It's not Shatner and Nimoy, but it's impressive nonetheless. A group of amateur filmmakers are attempting what would have been laughable in the days before modern computing.
They are making the fourth season of Star Trek. The original Star Trek.
The effects are somewhat better than the original Trek, and the live action sets are certainly no worse. In fact, for the currently available episode "In Harm's Way", they very faithfully recreated the bridge of Kirk's ship (usually the Enterprise, but in this alternate timeline story it's the Farragut), Pike's Enterprise from "The Cage" (as well as the transporter room from "The Cage"), and several other locations. The sets are impressive...they look and sound identical to the original series. The acting is not bad...a little amateur, but the actor playing Kirk isn't nearly as "dramatic" as Shatner.
They are not trying to recreate the original actors portrayls of the characters, but they are sticking to the character's personality. James Crawley doesn't try to "Shatnerize" his portrayl of Kirk, but he does stick true to the Kirk character.
It's a serious enough endeavour to have attracted the help of Eugene Roddenberry, Jr. (consulting producer) and a guest appearance by Walter Koenig ("Checkov" from the original series) in an upcoming episode, playing an older version of "Chekov". And some of the actors who had small recurring roles on Star Trek make appearances, as well. For "In Harm's Way" actor William Windom reprised his original series role as Commodore Matt Decker (and New Voyages actually gets credited in the Internet Movie Database).
With the professional franchise at an end, fan films seem to be where it's at. (For those interested in the post-DS9 timeframe, there's Star Trek Hidden Frontier as well). Prosper...we'll see, but Trek does seem to "live long".
Tags: Star Trek
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