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Behind the Scenes With the Star Trek Fan Reboot
SternisheFan writes: The original Starship Enterprise was on a 5-year mission, but the original series was canceled after the third year. A continuation of Star Trek:TOS is being created by a dedicated cast and crew intent on keeping true to the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's television show. From recreating the original sets with incredible accuracy and attention to details, staying faithful to original storylines has been a true labor of love for all involved. Here are a series of videos showing the progress being made on recreating the iconic series. (And if you missed it last time, here's the first episode they produced.)
I chipped in for their funding campaign, and I am glad I did. So far the first 3 episodes are great. Mignogna and crew have really done a wonderful job on Star Trek Continues.
A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
I use to love this show as a teenager. In college, I stopped watching television. Afterwards, it just struck me as stupid and self righteous, but maybe that was a reflection of society as a whole. The dialogs were campy and the situations so contrived. Everything was just so fortuitous. Kirk would make a silly gamble and win. Just did not strike me as real. Especially when others would make the same gamble and lose. I think "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy " made fun of this in the improbability drive.
People would say it was the best SF. I thought Outer Limits was much better in terms of having stories and characters. For one thing, Kirk and the Enterprise would survive.
I've watched a few of these fan made series - I have yet to find one that was actually watchable. The sets can be great, the lighting, the CGI effects - but what always kills these series is the acting. It's awful. Always. I have yet to find a fan series with passable acting. If they could get decent actors, they could use cardboard boxes for sets and it would at least be watchable.
So, to summarize....it sucked so bad that you watched hundreds of hours of it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...
Like a good neighbor, fsck is there
Yet Another Fan Made TOS? Here's the first group I heard of: http://www.startreknewvoyages.... They actually got Sulu. What's this new one got?
whatever floats your boat. make as much as possible. don't blame nobody.
You seem to know an awful lot about a series that you seem so dislike so much.
I can certainly criticize and critique episodes and movies, but obviously I liked/like Star Trek and won't slam it as-a-whole. Admittedly I didn't watch Enterprise beyond the pilot, nor did I see Nemesis or the second JJ Abrams movie.
I've seen a faux-documentary related to Prelude to Axanar that was pretty good. They got a lot of experienced actors to participate, and their costuming and sets were decent, and the writing seemed pretty good too. Certainly good enough to be better than the worst TOS and TNG episodes, probably ranking up in about the middle of the pack. Certainly not Measure of a Man, but not Shades of Gray either.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've watched everything they've made so far, it really is well done. I like how the stories flow from the original episodes on which they are rooted.
...the problem is they can't act! They make Shatner look like Brando by comparison.
It's a terrible shame, but bad acting is bad acting.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
The look and feel of the TV show is preserved, from the background music to how the way the show was lit. The actor who originally played the god Apollo is re-cast in the first episode, green skinned alien women in the second show, and the third has final closure to what happened to the Harkonnens after the episode 'Mirror Mirror' ended. Goateed Spock is back!
If you were ever a fan of Star Trek, you'll enjoy these remakes.
Yes. All those faults, and still the best science fiction serials ever. Doesn't that say a lot for the potential of the genre?
I'm not really interested in fan-made anything, for the usual reasons. This team's version of Pilgrim of Eternity is however nothing less than remarkable and deserving of much credit.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
http://www.startrekcontinues.c...
Enterprise was actually surprisingly good, with a few exceptions; I only watched it a few months ago, since I had turned my nose up at it when it was new. It did start out a big rough and had a little too much gratuitous sexuality at first, but when it settled down it was pretty good. The main problems with Enterprise are: 1) the opening theme music. It's absolutely horrible. I don't know WTF they were thinking with that whiny emo crap. But there's an exception here: the two mirror-universe episodes in Season 4 had excellent music and intro scenes of humans blasting everything and conquering. And 2) the whole Xindi attack plot arc in Season 3 was too much. It was an obvious parallel to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and just didn't go over that well.
I also didn't bother with the second Abrams movie; the first one was too much of a disappointment.
Must have been under a rock, had not heard of "Star Trek Continues" before, so I am watching the first episode right now. Although I can certainly understand keeping the same sets, characters, props, and sound effects, I can't for the life of me understand why they would intentionally want to use the 4:3 aspect ratio. Hmm
Enterprise was just starting to get pretty good when then canceled it :( My main problem with the series was Scott B. as the captain, it just didn't work well for me.
Agree on TOS and TNG.
TNG in particular is hard to re-watch. A drinking game based on "reroute power from the" would probably kill the hardiest drinker within a few episodes. It did have a surprising number of really solid episodes though, and while boring and predictable, the rest of the show is generally watchable.
You didn't miss much with voyager. They went way overboard with the whole strong female lead thing, and created an all knowing all powerful and totally unbelievable character with Captain Janeway. They then surrounded her with cardboard characters and a central plot that held no tension (lets face it, no way they were getting home by the end of the episode.. ever). It had a few ok episodes, but unlike TNG most of it is just unwatchable dreck.
Now DS9 is where I disagree. Yes it was a cliche war story, but it was a well done cliche war story. Also unlike the other ST shows the characters actually had, well, character.. and there was an actual ongoing story arc, and the civilizations they ran into mostly made sense because they wern't just there to make some point within the span of an episode.
You have no copyright... this stuff belongs to the Chris Pine as Kirk team. This can't make any money and will be assimilated into Paramount.
This fan fic already has a few episodes in the can. And it's so good, that even the most horrible episode in the bunch (the one with the Orion slavegirl), is simultaneously unwatchable, and completely watchable on its merits as a very faithful recreation of a typically bad episode from the original series. These guys have got it down pat. They know exactly how to faithfully remake an honest homage to an average bad episode from the original series. And it's certainly doesn't hurt that the episode's guest star was none other than Lou "The Incredible Hulk" Ferrigno. As an Orion slave trader. In full body green makeup!
It's eery watching Chris Doohan in this series. The guy is a spitting image of his old man. Looks like a younger Scotty. Close your eyes, and you can't tell it's not Scotty. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the episodes as they came out. They were far more entertaining than either of the two terrible reboots. I refused, on principle, to pay money to watch the crap reboots in the theaters. But if these folks ever manage to crank out a reel, and it makes it down to my local megaplex, I'll be the first in line to buy a ticket.
You seem to know an awful lot about a series that you seem so dislike so much.
What's wrong with having an informed dislike about something? Certainly better than blowing something off without knowing anything about it, right?
Voyager was good for the eye candy... Borg, mmmmm
TNG a bunch of technobabble and reengineering the ship to solve the problem of the week
Don't forget all that poncing around space so they can talk down to aliens with their self-righteous moralizing!
His knowledge goes well past informed. It's almost like an obsessive passion to watch every detail that he could possible detest.
Which is a bizarre form of self punishment.
1) the opening theme music. It's absolutely horrible. I don't know WTF they were thinking with that whiny emo crap.
They were thinking: "Hey, kids like this shit, right? We need to appeal to the younger crowd. That's where the money is. So we'll toss the old symphonic opening scores. We'll also sex it up a bit with a hot-bodied Vulcan in a skin-tight suit. Oh, and we'll make sure to fabricate a few excuses to strip that suit off and smear a bunch of oil on her. This is gonna be big! ... Plot? Shit, the writers will figure that stuff out. Don't bother me, I'm figuring out the important stuff here!"
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
TOS was a bunch of LSD lights and kirk visiting stupid copies of earth
Hahaha.... I'm sure someone will point out that Kirk only went to a "stupid copy of earth" twice and LSD lights in space didn't feature that often... yet somehow you've managed to distill and exaggerate an already selective general perception into something that *sounds* like you hit the nail on the head. :-)
TNG a bunch of technobabble and reengineering the ship to solve the problem of the week
True... but you forgot the overuse of the holodeck, which, if you were to exaggerate it the same way you did TOS, would have every third episode involving Data dressing up as Holmes and chasing Moriarty who'd somehow overridden the safety settings. :-)
(Disclaimer: Still my favourite ST series).
never got into Voyager
Saw some of it, nowhere near as bad as some people claimed, but came across as too much like a rerun of TNG with weaker characters.
(And the TNG-style episodic "reset button" formula was more obviously contrived when there was an end goal (i.e. to get home) that had to be put back out of reach).
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I can appreciate the energy and enthusiasm that goes into these projects.
But with 85 years of modern science fiction to explore, with excellent examples available to draw upon in from all media, you would think even the die-hard fan would have grown a little weary of gearing up to prduce yet another retread of Star Trek: TOS.
I've watched the two episodes that have been produced, and liked them quite a bit, worth watching and worth supporting.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
There are three things about Star Trek which are unbearable to me:
1. The Holodeck, which is just one massive plothole
2. Badly done time travel, which is yet another massive plothole
3. Badly done aliens, with a lame explanation.
That episode made by the fans just utterly obliterated any interest I might have had by starting right with big mistake no. 1.
intent on keeping true to the spirit of Gene Roddenberry's television show.
That's just another way of saying "more of the same".
I can understand why the entertainment industry is so obsessed with the canons: to not dilute value of the original.
But I still can't grasp the why the fans are so obsessed with the "more of the same"?
P.S. I like how Japanese animes often parody and make fun of themselves. I like how they sometimes shuffle the roles and characters. Occasionally the shenanigans are way too transparent and shallow - but sometimes very brilliant and deeps ideas come out of it.
All hope abandon ye who enter here.
I thought he was amazing as Evil Archer in the mirror episodes. In fact both of those episodes were downright awesome. Season 4 was probably the best season of that show, but by that point its viewership numbers had dropped to what the networks term the "point of no return" so it had to be cancelled.
I think the Romulan wars would have been interesting had it gotten to that (it WAS in the show's immediate future, after all.) To remain canonical, they would have to had never shown a Romulan's face, which would have made for a mysterious unseen enemy with ships that cloak, in addition to nuclear bombardments (which again, was canonical as per the descriptions of the Romulan wars in the TOS episodes that talked about it.) THAT would have been entertaining to watch in a 1970's Battlestar Galactica kind of way, only in traditional Star Trek fashion where technology is the great enabler and savior instead of the ultimate necessary evil.
I guess nobody remembers Star Trek: New Voyages aka Star Trek: Phase 2....
You didn't miss much with voyager.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip...
I loved ST:OS when I was a kid, and these remake/homages definitely capture the fun and a lot of the spirit [and a bunch of the cheese] of the original. Definitely worthwhile.
Kids nowadays....you can't understand how groundbreaking and exciting Star Trek was back in the '60's.
There have only been three episodes since, like, forever. They're ok, but is that all there's going to be?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You want the real continuation of the 5 year voyage? Go with the guys that have been making episodes for over 10 years.
www.startreknewvoyages.com
Vic and his crew are no where near the level of accuracy and faithfulness to TOS as the New Voyages team is, and their latest episode, Mind-Sifter is all the proof you need.
All you have to know about Enterprise was that Rick Berman is the kind of douchebag that actually got royally pissed when Jeri Ryan's tits got smaller after the birth of her child and in retaliation had her catsuit made so damned small that she said she had trouble breathing in it.
THAT ladies and gentleman explains better than I ever could why later versions of Star Trek sucked, because the head was a fucking dudebro who cared only about tits and ass, like putting Michael Bay in charge of making the Martian Chronicles, no good can come from this.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
...it's because he is portrayed by James Doohan's son.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Jeri Ryan's first child was born in 1994 and second in 2008. She was on Voyager from 1997 to 2001. Your story has some plot holes.
This seems to be common among Star Trek fans. There's one guy I know who literally went through every episode of several "generations" of Trek - it took him months - and did nothing but complain about it. The sets, the props, the plot, the characters, everything. A steady stream of complaints on a near-daily basis.
I had considered checking out Trek before, but there's just so much material there and nobody could give a firm recommendation. Now, after this guy, I'll be making it a point to avoid Star Trek. I'd heard the stories about Trekkies, thinking they were exaggerated - they aren't. I'd go to a furry convention before a Trek convention, at least the furries know how to have fun.
they didn't just cancel it, they Bobby Ewinged the entire fucking series with RIKER!?
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
perhaps he means roxane dawson or whatever her name is, she was pregnant in the show, idk about real life but it would fit
Now you know why I quit reading Games of Thrones after the 3rd book or so, and why I've no interest in watching the series.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
I'd suggest checking out Star Trek, despite that 1 guy who whined a lot.
For the purpose, a short-list, and some quick recommendations...
* The Original Series ('66-'69) - dated, and it shows. Only watchable for nostalgic reasons
* The Next Generation ('87-'94) - showing its age, 1st season quite bad, rest varies between bad and very good, decent place to start, can be a bit preachy
*Deep Space Nine ('93-'99) - Decent visuals, seasons 1-3 pretty poor story-wise, end of season 3 through season 6 pretty decent-to-good, more action-based than previous stuff. Fairly dark, difficult place to start
* Voyager ('95-'01) - better production quality than other series, somewhat action-centric at times, less preachy (ignoring certain episodes). Can be used as starting-point
* Enterprise ('01-'05) - Actually not Star Trek. Attempt to make a more streamlined, easy-to-watch Trek. Can be used as starting-point, but may be difficult going back to eg. TNG afterwards.
Some episodes you can try watching (even if out-of-sequence and spoilery), to get a feel for Trek:
* The Measure of a Man (TNG)
* Inner Light (TNG)
* In the Pale Moonlight (DS9) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
* Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9, TOS-cross-over)
* Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy (Voy)
* Year of Hell, Part 1 & 2 (Voy - 2 episodes)
* Broken Bow (Ent - 1st episode)
* Carbon Creek (Ent)
Yeah, these generally considered amongst the better episodes of their series, but shows some of the varied themes and styles of Star Trek (I left the out mirror-universe things, they are generally stupid)
Don't bother with watching any of the movies, they are largely bad (he said, having the complete collection on blu-ray) - shame they haven't made any Star Trek movies since 2002.
she didn't wear a tight catsuit though. I think the OP is misinformed.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
It's hairyfeet. He's an idiot who makes stuff up, that's what he does.
Where Picard is a war lord and sexual deviant:
TNG Recut 1
The early videos are a little all over the place, but the later videos have over arching themes and stories, some are masterfully put together. Watch for Janeway, Archer, and Sisko to all make appearances as enemies of The Picard.
If you can look through the change in uniforms, sets, dialog tone... It can be quite funny. If you cant tune that out, then you probably wont enjoy them. I always enjoy hearing dialog from cast members in movies they were in that I never saw.
Some episodes you can try watching (even if out-of-sequence and spoilery), to get a feel for Trek:
I'm sorry, but it's Geek Law that every list of ST episodes to 'try' must include TNG's "Yesterday's Enterprise."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Because the web designer is an asshole. "So bright, it's almost white!" or "Almost white, but not quite", could be his motto.
What's with all the grey text all over the internet nowadays - why are 'designers' such pathetic, bandwagon-jumping, unoriginal tossers?
Actually Paramount has a fairly generous policy towards unauthorised fan productions like this, in that as long as they don't try to earn any money from them, Paramount doesn't mind and won't try to shut them down. There's been a fair few fan productions who've used actors from the proper shows, there's even been one or two primarily produced by those official Trek actors.
Well there's only been three episodes of this so far, and you can see them improve in each one, at least in my opinion. They're certainly improving more than the first three episodes of most official Star Trek series, which are generally guaranteed to be pretty awful.
Heh. After Robert Jordan stopped writing Wheel of Time main-line novels to work on prequels before dying, I'm inclined to wait until whole series are finished or the authors are dead before I read their work. Makes it a lot easier to avoid disappointment like that again.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
We're going to need a bigger basement.
THINK McFly THINK, she was BREASTFEEDING and guess what lactating does to a woman's breasts? If you say fill them with milk and thus make them bigger then ding ding ding, we have a winner! When they hired her the breastfeeding had her a full cup size larger and Mr Dudebro complained that her tits went down when she stopped which is why the catsuit got even tighter.
So you and the ACs can kiss my hairy behind, since it was Jeri Ryan complaining about this on one of the con interviews, sorry if I can't remember which of the bazillion it was.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Time travel! Reconfigure the main deflector dish to emit anti-chronoton bursts at 3 second intervals!
+1
TOS was and will be shit and yes, TNG was OK.
I've put off watching these for a long time.. Big mistake.
The effects are adequate, but the cameo guest stars they got are surprising and subtle. The dialog really good.
Though its a bit jarring whenever a Fan film recasts the orginal I found you get over it in particular with this series relatively quickly.
The Kirk actor could use a slightly deeper voice, but the Spock actor is spot on.
Having Marina Sirtis as the ships Computer was a real treat and a real nod to Majel Roddenberry since she played her daughter in the Next Generation.
Chris Doohan does a really nice Scotty, though I think he could use a haircut more conservative to reflect the business look of the late 60's.
Grant's Sulu is funny if not likeable.. I think he's a bit over the top. George Takei could give him pointers.
The red headed counselor really has chemistry with the new Kirk, and their timing is excellent. Though I kept thinking they had got Wynona Judd to guest star somehow.
I really liked the stories and their plots.. they actually paid a great deal of attention to them, had a goal.. and you couldn't guess what that was by the end of Act 1.. which was also a trademark of Star Trek. And the dialogue isn't perfect.. but its close. Bad dialogue is like a poorly edited book.. you notice.. good dialogue lets you enjoy the show without pointing things out to yourself every few minutes.
Really.. the writers of this show could have made Str Trek:Enterprise a much better show. The episodes would have been far more interesting, inventive and pleasing on the mind once the show was over.
OMG, I'd never made that connection before, but you are so right!
yeah, no - I wouldn't send a non-Trekkie to watch "Yesterday's Enterprise" randomly, since it would ruin too many things.
Time-travelling is included in "Trials and Tribble-actions" and "Year of Hell I+II".
"Dated" actually doesn't bother me, as long as it's just a retro-futuristic aesthetic, and the story itself is interesting. I've been on a Philip K. Dick read-a-thon this year (well several years). Lots of his settings have stuff like interplanetary travel and bionic implants but also tape reels are used for recording stuff, characters use vinyl record players, etc. Then again, dated special effects in a TV medium could actually be distracting. Maybe I'll watch some of these episodes. I noticed you didn't recommend any from the original series. Is there not 1 that's interesting?
Yeah, I skipped listing episodes from The Original Series (TOS) and The Animated Series (TAS), due to not having watched much of either - I simply don't have the base for recommending any.
My personal issue is simply that I find watching either difficult, due to the visuals and the acting. Is not that it is bad, simply my preferences and me being spoiled, that makes it a problem. If you are OK with watching TV from that era, I'm sure you can suffer through at least TOS.
Based on other's(!) comments, you can consider these 2 from TOS:
* The City on the Edge of Forever (TOS) - Considered by many as the best Star Trek episode ever, and an example on how to do Time Travel right.
* The Trouble With Tribbles (TOS) - the episode that Trials and Tribble-ations (DS9) pays homage to - perhaps watch this and then the DS9 episode
For the other end of the spectrum (i.e., horrible Star Trek), you can try...
* Code of Honor (TNG) - A planet full of faux-african-villagers
* Justice (TNG) - A planet full of people constantly playing at love
* The Fight (VOY) - Using Native American rituals to communicate with space-spirits (sort-of)
or you can simply enjoy this little video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Now, cue the people, who will point out how I cannot talk about Star Trek, if I haven't watched TOS at least once every year since the mid-seventies.....
More PKD anachronisms... People smoking inside office buildings. Any sort of portable computer or communications device is described as a large, heavy briefcase. People taking what are now petty electronics like radios in for repair. Some hippie-era slang in his later work. This is all side-by-side with the futurism of his times - personal rockets that could get you to the moon base. Androids indistinguishable from humans. I actually like that part of it, but I'm something of a history nerd, and I think this is all super cool.
Some of his more accurate predictions: Micro-transactions (AIs will refuse to work for you - for example unlock your apartment door or make your coffee - without a few cents payment). Mass surveillance. Runaway megacorp power all around, with policing and related work being increasingly contracted out to them as well. Marijuana becoming a legalized, branded product.