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Star Trek Continues Meets Kickstarter Goal, Aims For Stretch Goals
jdavidb writes: A couple of months ago on Slashdot, I learned about Star Trek Continues, a faithful continuation of the Star Trek original series five-year mission, lovingly recreated by Vic Mignogna and a dedicated cast and crew. The original Enterprise set from Desilu has been recreated, great scripts have been written, fantastic guest stars have been enlisted, including stars from the original series and other Star Trek voyages, and the three episodes filmed so far look like they genuinely came from the era that produced the original series. Continues has now turned my children on to original series Star Trek, and we eagerly await more episodes.
Continues has two more days to go in their Kickstarter campaign. They have already raised enough money to produce two more episodes and meet their first stretch goal: creating a set for Engineering. They're also bumping up against their next stretch goal: creating a planet set so the Continues Enterprise team can visit strange new worlds and experience the tragic loss of nameless redshirts.
Continues has two more days to go in their Kickstarter campaign. They have already raised enough money to produce two more episodes and meet their first stretch goal: creating a set for Engineering. They're also bumping up against their next stretch goal: creating a planet set so the Continues Enterprise team can visit strange new worlds and experience the tragic loss of nameless redshirts.
I want to care about this. I really do. But the acting is justflat. None of them feel like they've got skin in the game. I don't know what it would take but the entire series would become a different thing if they could somehow be gotten INTO the story. Because for now they're really not.
Nothing for Star Trek Phase 2?
http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/
By now they get everything right except getting the acting to feel invested. Somehow they all just seem to be going through the motions. Maybe they should use that Kickstarter money to get them all some decent booze and get them to loosen up when the cameras are rolling.
Out of the like, 3 of these continuation series that I took a look at a couple of years ago, this was IMHO the best one that was getting the least attention. I'm glad to hear that they've made it through their kickstarter.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Or are they going to continue remaking old episodes simply for the nostalgia factor? See, the trouble is that if they actually had any new stories, they wouldn't need to bother setting them in the Star Trek universe, now would they? So why would I want to watch second-rate poor imitations of classic TOS episodes, when I can just watch classic TOS episodes?
Sometimes the thing that makes a series a classic is the finite nature of its run.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Can someone do a kickstarter for them to NOT ruin the memory of the original series? Acting is terrible.
I thought these were of good quality and are looking forward to the next episodes. However I really do not understand the fixation with all these fan productions and the current Star Trek franchise to have to reuse the original characters. Why not new characters and stories on a similar ship.
I would really rather see 24th century fan productions with new characters, a different ship or space station. New DS9 episodes with different characters would be good to. They could even have the original DS9/Voyager actors make guest appearances.
The most prominent text on the project's page:
Star Trek Continues is a successful award-winning, non-profit, fan-based webseries finishing the final 2 years of the original mission.
The original series was about a "5-year mission", but there were only 3 seasons (1966–1967, 1967–1968, and 1968–1969).
Dang, another lost generation. STTOS is a lost art, apparently. At least amongst the /. crowd.
The final 2 years of the original mission were finished by 2 seasons of The Animated Series (1973, 1974), which had the same actors and writers as The Original Series.
The planet set was at $175K. They show, as of a minute ago, $176. Hooray!
I think Star Trek Continues does a great job being faithful to the original show. The characters, the acting, the sets, etc all feel very faithful to Star Trek. I really like this, especially given the horrible work done on the movie reboots.
However, something I don't like about the Continues episodes is they are really dark/depressing. They've done three so far and, without spoiling too much we have: a dying god, the Federation and crew of the Enterprise condoning slavery and conflict in the dark "Mirror, Mirror" universe. What I like about the orginial series is its upbeat approach, the optimism, the humour. The endings were usually (though certainly not always) positive. The Continues episodes are darker, maybe grittier. Where the 60s writing reflected optimism of the time, the new Continues material is relatively pessimistic and depressing. Perhaps Continues is more realistic, more naused and modern, but I watched all the episodes and felt sad/depressed afterward. Impressed by the quality, but depressed by the story telling.
I miss the original series and TNG for the way it gave me hope for humanity, the way it sparked the imagination that we could have a positive future. Continues paints a darker picture.
I swear the title ended with stretch goats and wondered if another meme had whooshed over my hat but yeah, never mind...
Serenity now, insanity later.
If Phase 2 could get a singular cast, I'd probably watch them .They've had some fantastic guest stars and some fairly decent writing. But just as soon as I come to like an actor, he or she gets replaced in the next episode. I know, I get it, these aren't well-paying gigs (if they are at all). But seriously, I can't get into the series if they're going to keep pulling the carpet out from under me every time I get it onscreen.
That might have been true if Gene Roddenberry hadn't declared TAS non-canon.
It's still up and coming, but check out Marc Zicree's Space Command movies. He has the same gripe with modern sci-fi, too dark and gritty.
How did they secure the rights to make these episodes? You'd think that would be the most expensive and most restrictive part.
It's the geek's time-honored right to rant and whine that Big Media produces nothing but remakes and sequels. But when given the chance to show what he can do, it always Star Trek: Back To The Future.
Gene's dead, Jim.
TAS featured the very first holodeck malfunction, and Uhura was Acting Captain in two episodes. Do you really want to disregard it as canon just because Roddenberry wished TNG would supersede it?
You pronounce GIF with a hard g, don't you?
Is JPEG pronounced Jay-Peg or Gay-Peg?
I sympathize with you and many others hoping for better acting
I also sympathize with the film crew for the same issue
You see, producing movie is never a cheap endeavor. Hollywood budget, even for 'B' movies, runs in the millions. There are all kinds of specialist crews that you need to employ, and the equipments all cost a lot
Please remember, in their kickstarter campaign they only got around $180,000 --- an amount which is not enough to pay for catering services for a garden variety Hollywood production
I am not saying that 'cheap things ain't good', no, I too hope that they can get the actors to act better, but we need to understand, unless we fork up the $$$, we have no say in the storyline / quality of the final product
I came across Prelude to Axanar recently. It's original material, it's crowd-funded, it seems quite faithful to the traditional Trek mythos, it has a cast of well-known sci-fi actors (including several actual Trek veterans) and it has a crew with some serious credentials between them as well. If you're looking for new Trek ideas from outside JJ world, you might like to check it out. It looks like although this was made in a retrospective/documentary style, it's intended to set the scene for a major feature to come later that would be filmed from a real time perspective as most Trek is.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Please, for the love of Pete's sake, either get a steady cam or don't attempt the "lead the actors down the hall with the camera while they're talking" shot. There was one shot so bad that it totally pulled me out of the scene. I think the camera guy might have stumbled or ran into someone. It was that bad.
Better known as 318230.
Did you only watch Episode 1? Keep going. Every show takes a little bit of time for the actors to get into character. By Episode 3, I think there was quite an improvement. As a fan of TOS, I'm pretty well captivated by how far they've come in just a few episodes.
You pronounce GIF with a hard g, don't you?
The "G" in "gif" stands for "graphic" - hard 'g'.
The word "gift" is pronounced with a hard 'g'.
There are no other vowels in the word to alter pronunciation to be like 'giraffe'.
The inventor of the format can say what he wants. It's a hard 'g'.
A logical argument based on English grammar. Man, the Internet is funny today.
Well then it does all fit perfectly, since the first episode of STC introduces the holodeck, for it to later malfunction! ;)
No it isn't. The whole point of naming it GIF was to play off of the peanut butter brand Jif. This was commonly known when the GIF format was introduced and the only people I ever heard pronounce it with a hard G were non-techies and kids like you who weren't even alive at the time.
Okay, okay, time to relax. Sit down. Take a deep breath. Here, have some gin.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.