Star Wreck 6 Finally Complete

EvilNTUser writes "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning can now be ordered on DVD, and will hopefully be shipped before 2005-09-06 unless you slashdot them (the link uses Coral). The independent movie is a 103 minute parody of Star Trek and Babylon 5, with all special effects rendered by the makers themselves. It looks like all the delays were worth it, so make sure you don't miss Captain Pirk's quest for world domination."

Comments

Special effects...

[spineboy]

I'm just really getting tired of special effects movies. I went and mistakenly saw "War of the Worlds" and it was just horrible!. Yes, I know you can make giant spaceships look real, but so what - I'm bored of that. As long as a special effect is about as good as the OLD Dr. Who, then that's all you really need, because it was the storyline, the plot and maybe the acting which made it good.

If you spend $50 million on polishing up a piece of dog crap, you still have a piece of crap, nicely polished in the end.
Let's hope that these guys (please, please) spent a lot of time on the script, story, etc, which will make a good movie/story. Independent films are often much better than those big over-produced films. These Hollywood monstrousities often have 10 producers, all adding their various formula of bells and whistles, that they think some standard audience will like. That's why there are so many sequels out there - it's a "safe" gamble for the studio, and usually BORING.

Re:Special effects...

[moviepig.com]

I'm just really getting tired of special effects movies. ..."War of the Worlds"...was just horrible! ... As long as a special effect is about as good as the OLD Dr. Who, then that's all you really need...

A movie that's only effects isn't much, true. But remember that, especially with something like War of the Worlds, the movie itself is already an "effect", i.e., an attempt to render a literary concept into a visually believable form. If one's willing to settle for the mere narrative adequacy of "placeholder" effects, then why not simply stick with reading the book?

Re:Special effects...

[boron boy]

The ideal would for these untrained, passionate people to be linked with mentors who could teach them the craft of visual storytelling. This is what Lucas has suggested he'll do post-Star Wars

About time. Lucas could really use a lessons or two.

Re:First: First comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Anus?

Re:Shameless plug.

[ultranova]

Why should anyone care about this?

Well, because this

1. Involves computers (to render the special effects),
2. Is scifi,
3. Involves Star Trek,
4. Involves Babylon 5,
5. Is basically a story about amateurs using technology, intelligence and determination to product the kind of things normally thought to require a multi-million dollar budget (basically the same story as with too many open-source projects, case mods and homemade gadgets that have been mentioned in Slashdot to count).

I find the idea of homemade space battle movie very much in line with "News for nerds, stuff that matters". Everyone is complaining about the (low) quality of stuff that Hollywood produces; suppose every hobbyist with a computer could make professional-looking special effects ? What would that mean about indie movies ability to compete with Hollywood ones ?

Think about it - a virtual movie studio right in your own computer, complete with virtual actors (because, lets face it, keeping several people working on a project like an indie movie is propably going to be the hardest part - it's not nice if the main character walks away halfway through), costumes, sets, semi-automatic cameramen...

What kind of movie would you want to write and direct today ?

Re:How about a language that we understand

[Explo]

Just read the subtitles? I've seen plenty of movies spoken in language that I do not understand and happily just read the subtitles.

(This particular movie is not a problem, as I'm Finnish. :)

Re:Shameless plug.

[ultranova]

They're charging about $30 for the DVD, right? Doesn't that, by definition, disqualify them from amateur status?

No. An amateur, in this context, is someone who doesn't make his living from whatever it's he's amateur at. SW6 was 5 years in production and cost thousands of euros; there's no way they will turn a profit, much less cover their living expenses from the past 5 years. Besides, the movie is supposed to become a free download after a while. Check also Elfwood, and see how many people have mentioned that they're available for doing commissions.

Amateurs sell their works all the time, they just don't make their living from it.