the little details, which I appreciate. And that big pink dinosaur is a riot -- and as special effects go, still beats the heck out of that "lava monster" Spock mind-melded with in that classic Trek episode.
So I say good for them, and I hope it doesn't take another seven years for the sequel.
The biggest reason why I hate embedded movies on a website is that I can not select 'Double Size' for the movie. Those movies are very tiny with my preferred resolution and I hate having to change my monitor resolution just to watch a movie in a web page.
I end up sifting through the html and javascript and grabbing the raw url anyways.
Oh well,
--jeff++
ipv6 is my vpn
Hate to cross-post, but...
Can people who have already d/led these please get them up on the P2P networks? How about renaming them starshipexeter_actone.mov, etc. ?
Thanks