Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is (roughly) the seventh film in a series of Star Trek / science fiction spoof films, following the adventures of the space ship CPP Potkustartti. Released more than ten years after the first Star Wreck film - which was nothing more than a few minutes of simple hand drawn computer animation plus some school boy humour dubbed on top of it - In the Pirkinning is the culmination of the series. More than a five year mission, this film has been "almost ready" since the end of the last millennium, and is now finally shown to a delighted audience.

And what a film it is! It really can be seen that this is a labour of love. While the acting is at time painfully amateurish, and while the plot is a bit too simplistic towards the end, the humour combined with references to Star Trek and Babylon 5 should keep any science fiction TV fan happy for the duration. And even acting can be forgiven when you consider that the actor budget has been a very round number with only one zero.

The English and Swedish subtitles are very well done, particularly the latter one which manages to transfer a significant amount of finer Finnish language nuances. However the Swedish subs were not particularly well timed: Many of the longer lines started too early and disappeared too quickly to read.

The only real gripe I have about this film is the constant swearing. Don't take me wrong, I don't mind a naughty word or even a few. Swearing at appropriate places can be unbelievably funny. But when you swear at an average speed of twice a minute or so, it stops being funny and becomes simply annoying. This has always bugged me in the series, but as the English and Swedish subtitles have been toned down, most of the viewers would neither know nor be bothered.

Why would you want to see In the Pirkinning? To begin with, it may be (and probably is) the most expensive-looking film that has been made without professional funding. However, that's not the point. The film is also funny, well-paced for the most part, and sometimes even witty. It also has good re-watching value. And did I tell you it's free? You can download it from the official Star Wreck web site.

I strongly encourage you to see this film.

I just returned from the first tour screening. The place was a small club at the heart of Turku, and built for bands to perform rather than a movie theater, but the mood was great. The crew introduced themselves, and were greeted with the traditional contained cheering.

The movie started with elegant new title design and theme music, quality not one bit shy of a true professional movie. The movie was technically extremely well dome throughout the picture, not just on some money shots with garbage filler as often is the case with such films. Effects are top-notch, and post-processing is as good as DV can ever offer.

Sound mix was good. Sometimes the dialogue got a bit muffled, but the rest of the soundtrack just boomed with POWER! You'll want a good audio set with this one.

The story starts out a bit awkward as was expected, given that the heroes were stranded on the 21st century earth in the last movie. Things smooth out quickly, and the plot gets underway. The story takes twists from absurd to serious and back to absurd, but the plot stays coherent.

The humor is all new, with lots of stuff mixed together. There are the usual low-brow jokes and Adam Sandler acts, then there is Buster Keaton / Harold Lloyd -esque slapstick and rather clever pokes at the various sci-fi franchises, as well as sci-fi in general. There is even a good measure of political satire thrown in. As a whole, the movie is more a black comedy.

The pacing of the movie is really well done. There is no tarrying around, and the interest keeps on. There's no too much happening at the same time either. The balance is well kept.

Acting was the most varied issue. There were few professional actors, even one superstar by local measure (Kari Väänänen), and their performance truly stood out. Quite some of the not-so-professional performances were quite enjoyable. There were no really terrible scenes, at worst the acting was OK.

As many long-awaited movies have got over-hyped and then fallen flat, I had suppressed some of the hopes, but this movie really lives up to (and exceeds) any expectation I've had. The plot is NOT what you'd find in such a movie made in Hollywood; the humor is quite dark at times and silly at others, and the satire stings in every direction. If there was an 'european art movie' with Stuff! Blowing! Up! it would probably look like this movie.

I give it a ****½/*****

No spoilers here :) A very funny and multi-layer film for the fan of science fiction. Nothing like this has ever been made in Finland, and this is bound to put Finland on the sci-fi -map.

Some of the humor is very Finnish, a lot universal :) The structure of the film is nicely thought through and executed, with an ending that left me wondering if there is to be a sequel :) Considering that the actors excluding two or three if I am correct, were all amateurs, friends and volunteer fans, the movie was very skilfully over-acted and cast to the best possible Star Wreck -style. The actors were all charming and sure to win you over. To be noted that this is the 6th Star Wreck film made.

The effects are excellent, the war scenes actually do work in spite of the comedy nature which is never made cliché or a boring repetition, a pitfall of many parodies. Two thumbs-up for the music as well.

Hard to believe that this wasn't made by professionals.

All in all, a well-made full-length feature film.

Must-see for all sci-fi fans!

You have to see this movie. The opening scene was so amazingly professional that i thought i had downloaded the wrong film. But, the opening joke was so terribly cliché'd that i realized i got the right one.

I honestly could not tell the difference between the graphics in this movie and in a real start trek movie. Its simply amazing. I'd love to know what they use for CGI tools and how big is the rendering farm.

The scenes on-board the space ships were great, the sets were totally believable (much better than an original STAR TREK set, and most were BETTER than a ST:TNG set.) The acting was very good, the jokes were funny, the only thing separating this movie from a Hollywood film is a little bit of je-ne sais quois.

All in all, the most AMAZING amateur film i've ever seen, they should give these guys $10M and a team of 5 Hollywood (o.k., maybe new york) writers, and see what they can do in 3.5 years, rather than 7.

I was very eager when I sat down to watch the movie, did it meet it's expectations or not? Well I'm eased to say it did, and with a long shot as well. The whole world domination thing with a comedical straw is brilliant and a bit goofy (as it should be). Well, what you say, be proud Finland, a very good comedy-parody production of a well known sci-fi series. And I'm sure both you and me sometimes had wondered what would happen if the time directive would have been broken, well you have the answer just right here :). Summary: A very well made Finnish movie that makes a laugh out of both the Babylon and the star trek series with a success. The special effects are good for a movie in this class, and the acting is very well done good as well. The whole making fun of the emperor thing is brilliant, and the relates to the time directive is good as well. The jokes are funny as well, so I enjoyed this movie very much and recommend it for every star trek and babylon5 fan out there. I give this 10/10 for as this isn't the ordinary Hollywood production and very much deserve it. Thank you Finland !