Star Trek Update

Just wanted to update and clarify some things from my last post.

I finally did get to watch Of Gods and Men part I. I had a lot of problems with buffering, and I had to update my Flash player (seems I was a fraction behind the latest version). But it was all worth it in the end. Im. Press. Ive. Wow! I'm seriously looking forward to parts 2 & 3. I won't post any spoilers, but the basic plot is that someone they knew from the series is back with a vengeance. Kind of like Khan. Except the movie is nothing like The Wrath of Khan. Hard to explain without giving anything away. Just go watch it and you'll see what I mean.

Meanwhile, I am still stunned at the lengths to which they went in getting Trek alumni in on the project. They even got the guy who played Stonn in Amok Time to reprise his role!!! I haven't seen anyone from TNG, but every other Trek incarnation is represented. I particularly liked seeing Cirroc Lofton (playing a different role than his DS9 character). He's all grown up and stuff now. Any and all future Trek children should have to take an acting class from this guy. Jake was exactly the opposite of every other kid we've ever seen on any of the series (except maybe Rom's kid whose name escapes me right now). Most of them, you keep hoping will get killed off. I would have been horrified if anything had happened to him.

The effects were done by six guys who only met online, only one of whom is a pro working in the CG field. Wow! They're being seriously undervalued in the forums over there, so I feel like I have to stick up for them. Believable CG is HARD! If it was easy, everybody would do it. And I wouldn't be struggling to model a pair of pants. LOL. (I do photorealistic texturing and I'm learning to model.)

There is also a lot of complaining over there and at New Voyages by whiny brats who don't like the acting done by the amateurs. "I'm mot afraid to say what I think!" They say. I AM afraid for you to piss and moan. This is fan work, folks. They're not getting paid. In fact, the guy playing Kirk is footing an awful lot of the bill. If he brings me Star Trek I can love, I'll totally forgive him needing a few acting pointers. And I'm not going to discourage his effort and make him wonder if there's a point in continuing. So thank you, James Cawley. At least he got rid of the Elvis hair. LOL. And he gets better with every episode. One person on the forums said that is was just such a shame that some of the supporting cast (e.g. the guy playing Sulu) was doing such a better job of acting than Cawley was playing Kirk. Think about that for a second. Ok now everybody raise your hand who thinks George Takei acts circles around Shatner. *raises own hand* Shatner isn't a bad actor. There are lots of actors *he* acts circles around. But he's sure not the best of the Trek actors. Look at Nichelle Nichols, for example. They gave her pretty much nothing to work with. She even had to name her own character. (They never gave Uhura a first name, but since Gene gave Nichelle the rights to the character, she named her Nyota.) And yet everybody loves Uhura. How can you not love her? Her pulling that dagger on Sulu in Mirror, Mirror just made you go "damn, Uhura is SO COOL!"

As far as New Voyages, I get the whole Kirk's nephew is alive thing now. Apparently one of the Trek books gave Sam Kirk two additional children who weren't on Deneva. Ok. And they're going to re-do the ending of the one where Chekov died, so that's good. That will in a couple months as part of the campaign to get Walter Koenig a star or the walk of fame. Apparently he's the only TOS cast member who doesn't have one. Poor Walter. :-( There's a link on the NV site to join in and help get him one, for people who are interested.