"Star Trek Continues" Topic

As I'm involved with a Trek game (TOS) at Salute in a week and a half, I thought I'd do some extra research (like I need it, being very much an original series fan).

I've seen a fair amount of the fan based "not-Trek" over the years and some of it has been quite good, and often quite 'charming', but I recently came across Star Trek Continues on the YouTube.

It is, in my opinion, astonishingly good.

Great stories (five out so far and at least one more in the can); good acting (ranging from ok to very good with the chap playing Shatner/Kirk being exceptional); superb effects and sets; and a continuity and faithfulness that is, frankly, better than most of the original Trek episodes (especially third season ones).

These are like watching the episodes paramount never bothered with and are so much better than their comparators – right down to lighting, uniforms, 4:3 aspect ratio and gaps for the (non existant) adverts – it's easy to forget you're not watching the original shows.

To say they are better than the Abrams films would be easy if I'd ever completed one of them (can't abide more than twenty minutes of the "re-boots"). When I say they're better – IMHO – than at least twko of the films made by the original crew, you can gather I'm impressed.

Add great cameos with everyone from Lou "Hulk" Ferigno to Erin "Wilma Deering" Grey and they are – for me – almost faultless.

I can't recommend them enough.

John

I'll have to take a look. I like some of the fan made stuff.

Matthew

JT: Star Trek V isn't exactly a high bar,is it now?

Among the many other movie references to be found there,I think there may be a nod to "V" in Tropic Thunder. See if you can find it.

> To say they are better than the Abrams films would be easy if I'd ever completed one of them

It would also be incorrect, but to each his own.

Dynaman8789 I don't really see how – when expressing an opinion (as in "IMHO") I can be "incorrect" but I'm ready to be educated by your good self!

John T

You should read the vanguard series its great

John: Oops. I see I simply 'assumed' V was one of the two (or 'twko') originals you're thinking of. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Somehow,I doubt it :)

I've only seen the first three episodes, but they are wonderfully faithful to TOS. Watching them was almost haunting. Highly recommended for TOS fans.

Hafen von Schlockenberg you're spot on. Better than either 5 or 1 and on a par (again IMHO) with, say, 6.

Irishserb: the first three are all excellent but the 4th (Kirk agonisees about the damage he's caused the women the galaxy over) and the 5th – intelligent attempt to use ACW reenactors – are both super too.

Some nice little separate shorts ("you've got the conn"; "turnabout intruder" and "happy birthday Scotty") are lots of fun too.

John T

Been following this series since the beginning and love it. Can't tolerate the JJ movies.

Btw the Axanar project is also awesome. It has more of the look of Enterprise than ToS. Sadly Paramount has taken them to court.

All of these are supported and even partially funded by original ST actors from all the series.

CPBelt.

Can't disagree with a word of your post.

John T

Ooooh! Two new episodes (and a third one to debut soon) since last I looked at the site. Thanks for the reminder!

Doug

Never mind the silly stuff on screen, John, I want to know about your Trek game! :D

I'm with MacrossMartin, spill the beans on the game!
I'll be a Salute, so will keep an eye out for it.

It's the big 1/10th scale mano-a-mano combat game we tried a few years ago enhanced with a new rule set and extra functionality (players get to use a period, wedge shaped 'pad' to play the game on and view the ship).

Full model of the bridge plus extra corridor section with lights, a views screen and inbuilt cameras projecting action onto screens

John T

Wow, you are going large scale. Makes me wish I was at Salute to see it!

It should look nice, hopefully. Been spending some time with the team posing the figures rather more dynamically with weapons and so forth and then "freezing" them by using thin cyano on the joints.

John T

> but I'm ready to be educated by your good self!

instead I will post my favorite "review" of the new movies.

"Star Trek fans hate new Star Trek movie, call it 'Fun', 'exciting'"

As for the Star Trek link you posted in particular, although better than most of the fan made Trek to say that the actors were not stiff/wooden is really pushing it.

I weary of the chasssse. Wait for me. I shall be mersssiful and quick.

Dynaman, what I actually said was:

good acting (ranging from ok to very good with the chap playing Shatner/Kirk being exceptional)

Yep, some of it was a bit stiff (that'd be the bit I described as merely "ok") but not all. Some of it was also a bit "hammy" to be frank.

But that's the point I was trying to say – it was how much it reminded me of the original: "hammy" – you ever seen Harry Mudd (played by Roger Carmel?).

So, on the basis that it was so very, very similar to the original three series that is the criteria I use to say that it is superior to JJ Adams' films: verisimilitude.

That – like every other incarnation of the franchise (including, therefore, Next Gen et all) – is what the latest films seem to lack big time.

What I want to watch is Roddenberry's Star Trek. If I want to watch generic action sci-fi (complete with car chases) and retreads of probably the best of the original cast films (Khan), there are a multitude of other films to choose from (including some by JJA himself).

Thankfully, there are many that don't want that, me included.

But each to their own.

John T

Exactly John!

Bob

I've followed this too; definitely worth the effort.
The actor playing Kirk must have devoted his life to the study of William Shatner.

damage he's caused women the galaxy over

Okay, quick quiz. How many women did Kirk sleep with?

Answer: 4. And one wasn't even in the same universe, and another was his wife. Two incidences, by the way, were in fact tactical actions to save the lives of his crew.

"Wait, what?" you say. "But he had a girl on every planet!"

Nope. While Kirk often noticed beautiful women, and they often noticed him, if you watch the original series you will actually notice that most times he is strictly hands off, or might share a kiss at most, unless under the direct controlling influence of an alien, device or drug.

The cases of actual implicit sex:
The "Mirror, Mirror" episode, where Kirk sleeps with his evil twin's mistress in order to continue the subterfuge that he is the evil Kirk she knows, and thereby protect the lives of Scotty, Uhura, and Dr. McCoy.
The "Blink of an Eye," where the Enterprise is captured by a race of super-fast aliens, the leader of whom threatens to kill the crew, but who is attracted to Kirk. He sleeps with her as a ploy to allow for the rescue of his ship.
The Native Americans on a planet menaced by an asteroid episode (title escapes me), in which Kirk is injured in a fall, has amnesia, and is assumed to be the local messiah of sorts. He falls in love with and marries the local priestess/Indian princess, unaware of his true identity. She dies, leaving Kirk a widow.
The fourth woman was Carol Marcus, when Kirk was (apparently) an instructor at Starfleet Academy (she's generally assumed to be the "blonde technician".that his then friend and student, Gary Mitchell, secretly set him up with to distract Kirk and lead him to let up on his students). Kirk proposed to her, but she rejected him, despite being pregnant with their son (all more or less covered by STII:TWoK).
And there you have it— the entire body of "victims" of Kirk's libido.
Not much of Lothario, is he?
(Ironically, Spock seems to have done more "damage" on that front than Kirk! In TOS, he seduces at least two women outright, no offers of marriage resulting, and no tactical necessity. The pointy-eared cad!)

Obviously, Parzival, the show only scratched his surface !!

Just for example, the lawyer he has to defend against in Court Martial described by Bones ad an Ex. The woman that – in the second pilot – his 'soon to gain telepathic powers' crew mate sets him up with at the academy:

"I almost married her" days Kirk.

Don't sound like a peck on the cheek to me!

Then there's that annoying woman on that pleasure planet that keeps luring him away from punch ups with Finnegan.

The man patently couldn't keep the shuttle in the hanger bay!

Anyway, the "Kirk's women" dealt with in that Star Trek Continues episode I mentioned does include some of those you listed.

The man was a menace, patently!

John T

John – you also implied that the show was better than the JJ Trek movies (or came right out and wrote it, don't remember at this point). The show is good for an amateur production but not anywhere near the original show (except at the original show's worst) much less the JJ movies – including the wrath of Khan remake.

John,

The "almost married her" woman is generally considered to be Carol Marcus, mother of David Marcus-Kirk— I mentioned this incident in my list.

The lawyer who is an "ex" may have been a girlfriend, but that in and of itself is not indicative of a physically intimate relationship, merely a romantic one that might or might not have included more. Likewise, the woman in "Shore Leave" is a past romance, but is she a past conquest? We don't know. And we've seen Kirk have romantic encounters/relationships that did not involve physical intimacy (ex., the love interest in "The City on the Edge of Forever," and the android girl in "Requiem for Methuselah," among others.) So again, as explicitly implied in the canon stories, we're still at only four certain intimate moments, perhaps six at the top, and two are marriage/near marriage, two are tactical necessities, and two are romantic relationships that did not lead to marriage but which we really don't know included sex. Now, if extended dating and a breakup without a marriage is "damage," there are a lot of damaged women in the galaxy… but Kirk hardly has a worse track record than your average teenager. And Kirk is at times the dumpee as much as the dumper.

Just one of those grand myths, like the certain fatality of red-shirted crewmen and the inaccuracy of phaser fire.

All good points Parzival.

Dynaman: we're just going to have to agree to differ I'm afraid.

John T

This makes for very interesting watching on the comparison front.

YouTube link

John T

I had never heard of "Star Trek Continues" before, and was absolutely blown away by the quality! Thanks for posting John – I've shared with several friends and they too were very impressed.

Glad to be of assistance, Ivor.

I've been thinking about my reaction to this and it reminds me of when, in the early '80s (before video recorders in common home use), the BBC showed four Trek episodes I'd never seen (Miri – which they'd only ever shown once – The Empath; Whom Gods Destroy; and Plato's Stepchildren).

I watched them avidly and enjoyed the first "new" (to me) Trek I'd seen in years.

This is exactly how I feel: 5 new episodes – and three good shorts – each of which are the equal of (at least) Whom Gods Destroy and The Empath and, frankly, better than Plato's Stepchildren by a long way.

I feel like a teenager again, to be honest.

I just hope – without sounding too "gushing" – that they get the chance to make loads more before the goons at Paramount come on big and heavy.

I must take the opportunity to download them somehow before they disappear into the ether.

John T

I think you nailed it when you said "I feel like a teenager again, to be honest" within the first 20 seconds of watching I had a huge smile on my face and it FELT like I was a kid again watching TOS on a Saturday afternoon on channel 43. That doesn't happen very often anymore, and it was a great feeling to have again!

Is it for everyone? Probably not, but if you liked and enjoyed TOS, I can't see how this doesn't bring a smile to your face.