The third installment in the recently rebooted Star Trek movie franchise hasn’t shot a frame of film yet, but work is well underway on another Trek feature, made possible by the enthusiasm (and funds) of dedicated Trekkies. Star Trek: Axana (sic) is the brainchild of writer/producer/star/fanboy Alec Peters. The 90-minute, crowdfunded production (due out in 2015) will at long last, reveal the full story behind the pivotal Battle of Axanar, an event initially referenced in a season 3 episode of the original series, “Whom Gods Destroy.”Go read the whole thing so you understand what's going on in the 20-minute prelude/teaser:
As non-Abrams, non-Vulcan-goes-kablooey continuity goes, the planet Axanar served as the battleground for a pivotal clash between the Federation and the Klingons. It was here that Starfleet captain Garth of Izar (played by Peters himself) achieved a victory that served as the inspiration for generations of deep-space cowboys that followed him, including one James T. Kirk. Told through the testimony of several Axanar veterans, as well as recreations of key moments from the battle, the movie is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious fan-made films around. It’s also one of the few that’s been officially sanctioned by the franchise’s overlords at CBS; Peters has said that he secured permission from the network to move forward, with the understanding that he wouldn’t attempt to profit personally from the production.
Don't remember the original series episode Whom Gods Destroy? Read about it here, and note which character shows up.
Two words: freakin' awesome.
8 comments:
nothing tops "Wrath of Khan," but this could be # 2.
Sure was convenient that the Federation knew exactly where the Klingon's were going to have to strike to not lose the war. If there were doubt about whether they were going to strike Axenar or, say, somewhere in the Aleutians, I'd recommend sending a message in a code we knew the Japane...uh, Klingon Empire had broken to the effect that the water distillation system on Axenar had broken down.
Crimeny, do the parallels to the U.S. and Japan in the Pacific hit other people in the face as hard as they hit me? Karn might as well be a Klingon anagram for "Yamamoto" although since Yamamoto was certainly smarter then the folks putting this movie together the comparison is unfair to Yamamoto.
At least there's no conflict between the battleship admirals and the upstarts with their "airplane" toys. It's battleships all the way with the Klingon equivalent of the Yamato as the supposedly decisive element.
Consider Star Trek continues. The first episode is a little weak IMHO, but 2 and 3 rock. I went to a convention where the Kirk actor/producer presented
https://www.youtube.com/user/StarTrekContinues
Wow! Just "Wow!"
Whoever is the tactical pilots for those starships needs to be demoted to garbage detail. Those are capital ships, not dogfighters! Why are they so close to each other? Why, if they have sophisticated computers, do they not have sophisticated targeting computers! Why are they using non-guided weaponry in that century?
Too much "gee-whiz, it's STAR TREK!!111!!" and not enough actual attention to details.
But that's how they did it on Star Trek!
And Allen, as for your comparison to WWII, I'm sure that with enough stretching *any* movie can be made to look like some segment of WWII--if was a long war with several fronts with different types of weapons on each front, bound to be parallels if you look hard enough. I didn't get the impression that this author was basing the story on WWII. Heck, even in your telling, what stuck out to me was that Midway was at the beginning of the Pacific War and Yamato was at the end. They didn't overlap at all....
Darren:
In the Original Star Trek series, the star ship battles were MOTIONLESS (i.e. NCC-1701 firing phasers/torpedoes while not moving, at a non-moving target) most likely due to filming costs. The dog-fighting capital ships didn't happen until Star Wars made traveling matte photography possible, and so Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan is where it all begins.
So, yes, you are correct only to a certain degree--that's how it was done in *some* of the Treks. But it's still unrealistic and silly.
Oh, there's a bunch more then just the comparison to the battle of Midway. There's the warrior culture of the Klingons which might as well be governed by bushido. It's complete right down to the sneering contempt for the defeated and the assumption of a manifest destiny based on the innate superiority of the warrior.
Those D-5 Warbirds? Mitsubishi Zeros. The Ares class? Essex class fleet carriers.
I know the comparison isn't exact. If it were more exact then it wouldn't be a part of the Star Trek franchise which never strays too far from its roots which is science fiction for twelve year-old boys.
A cut above the comic book stuff of E. E. "Doc" Cummings but a small cut and with which it shares a common failing - the universe exists to provide a stage for the heroes and villains to hold forth upon. That's as opposed to, say, Firefly in which the characters are, to a great extent, at the mercy of forces beyond their control and those forces are certainly not cardboard cutouts which everyone knows are there for the heroes to, ultimately, knock down.
That said, should it ever hit general release I might well pop for a ticket. Just because the Star Trek franchise has produced nothing but the cinematic equivalent of cotton candy doesn't mean that I don't occasionally have a taste for cotton candy. It's just that cotton candy's a lousy staple.
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