Star Trek: Axanar

That much is certain.

 

Maybe I am kicking a dead horse but:

005 wrote: by getting professional actors to contribute and perform in the piece, and by placing a single acting novice alongside them, it only further highlights Peters' relative inexperience and clumsiness as an actor.

Judging an acting performance is subjective, so 00's opinion is noted. I've watched "Prelude" a few times. I didn't see any weak links at all.

005 wrote: this "prelude" is nothing more than fancy window dressing.

As a Kickstarter backer for this project, I think it's fair to say that "Prelude" delivered exactly what we were told it would. It's a clever way to "tease" a project and it was marvelously successful.

005 wrote: "We hear about how daring and brilliant Garth is. But we don't see any of it."

I wouldn't expect to, and would be disappointed if we did. That would give away too much of the actual film. (I've had the pain and pleasure of writing a "space battle" scene myself. It is damn hard to come up with something new, and I'm curious to see how Axanar handles that aspect.)

005 wrote: "The contradictory intent -- Garth's line that "Starfleet isn't about that [battle]." only to see him turn that right around, drooling over the Ares as the newest, best battleship makes me question what kind of cohesivity (if any) we'll get with the full film...

Trek often used action/war/space battles to deliver anti-war messages. I'm not sure what sort of message Axanar will deliver, and it's fine with me if it's just great fun as a film.

005 wrote: I don't see the 'bottom" of the story here and am at a loss as to who I should be caring about, story-wise, as it's clear from this piece that every single character portrayed obviously survives the Battle of Axanar.

I didn't care about Kirk, Spock or anyone else after watching the Star Trek pilot. It takes time to get attached to characters. To have the "bottom" of the story revealed at this point would make no sense.

And please don't ask me to provide a formal review of "Prelude." It's a wonderful, 20 minute teaser short but any review needs to wait for the actual film.

 

^^^
No. Write a review now, dammit.

I happened to think Alec was outclassed by the actors in Prelude. He wasn't bad, but he was bland by comparison. I wanted to hear more from Kate Vernon's character, for instance, but I wasn't interested in Garth at all. He was a big nuthin' in the film. YMMV.

 

I'm not going to write a full review, but I watched the film and enjoyed it.

The only thing that really bothered me was the Klingon ships flying around in the atmosphere like airplanes I thought that was really strange.

Actually, the actor I liked the least was Gary Graham as the Vulcan. He didn't seem like what I picture a Vulcan to be like, he seemed a bit too emotional. Also, I didn't like the "pinskins" line. It was an obvious callback to Enterprise and I mostly ignored that shows existence, not that everyone should, just not for me.

And Tony Todd outclassed everyone else, not just Mr. Peters. Garth as portrayed seems very soft spoken, meek even, but I assumed that to be the charactarization and not lack of acting ability on his part. I also thought it was a deliberate attempt to be the polar opposite as portrayed in "Whom Gods Destroy"

Actually, regarding "great strategy" or a "great speech" I find that while many script writers put in how "great" something is, many of them don't have the knowlege to make such a thing and it's only great because we're told that it is. I mean, wouldn't a person need to be at least a good speech writer before a good speech can be written? So, if someone wants to make a movie that has a great speech, they can have a bunch of characters say, "wow that was a great speech" in lieu of actually having to write a great speech. I don't know how many shows and movies that have done just that, far more than the ones that actually came up with something great. Same thing with spaceship battle strategy, almost every movie and show basically just shows them shooting at each other, I rarely see strategy involved other than "kill them before they kill us". The only example of real strategy I can think of off hand is "Balance of Terror" where Kirk and the Romulan Commander were mostly manuvering and planning and not just shooting.

I'm sorry if I drifted critical, I am really looking forward to seeing this, but I just thought I'd voice my opinions. I think if they gave Tony Todd the phone book to read from he could make it sound interesting.

 

I really enjoyed Prelude, but holy jeez...why the need to dog-pile on someone for being remotely critical? Is there some fear that the spell will be broken and everyone else will realize they didn't love it after all?

 

Basically.

 

Actually I'd be more interested in Axanar if Kate Vernon's character was the main focus of the film. I found her character more dynamic and interesting. I thought immediately, there's a better story there.

With Garth, as 005 has pointed out, we are constantly told how brilliant a military leader he is, but nothing is shown but a few VFX maneuverers but no real strategy on his part. Hopefully, that'll be in the movie.

 

^^^ Heh...that's almost the way I saw Kirk having been portrayed throughout pretty much the entire run of the movie series. He was supposed to be a brilliant strategist, feared/respected by the Klingons and Romulans, and the best they could do in the movies to show that he knew anything about starship combat was "Z-minus-ten thousand meters" (inspired, BTW, by what Spock told him, not anything he deduced on his own) and the occasional and overly-dramatic Shatnerian "FIRE!" Where is the formidable tactician all those years? Surely there must be more?

As Prelude is, without argument, a trailer, I look forward to seeing more and hope they flesh out the Garth character a LOT more. It is well known that Richard Hatch has been coaching him in the acting arts. Hopefully there will be a marked improvement in the main project over what we've seen so far. I still maintain it's one of the best things around right now. I'm prepared to give them a lot of purchase on this.

As for some accusing him of boosting his own ego...well...it's his party and he's the driving force behind it. If I was in his shoes and had all this talent backing me on a project I came up with, I'd damn sure want to be front-and-center with all the rest of them too, in front of and behind the camera! I find it quite disingenuous that others would disagree if they were in the exact same situation. It is completely understandable that he would react this way, considering the amount of financial support this project has earned on Kickstarter. He clearly thinks he must be doing something right! Wouldn't you? While, at the same time, being a bit mystified and befuddled as to why there would be so much animosity and venom from other small groups on the web.

And I do truly hope the outsider spam starts to cut back once they realize it will be stamped down pretty quick here.

 

^^^Honestly, if I were doing a project like Axanar I'd only want to be behind the cameras, so not everyone wants the limelight. I'd put the best actor possible in every role, and with the caliber of talent he's assembled one of them wouldn't be me.

P.S. Hey everyone, is it realllly necessary to quote an entire multi-screen message from someone just to write a short responses?

 

Regardless of his acting skills (which are pretty good, as far as Prelude was concerned), Alec really looks the part of Garth of Izar. That's what struck me right away.

 

Meaning you think he looks like Steve Ihnat?

 

Yeah, from certain angles, especially.

 

Yea, good point, I saw the resemblance when I saw Prelude!!!!! And yes I'm a supporter.

 

I think part of the problem is that all of the other male actors all had deep gravelly voices (which actually got a bit tiring), which emphasized his lack of experience. In a film with only amateur actors he might seem better. I'll wait until the final film to judge the acting.

A big problem I had with Prelude is something that's already been noted and that's how everyone talks about how great the speech was or how great Garth's tactics were, and yet we don't see any proof of that.

My biggest problem though, is that in the end it's still a typical fan film story. We've got a war, a new class of ship that's the only hope, bad guys with their own new type of ship, and then it all ends with a big battle. The only thing that sets Axanar apart from the rest is that it's better looking.

Maybe in the final film there will be a meaningful story we can relate to, but there's not much evidence of that yet.

 

Again, not criticizing Alec in particular, but as I've said in other threads, there are some people who have "it" on camera, where most people don't. It's that je nais se quois that makes some people engaging on screen. It's a quality that's difficult to define or pin down, because it's not just line delivery, it's just that, as some cinematographers say, "the camera loves them."

 

Not to single out Axanar or any other production, but I tire of fan productions that say they're making "true Trek" (whatever the hell that is) while lambasting the current films as being nothing more than "pew pew." Yet, the majority of fan productions are centered around the "pew pew" or force a space battle into their stories without much rhyme or reason (looking at you "Blood and Fire").

 

And the smart move would have been to leave it that way. I can practically hear the axes grinding in the background.

 

Got anything else to add? Or is this drive-by's sole purpose to troll me because you can't handle the fact that I happen to also have a different opinion than you? (Talk about an axe to grind...)

I would tend to agree. And while I know a lot of people disagreed with me on "Mind-Sifter," I thought the space battle there was cleverly demonstrated and subtle enough to be inoffensive on this level. I do think it's pretty egregious that the Klingons were let to slip away so easily, when a simple line of dialogue "Lexington is in pursuit" or some such to give the idea that Starfleet was at least trying to catch Kor would have sufficed.

I will reiterate: Despite knowing that this is just a teaser for the film, it rings quite hollow just hearing characters talking about stuff that is supposedly so great and brilliant and not seeing any of it. The visual effects by Tobias Richter are spectacular, but redundant and don't reveal or tease anything special about the film other than "Hey, we got Tobias to do our vfx!"

Also, to reiterate, I'm quite excited to see the finished film when it's released. As I've said innumerable times before, I'll gladly eat my words if the film lives up to the expectations, but for now the tease is all sizzle and no substance from what I've discerned. Certainly it is very pretty sizzle, but in my opinion it's still sizzle nonetheless, and not at all "the greatest fan film ever made" that it gets made out to be.

 

I think this discussion is going in circles to some degree. The fact is that Prelude to Axanar is really a very big trailer, not a film per se. It doesn't stand on its own. What it really gets down to was "were you teased enough to want to see the film?" Some were, some weren't. We can all state our reactions and what worked for us or not, but in the touchy high school drama department world of fan films it's probably best to keep the comments to the work and not to the makers. My 2¢.

 

Yes, actually. Are you quite sure you want to go there?