The official film makers of the franchise could take a few pointers from this film. Made my people who love the genre and starring people who can act (I can't say that for every fan film I've seen), First Frontier tells the story of the first flight of the USS Enterprise under the command of the rarely seen Robert April.
Not all is roses for the crew, either. The ship's commander is suffering from burn out and probable PTSD, he's not connected to his wife and even the new comms officer has an "interesting" past. I would like to see more of these characters.
Most of the special effects were decently created CGI (I had to forgive the creator of the title sequence), although the effect for the evil aliens' eyes were terrible.
If I had one main complaint, it was the sound engineering. The music borrowed heavily from James Horner's STII:TWOK soundtrack and the sound effects were OK, however the mix often drowned out the dialog and I often could not make out what was being said. That, and the editing left me wondering what was going on at times. A bit more TLC in post production and this movie could easily have earned at least one more star.
All that being said, it's a great flic and, story-wise, it's an improvement on the flashy, often brainless, films fans have had to endure in recent years.
A return to real Star Trek. Keep up the good work!
