Star Trek: Of Gods and Men

I'm surprised that the premise behind this thing never occurred to the producers of any recent Star Trek series. Nevertheless, I'm pleased to see actors from The Original Series, The Movies, Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise.

I am also pleased to see William Wellman, Jr. take over the character created by Robert Walker, Jr in the Original Series Episode "Charley X" Although the acting is kind of wooden, the story holds up to any DC Fontana standards, although elements of the story are heavily borrowed from episodes of The Original Series and Star Trek: Generations.

Scotty is mentioned as being "Missing" - Which is in continuity with the Next Generation episode "Relics" where Scotty is rescued from a Dyson Sphere. Spock is mentioned as if he is readily available - A nice trick in case Leonard Nimoy decides to make any cameos in parts II or III of this little production.

This story uses elements from the original series stories "Charlie X," "Mirror, Mirror" and "The City on the Edge of Forever" - Including a clever reproduction of the Guardian of Forever.

The set pieces in this thing all look great, but where this fan film staggers is that the special effects all look like Effects from Pre-Windows computer games- The Enterprise "M" starts and stops in the establishing shots of "Synchronous Orbit" - As if the rendering had defects in it.

This is unforgivable since Star Wars episode III used store-bought A.M.D. Opteron computers to do some of post production, and that work was done in some living room right at Skywalker Ranch. So I will accept no excuses about the special effects and CGI shots, I have seen much better work from people who have much less. These are incredibly lousy shots. The computer models are alright, but the movement and rendering is just horrible- I am hoping that the project gains a technician that can re-create the vomitably horrendous outer space and effects shots- And while they are at it, they can work on the colour palette and make it more consistent. Vulcan looks like any East LA Backyard!

Finally, as far as continuity, I accept most of the story like I would accept any Next Generation story, except for the Guardian of Forever would have kept the three principals on the planet instead of ejecting them into the alternate universe.

But even with this huge continuity flaw, the story moves fine, and I can't wait to see the next II episodes.

I like this film a lot more than "The New Voyages" - Which have hardly any redeeming value beyond the costumes and sets that were recreated with great detail: Making Trek is much more than how good the set looks or how well the costumes fit the principals... The trick of Trek is to make the viewer BELIEVE in this future. I believe this story, whereas "The New Voyages" were only good for a belly laugh.

This is a fantastic story. Yes the production is a bit rough and nothing like the Paramount standard but all the veteran actors manage to pull off a reasonably good performance. Walter Koenig also turns to his Bester character from Babylon 5 to give depth to the alternate Pavel Chekov. It's absolutely amazing how you're actually drawn into the story within 10 minutes and you begin to forgive the low budget just for the sake of burning curiosity to find out how the story progresses and when it gets to the end, you're left with a feeling of satisfaction and the hope that it will get remade like the Sanctuary series has been. It might have been a good idea to at least have gone to the Babylon 5 production team to polish off the CGI since they were good at low budget production. There's even a kind of blooper reel at the end credits that are extremely amusing.

When you get right down to it, Star Trek is about characters. Not CGI. This production offers downright primitive FX, but the characterizations are riveting. Walter Koenig gives a devastating performance -- his best ever -- that actually made me irate when I considered how his immense talent was squandered for so long in corporate Trek. Likewise with Garrett Wang. In Voyager, his Harry Kim was, like many corporate Star Trek characters, bland and generally uninteresting. (That's why alternate time line/universe Trek stories are always superior.) Nichelle Nichols' performance here outshines anything she's done in any of the TOS feature films. Alan Ruck as Harriman oscillates between menacing and hysterical. And JG Hertzler as Koval sets a new standard for menacing Klingons. Chase Masterson (call me!) as the Orion slave girl continues to be the hottest flame in the Star Trek universe. It was great to see Lawrence Montaigne reprise the role of the Vulcan Stonn, and Gary Graham rounds out a truly professional acting ensemble. I'd rather watch cheap productions like this one -- with twisty plots and interesting, passionate characters -- over the slick, simplistic, corporate dreck. Let's see if the upcoming Star Trek prequel -- with its $150 MILLION budget -- can deliver this kind of intense, emotionally engaging adventure. I doubt it.

**UPDATE** OK. I enjoyed Star Trek (2009). It was slick, fast, and fun...and it had two great Spock performances. But I also found the story strained (lacking a coherent plot-line) and derivative (in a bad way). It echoed (strangely) the abysmal Star Trek: Nemesis with its monstrous death-ship and Romulan bad-a$$ baldy. (Maybe in the next film the young Kirk and Spock will go back in time and save some whales.) So, I'd give the big budget flick a 7.9 on its flash and on the strength of Zachary Quinto's performance, but the movie as a whole doesn't hold up well under multiple viewings. I still enjoyed Of Gods and Men more.

This Star Trek movie is the best fan produced Star Trek feature that I have seen. Others have lacked such great acting and screen writing. This picture has a marvelous script and a truly exciting plot. It brings back lot's of memories of the original show. The movie may lack sophisticated CGI but, instead of being a downside, it actually adds a certain flavor to this movie. I found this very refreshing and actually pretty cool.

I especially liked the performance of Nichelle Nichols, which brought enormous depth to the Star Trek adventure. Also Walter Koenig's performance was superb! A nice treat was also the appearance of Tuvor as played by Tim Russ, who is also a very good director. He can really play the good and bad guy at once. The story of family and the idea of interracial marriage was what made Star Trek so unique in the first place. This is a great tribute to the creator of the Star Trek universe Gene Roddenberry.

Nichols (no relation) carried the lead well. She reminded me how much I wished that they had done more with her character back in the day, but the politics of the time wouldn't allow.

Possible Spoilage Follows

A tad heavy on the "geek stuff", but as they said, it was dedicated to the fans. (I wonder if the whole idea started with two geeks arguing about who would win in a fight between Gary Mitchell and Charlie X.) Still, when it comes to geeky nit-picking I should be the last to throw stones.

I thought Uhura and Mitchell never met, but I guess you could fudge it (as with Chekhov and Khan,) and say that they were aboard the Enterprise but had yet to be promoted to bridge crew. Still, I shouldn't have to work that hard.

And that thing about the Guardian failing to insulate our heroes from the time line change, had they been able to follow Charlie through the gateway they still would have been powerless to stop him and we would have no story. Did the Guardian know this and let them be transposed, but protect their memories?

The FX were amateurish, decent models but they didn't move right and the rendering was poor, Still the climactic battle was a guilty pleasure for anybody who played "Star Fleet Battles" way back when.

Koenig was great as always, but the rest were uneven, the two exceptions being the deliciously unreformed Klingon XO and the Green Chick. At least we got some eye candy, both Harriman and Mitchell both had great taste in helmsmen too(maybe thats where the FX budget went.)

With all it's flaws It still mops the floor with many "official" episodes and almost all the odd numbered movies. It will have to hold me over 'till the new movie comes out. I am a little disappointed that Abrams isn't geeky enough to have a before-the-transformation "good guy" Gary Mitchell riding along with Kirk, but hopefully Uhura will finally get her due. She was the reason I knew that I was straight at the age of 5.

Peace and long life