Star Trek: Axanar

But what if CBS understood that only the fans matter, and not everything has to be about making money?

I know, I know.


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Spectacular effort. Gets better with every re-watching.

IMHO, this has raised the bar considerably.

Everyone has their own little "twist" to the ST Universe, and that's what makes it so rich and rewarding. I'm not saying the ST Universe is Shakespeare or anything, but the staying power comes from the ability for each person to re-frame the stories into their own points of reference. This is why we still get new productions of Shakespeare after centuries, and why we all enjoy new ST stories nearly 50 years later.

In my humble opinion, the effort to cast everything as "cannon" and "non-cannon" was lost when the production company decided to outsource the material back in the 70s (Star Fleet Battles, the FJ Tech Manual & Blueprints, etc). I certainly respect people who want to keep to "cannon", but I really like seeing how other people imagine things. For me, back in the 70s, the FJ Tech Manual opened my mind to how different things can work into the same framework. Embrace our different viewpoints...IDIC and all, right?

That aside, what was done with PtA was a masterful blend that paid homage to the best of what the ST Universe has to offer from everyone. A dab of TOS, some Enterprise, some NuTrek, some SFB....all done seamlessly with fantastic attention to detail and existing material, wrapped in gorgeous production values and performances and a bow on top with a different slant on story telling (the documentary).

If I were to do a fan film, it would be THIS that I would strive for. I'm not saying that I would do everything the same, or even have the same details in this particular take on the ST Universe, BUT, it would be the way it was done, to bring something fresh and new to the table.

Well done folks, well done.

Vf

 

Don't forget - FASA too. The Four Years War, mention of the Marklin class destroyer, etc. - plays a big roll in this. And agreed - this is probably one of the best, if not THE best, fan film ever made, IMO.

 

I'm very late to this party as I only got to watch PtA yesterday and so by now pretty much everything that needs to be said has been said. But I am curious as to why, when Alec Peters has said that he's not a big fan of J.J.'s movies and really hated STID, did he shamelessly rip them off? We've got a ship rising out of the clouds and a very close recreation of the Vengeance crash (which looked amazing. The effects in this are brilliant).

Also many of the camera angles during the interviews seemed odd to me. I cannot think of a single documentary I've seen where the subject's face almost disappears off the side of the screen and we focus entirely on their ear, as happened with Soval quite a lot in this.

Something I'm really hoping for is that the final film is more personal than this. Right now it seems more focused on space battles, tactics, and new ship classes, which is no different from most other fan films. I want to see a far more human story for the film.

 

Really well done...!

I've read the comments so far and while I think some people were over-reacting to the whole "Queen bitch of the Federation" nickname. War is ugly, and it brings out the ugliest in people. Not that the Klingons need much help in that regard. Though to be fair, as Kharn says The Federation were frustrating to fight. So if you think of the name being applied with immense frustration, it works.

Context is of absolute importance, and I hope the Axanar people don't censor or retract themselves because of the outcries of a few who cannot put words into their proper context.

Actually, I am reminded of a story that a Russian soldier told when he was in a heated firefight with advancing German troops, they stormed the position, and he found himself in hand to hand with a German soldier. In desperation to survive he actually bite into the German's face and (if I recall correctly) tore the man's ear off with his teeth. Yeah. Again. A few mean names are absolutely nothing in the grander scheme of war.

Performances all around are great. I can't wait to see more from... Everybody. There wasn't a weak link amongst them. I really do dig the World War 2 Naval influences at work.

I hope that maybe, this same group of people can go on to create a Star Trek project, after Axanar, that is closer to the spirit of Trek, and away from the warfare motif, because the quality on display is top notch, and I would love to see this same quality applied to more conventional Star Trek stories.

I have one question regarding the character(s) of the piece:

This documentary is made/set sometime during The Cage era of Trek, right? So, here's my question regarding Kharn, and the Klingons as a whole. Would they really be willing to discuss Axanar and the Four Years War with some Federation historians? Maybe by the time of the Khitomer Accords or the Next Generation, but I have a hard time seeing any of the Klingons wanting to discuss something like this with people who they are likely to believe will simply spin it for propaganda. So, i'd love to hear what the Axanar people think about this, what their rationale is in that regard?

 

That would probably be a question for Alec Peters, but since he got banned here, you won´t get an answer...

 

From what I gather, he dislikes the stories, but likes the look. Or elements of it, anyway.

I suspect Tobias Richter worked those in to showcase his skills, that his little group can create visuals directly comparable to ILM's finest. The Light Works is bound to benefit greatly from exposure here.

That's just them being proud of their Vulcan ear makeup

Agreed. PtA is a fantastic CG showcase, but there is zero emotional connection. I hope they can pull off a traditional movie as well as they did this.

 

OK, I'm not really a "cannon slave" but from what I gather from Memory Alpha:

I think I read that the Four Years War was some 20-22 years before TOS, and the launch of 1701 was in 2245. Given that what we saw of the pre-TOS, the Pike era was what 2250ish-2260ish?

So if they did the documentary in the mid-2260s, before the technocolor uniform switch, that would be a reasonable 15-20 years down the road, which judging from the character aging seems in the ball park. That would certainly be in the realm of letting things chill out long enough where they could do something like this.

Of course, this is a rationalization and imposition of human mores on an alien culture in a completely fictional universe, sooooo, your warp speed may vary.

Vf

 

The Federation-side interview footage could be old at the time of publication. Much like many Trek documentaries over the years which have reused old actor footage. And with Klingon long lifespans, Karn's interview could have been filmed post-STVI.

 

Possibly, except for the ''narrated by John Gill'' part in the opening credits- though I'm pretty sure the voice is Richard Hatch's- would mean the doc was made just before or during TOS era...unless the John Gill is unrelated or a descendant...

 

That was one of the things I thought was actually a little weird about PtA. The voice of "John Gill" sounded a bit like Hatch, yes, but it also seemed heavily modulated, almost as if it were actually synthesized. I actually found that bit a little distracting.

 

Yes, as I understood it, Prelude to Axanar is supposed to be set specifically in or around "The Cage" era. IE: You're a viewer circa 2255, looking back on the conflict of 2245.

I sent my question over to FB, and I was a little dismayed by the response I got. Though, not to sound ungrateful, i'm glad to have received a response at all. Basically a shoulder shrug and "it's entertainment." I'm not even being critical, this wasn't a source of criticism, I was just honestly curious as to what their thoughts were on Klingon motivation to want to even participate in such a documentary circa 2250s. I'd think Klingons would still be rather miffed and not want anything to do with "Earthers."

So i'll provide my own thoughts, because why not? Kharn seems more than a little miffed about the way his peers behaved during the Four Years War for not listening to him, and was willing to discuss his perspective because of that. Maybe to spite them, or maybe just to show some respect to the victors of a bloody conflict, he decided to discuss his perspective in the documentary.

 

I think all of the above would apply. Kharn is obviously a cut well above the average Klingon leader. He strikes me as a sort of Klingon version of Yamamoto who respected and feared the U.S. as a potential enemy at the time the rest of the Japanese leadership was blinded by their own bigotry and ideology. Kharn strikes me as someone who would grant a respectful request for his perspective, since I get the feeling he basically removed himself from any leadership position after the war.

 

This looks rather interesting and I'm interested to see the final product. Depending on its final form I could see myself looking at this as a framework for what actually happened pre TOS. Essentially, if not in exact detail, something very much like this happened in pre TOS history.

 

Considering the extensive and mesmerizing movie magic used in making PtA, it might only be appropriate to assume that future movie magic is being used in making the "real" PtA sometime in the 2310s, with John Gill's narration provided posthumously because John Gill is The Narrator in the circles that make documentaries like this. I mean, these are old men all, but people supposedly live longer in the future, and Klingons live forever - so there's no hurry with making the documentary, and especially no hurry with the Kharn interview.

My feelings at the moment are "if this is prelude to a true movie with emotional impact, all the better that it's this sterile and true to form" and "when the hell did the Federation switch from agricultural colonies of 200 people and five houses to Firefly-style city-states in space?". I mean, even Deneva with its urban milieu and multiple cities was established to be merely "almost a million" strong...

(Also, with eighty pages of this thread already, I'm too lazy to search: is the Ares supposed to be a one-off, or part of a bigger class? I trust only one of that design will be seen on screen, so as to avoid confusion, but is there some relevant backstory there? Does Starfleet manage to build more before swapping to Constitution?)

Timo Saloniemi

 

Maybe the Ares was a "testbed" for technology used for the Constitution class. Maybe there was a problem that didn't interfere with combat-worthiness that would have rendered it less than optimal for long-duration exploratory missions.

 

Given some of the wording in the doc, i'd wager they built at least a couple Ares. Namely when they start talking about the D7. Garth says if the D7 had been at Inverness (I think?)the "new" Ares ships would have been "cut to pieces" (Garth).

 

Yeah, it also says that a group of captains were using Ares class cruisers.
Garth, Trask, and Robau at least.

 

Yes the lack of a neck connecting the hulls.

 

The Ares class is also significantly smaller than a Constitution class, I think. In one shot, you can see a guy in a spacesuit standing on the hull, which gives us a pretty good scale of the ship (and confirming my suspicions that the ship has fewer than 10 decks)