Topic: Star Trek
I don't want to alarm anyone, but the fate of the universe is in the hands of these four chuckleheads.
SPOILERS AHEAD...
So the much anticipated Star Trek fan film "Of Gods and Men" was released this week. TrekMovie.com describes the film thus:
Of Gods and Men is possibly the most ambitious of the independent Star Trek productions to date. It has been in the making for 2 years and has a number of Trek veterans both in front of and behind the camera. Designed as a 3 part mini-series, OGaM aspires to tell an epic tale in the Trek universe that both ties up some future history arcs while trying to play social commentary on our times.
Lots of Trek alums appear in this project such as Nichelle Nichols (TOS' Uhura), Walter Koenig (TOS' Chekov), Garret Wang (VOY's Ensign Kim), Tim Russ (VOY's Tuvok), Cirroc Lofton (DS9's Jake), J.G. Hertzler (DS9's Martok), and Ethan Phillips (VOY's Neelix) among others.
Heck, they even got Lawrence Montaigne, the actor who played Stonn in original series episode Amok Time. What a wonderful tribute!
There's an awful bit of clumsy exposition at the beginning of the movie talking about the events that followed the death of Captain Kirk (STAR TREK: Generations) and how Captain John Harriman (played by Ruck) dealt with the guilt at being in command of the mission that saw the death (or so they thought) of Cap'n Kirk. You know, I always thought casting Ruck as a Starfleet captain was a bad idea. I loved him in FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF and he was funny in TV's SPIN CITY. But commander of the flagship? Come on!
He lacks that commanding presence we have grown to expect from our Starship Enterprise commanders. OGaM continues the bad idea by bringing Ruck back.
Some of the special effects are just amazing. It's nice to see the TOS Enterprise move with some grace and agility. Other SFX scenes, such as ships taking off from Vulcan and the use of the ship's primary weapon, were rather cheesey.
Nichelle Nichols has some great lines in the piece, challenging the vulcan maxim that the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"Who decides?" She demands. Flawed notions such as this, she maintains, lead to such institutions as slavery. It is a wonderfully well-written moment.
For a project with so much talent involved, I was a bit disappointed at how poorly it is directed and edited. There's not much dynamic energy, the transitions from scene-to-scene suck the life out of it.
Still, it is enjoyable and a lot of fun to see all those folks together again.
Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net
Posted by Aron Head
at 9:15 AM CST
Updated: Sunday, 23 December 2007 9:16 AM CST
