Star Trek: Phase II - ''Enemy: Starfleet!''

Spoiler Level: Medium

This week's Star Trek is a special treat.  "Enemy: Starfleet!" is the latest installment of the fan film series Star Trek: Phase II.  It  was just released last week on April 22, giving me my annual dose of new Trek.  It's also the first episode to completely remove Star Trek: New Voyages from the title.

"Enemy: Starfleet!" is a lot more satisfying than the previous entry "Blood and Fire, Part 2" (which in fairness I later learned was released with the sound to the final segments unfinished, which may have accounted for part of why I didn't enjoy it as much.)  The episode runs 58 minutes but feels very well paced.

The title's a bit deceiving; The colon implies that for some reason, Starfleet has become the enemy.  What it's actually about is the rise of a different Starfleet due to the USS Eagle falling into the hands of a race called the Meska on the other side of the quadrant.  The Meska have studied the Eagle and started building their own ships based on Starfleet technology, and using them to overthrow and annihilate their former overlords, the Pesha (who apparently have the same barber as Sabalom Glitz).  This lands the Enterprise in the unfortunate position of having to take on a smaller, enemy Starfleet all on their own.

The Meska are lead by Alersa, played by BarBara Luna, who also played  Marlena Moreau (aka "the captain's woman") in the classic TOS episode "Mirror Mirror," and who also had a guest appearance in the early Phase II episode "In Harm's Way" (back when it was still called New Voyages).  As a bad guy she's delightfully over the top, playing Alersa as both alluring and dangerous, yet in a kind of b-movie way.  I don't know if it was intentional or not, but it makes her a very fun villain.

As you'd expect with a premise like this, this episode is heavy on action, with lots of starship battles.  The Meska have overhauled the Eagle, reinforcing its vulnerable spots with more armor and adding additional disruptor canons to it, making it look a bit more ugly but a lot more tough, and making for some very cool battle scenes.

There's also a good deal of character development, as Ensign Peter Kirk is still mourning the loss of his fiance from the previous episode, and Captain Kirk is still coming to terms with the fact that he has family on board, family being something he's never really had to deal with much.

We have a big change in actors again; Spock, Sulu and Chekov have all been recast.  Brandon Stacey isn't really much of an improvement over Ben Tolpin as Spock.  He looks the part more, but his delivery is pretty flat. (And Ben Tolpin, by the way, directed this episode.  So while I may not have been won over by his portrayal of Spock, I have been won over by his directing abilities.)  Andy Bray's Chekov is a hard act to follow, but Jonathan Zungre does an excellent job. Sulu doesn't really get a lot to do in this episode besides evasive maneuvers, so I don't really have much of a feel for J.T. Tepnapa's take on Sulu yet.  As to the returning actors, either I've gotten used to John Kelley's portrayal of McCoy or he's gotten a lot better over the years.

One nice touch is that the Eagle was lost eight years ago, so the ship is more like the Enterprise as she was in the pilot episodes, with a curved viewscreen and crewmen wearing the old-style uniforms.  (Which I have to admit caused a little confusion for me; at first I thought they were members of the Eagle's crew that were under Alersa's control, but then Kirk says that the Meska killed the entire crew, so presumably they just raided the ship's wardrobe like Archer and crew did in "In a Mirror, Darkly.")

Another very nice touch is that this episode involves the same kind of matter/anti-matter intermix wormhole like we saw in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so we get to see it again here in the same style.  It's a very TMP moment but blended with TOS; it's one of the little ways that this show is starting to transition into the Phase II that could have been, had it been made by Paramount.  (And speaking of Paramount, now that Paramount's TV division has become part of CBS, instead of opening with the old 1960's "presented in living color" NBC intro, the episode now opens with CBS's 1960's "presented in living color" intro! That got a smile out of me.)

So all in all, another great entry by Cawley & company.  Links for downloading or streaming this episode can be found at Star Trek: Phase II's website at http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/episode_ES.html.

Robotech - "To the Stars Special Edition" fanvid by Jaeson Koszarsky

The SDF-1 & SDF-2, together at last.  Composite by Jaeson Koszarsky.

Spoiler Level: High

Reba West, the voice actress for Minmei in Robotech, posted this little gem on her blog this week.  It's a fan-edit of the final episode of the first generation (aka The Macross Saga) which, if you're a Robotech fan, you know is a bit of a mess.  The dialogue refers to the new SDF-2 a lot.  The only problem is, there was no SDF-2 in the original footage.  So the finished product just left a lot of fans confused.  I explained events to a friend of mine like this:  Khyron sees the SDF-2, mistakes it for the SDF-1 and fires upon it, it's destroyed, then we cut to Lisa running through the halls of the SDF-1.  I honestly think that's what Harmony Gold and Carl Macek (or whoever wrote the actual script for that episode) intended.  But you really have to stretch your imagination for the scene to work.

Well, thank heavens for Jaeson Koszarsky.  Using modern composite technology, Jason has actually put the SDF-2 in to the footage.  Now it really, honestly works.  If I worked at Harmony Gold, I'd see what mountains I needed to move to make this the official version on all future Robotech releases.  (But knowing HG, they'll probably pull it from the web.)

The episode is posted below.  Jason Koszarsky has posted it as an entire episode, and I definitely recommend watching it that way, but the key moments are at 8:21 and then from 15:22 onward.  Great work, Jaeson!


Lisa launches SDF2 from jaesonk on Vimeo.

Star Trek: Phase II "Blood and Fire, Part Two"

SPOILER LEVEL: None

I don't know if it was the long wait between Parts 1 & 2, but I just didn't enjoy this part as much as I did Part 1. It was well made of course, meeting up to New Voyages/Phase II's usual high standards... but it just felt slow, like it was dragging on. I can't find what the exact running time was, but I felt like it could have been edited a little tighter than it was.


The ending was moving, the effects were incredible, the acting was very good... but the finished project just felt sluggish.

Star Trek vs. Batman

I first saw a trailer for Star Trek vs Batman years ago, around when Star Trek: New Voyages and Starship Exeter first came out, and I was excited about fanfilms. At the time I thought the trailer was all there was ever meant to be for it, and all the "coming soon" stuff was either a joke or just another project with good intentions that wouldn't get finished.

Then today I learned that no, it didn't stop at the trailer, the thing was actually made! Well, I had to check it out.

The premise is pretty straight forward-- the Enterprise gets hurled back to 1967, and Kirk and Spock wind up in the middle of a scheme by Joker and Catwoman in their fight with Batman and Robin.

The script is excellent. There are some genuine laughs, and a even a half-serious attempt at some drama, although that in itself is a parody of specific Star Trek episodes.

The acting is a mixed bag-- Kirk, Robin, and Catwoman are excellent. Batman and Spock are both pretty weak, which is a shame, because the dialogue written for Batman perfectly captures the old TV show, and you can just imagine Adam West saying it. The Joker has Caesar Romero's laugh down perfectly, which makes up for his delivery. And McCoy deserves an honorable mention, because while he doesn't look a thing like him, he sounds closer than John Kelley in New Voyages/Phase II.

Fanvids have gotten so good that it's easy for me to nitpick that Spock's costume is too big or that everyone has a bright green line around them when they're on alien planets... but then I think, Oh wait, let me compare this to my own Star Trek fanvid. (That would be "Star Trek V: Super Heroes O.") Oh yeah, this one kicks my butt. And besides, it would be missing the point-- that we love these original shows, sometimes because of what they got wrong as much as for what they got right. This fanvid was made with such dedication that you can truly feel the love for the source material.

Yeah, I have to agree with Fan Cinema Today-- I would include this one in any top 5 must-see fanvid lists. So what are you waiting for? Go on over to racsofilms.com and see it!

Star Trek: Phase II: "Blood and Fire," Part One

God, I love New Voyages. I mean, Phase II. I have never, ever felt disappointed after watching one of these.

My first surprise was that "Blood and Fire, Part One" has been made available for download. When their previous episode "World Enough and Time" was released, they said they were doing away with downloads in favor of streaming video to keep bootlegging down. Well, apparently they've changed their mind, because the first part of "Blood and Fire" is available for download from www.startreknewvoyages.com.

For those who may not know, "Blood and Fire" was originally written to be a first season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. It was written by David Gerrold, who wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" on the original series and who was deeply involved in the development of Next Generation at the time. The episode itself was meant to be a metaphor for AIDS, and was supposed to introduce a gay officer, who was really only intended to be in that episode. For various reasons, the staff got cold feet and the story was scrapped. This was one of the reasons that Gerrold ended up leaving Next Generation. (Another reason being that he felt Rick Berman had been politically placed as Paramount's controlling agent for the show. Apparently he saw the writing on the wall way early.)

Gerrold has sold his scripts for the episode at conventions, and rewritten it as an original fiction book. James Cawley of New Voyages approached him about doing it as one of his Trek fan films. Gerrold agreed, and it's now the first episode under New Voyages new title, Star Trek:Phase II.

I've read a detailed description of the original script, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect. All the same, this still held a lot of surprises. The gay character is no longer just a once-off character, but Kirk's nephew Peter, returning from the original series episode "Operation: Annhilate!" The ship that the Enterprise comes to the rescue of is a TV-era version of the Miranda class (that's the Reliant from Wrath of Khan to you non-ship-obsessed people), and man is she a beauty. Peter Kirk's room-mate is Xon-- the Vulcan that was originally planned to replace Mr. Spock when Paramount planned on bringing the original series back, and then opted to make Star Trek: The Motion Picture instead.

And James Cawley has really nailed down his William Shatner impression.

I'm not too keen on Ben Tolpin, who replaces Jeff Quinn as Mr. Spock. While Jeff Quinn always struck me as too young to be believable as Spock, Ben Tolpin comes across as too... well, nasal. I don't know how else to put it. His dialogue is totally Spock, but his delivery just feels all wrong. But I've never seen anyone else portray Spock and have it feel like Spock to me, so I'm probably just being too hard on poor Mr. Tolpin. Besides, this is a fan film. I'll be holding Zachary Quinto to a higher standard next summer.

Bobby Rice is great as Peter Kirk. His ranting scene comes off a bit flat, but everything else with him in it is great, and he and Evan Fowler (as Peter's love interest, Alex Freeman) are very believable together. (Although I do feel their big "make-out scene" was over the top-- yes, I know Jim Kirk constantly had his shirt off, and he constantly made out with the ladies, and he even made out with one or two of them with his shirt off... but I don't recall any of them kissing his nipple.)

Other things I really liked: (1) Kim Stinger as Uhura, (2) The pacing feels great... did I mention they turned it into a two-parter when they rewrote it? The new material uses a lot of character growth. The scenes between the main characters, such as Kirk and Spock discussing Peter's having a fiancee and especially the ending to the scene in the briefing room between Kirk, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and McCoy just rang pure, classic Trek. Waitaminute, I guess that counts as (3). (4) Copernicus having its own ship insignia... man I miss that, I wish they'd never done away it in the official Trek. (5) The fact that since this is a rewrite, the only characters to be bulletproof from the cliffhanger are Spock and Rand. Waitaminute, this is the series that killed off Chekov and didn't feel the need to explain how he came back. Never mind...

My whiny fanboy nit-picks: (1) The Copernicus is NCC-1893. The Reliant was NCC-1864. Since the Copernicus is presumably newer than the Enterprise but younger than the Reliant, I would have liked it better if it was somewhere between 1701 and 1864, like 1792 or something. (2) Kirk and Scotty discuss transporter biofilters at one point, which is totally a Next Gen era only thing, but I can see how it slipped in since the script was originally written for that time period. (3) While I'm happy to see Xon brought in, I'm disappointed that it seems he bears little or no resemblance to the original plan for Xon. The idea was that since he was serving on a ship full of humans, he was looking at it as a great experiment to try to learn about and understand emotions. The concept of a Vulcan who was willing to learn to find emotions within himself sounded like a great idea to me. I realize that this is what they wound up doing with Data, but I think it would be very different here-- Data wanted to be human. Xon would stll be proud of being a Vulcan, but not afraid of learning something that his people shunned. Ah well, maybe he'll get to do more of that in a later episode.

And lastly... that I have no idea how long I'll have to wait for Part Two!!

But that's okay... New Voyages has always been worth the wait. And it still is as Phase II.