It was okay, I feel it had all the pieces to be great but just didn't come together. Plus the cinematography was meh. ETA: I actually think it was cool that Icheb could potentially be a member of the Justice League!
Am I the only one that feels like fanfilms have (maybe always have been) the FX equivalent of a dick-waving contest.
Being put together by donations I thought they did the best they could. The visual effects, in parts, lacked a lot to be desired. At times the sky of San Francisco looked more like an alien planet. I think the main casting was very good, I liked the Icarus crew members. I think the story has good parts, albeit a bit rushed in places. The new uniforms were interesting. I wish we could have gotten more of a back story to Lexxa. I am looking forward to seeing the next installment. Hopefully there will be more cohesion to the characters and story. Maybe they can improve on CGI too. Its nice to see Trek in the prime universe again. I give it a grade B.
Agreed with the both of you (I tried to multi-quote and your posts disappeared). I mean, who has time for a script when there's pewpewpew to make? Why focus on plot development when they have to get the exact number of lights correct on a comm panel no one will see for more than 2 seconds? It seems to be an issue with many fan film productions. The demand is for bigger and better, but it almost always turns out tedious and mediocre. Don't get me wrong, I like big stories, with big action/adventure sequences, but that's the key: Big stories! For example, why do I like Raiders of the Lost Ark? Because it's the story of an archaeology professor being handed the greatest assignment he could ever receive. Who hasn't dreamed of such things? Granted, the government wants him to keep Hitler from acquiring its purported powers, but that isn't why he's doing it (at least not until much later). Indiana Jones is a man who treasures knowledge over profit, to seek out the tangible history, and enshrine it for everyone's benefit, and this is the chance to gain the ultimate knowledge. This is the real motivation! It's clear, easy to understand, and we can sympathize with it. We're already in Indy's corner before we've even left for the grand adventure. Renegades doesn't even have a strong motivation. Oh, they're out to save the galaxy, or some shit, but I never feel like anything is really at stake. Who is Lexxa Singh? Why is she willing to do this? What is her personal motivation behind all of it? Hell if I know. I mean, I pieced it together over the course of the film, but I never had a clear picture. Quite frankly, I found her character flat and uninteresting. I didn't even bother learning the names of most of the characters, because I had no interest in any of them beyond a momentary curiosity. They weren't people, they were cardboard cutouts of what some writer thought people were like in the future. The characterization (lack of) doesn't take the cake for me. No, that belongs to the script. It's awful. How many revisions did the script get? The correct answer, regardless of number, is "not enough." Everything seemed slapped together. The sentences that were used could have been put in random order, and they would have made about as much sense as they did in the film. The dialogue was unnatural, stilted, uninspiring, unemotional, uncaring, ineffective, and inconsequential to its own surroundings. There was this artificial separation between what I saw happening on screen, and what I heard coming from the actors. I made a quip earlier about how the dialogue sounded like something wrestlers say to one another when they're standing in the middle of the ring, preparing to face off against one another. I still stand by it. If this was an honest attempt at producing a series for television, it failed miserably. I don't care about the visual effects, or about the sets. I want a strong story. I want natural, intelligent, flowing dialogue. I want motivations that make sense. Those are the least expensive aspects of any production, and yet here they failed on every level. If CBS had greenlit the series, it would have burst into flame in less than a season, because there wasn't enough here to get it off the launching pad.
Agreed! To complete a project on this scale deserves to be celebrated. Disagreed (personally speaking, of course). I was mostly entertained by the pew-pew battles, but anytime the characters tried to say or do much of anything, I was pulled out of the story. Needless to say, not only was I not hooked, I did not care one bit for the "good guys." As such, I didn't even make it past the half-way point of the film. It just wasn't worth my time.
As someone who has actually tried to do a fan film in his time, I have to say I can only imagine how hard it is for some of those involved to hear the negative reactions... ...I have to agree, though. Renegades just doesn't work. It's got some beautiful CGI work, and a couple of good performers, but there are just too many problems throughout. I do think some of it could be fixed with editing the episode down by 20 to 30 minutes, and reworking some scenes so that deliveries come off better... ...Other things not so much. I shouldn't be noticing that so many set pieces are wobbly, bendy, or give under weight. Not convincing in the slightest. As far as the scenario of this ever going to series... I'm glad it didn't get that chance. Not due to quality, mind you. I think they can improve on that front. The premise just isn't the kind of thing I want to see in Star Trek. Especially not if it's the grand return. Sure I like the idea of fracturing the federation, doing something to really shake up the galaxy. (Something like Final Frontier's basic premise is actually what i'd do if i was going to return to Trek without doing a hard reboot. Putting in the veign of the Doctor Who relaunch in 2005.) The premise of Renegades is right there along side ideas like "We'll do a story at Starfleet Academy" or "A story set on a medical outpost" or whatever. That's not what Star Trek is. Star Trek is not the dirty dozen in space. It might do that for an episode or two, but it's not what Star Trek is. Star Trek is the only science fiction TV series that gives us a positive perspective on humanities future. Changing that aspect is to destroy the very notion of what Star Trek is. Can you go dark in Trek? Absolutely, but you have to come out of it. It can't be your core premise. All I could think about our leading lady's character was... Why is she related to Khan? That raises so many questions that are never dealt with, never explored. The way it's introduced is through clunky expository dialogue, and it just doesn't give us anything of interest. You're making me think about Space Seed and Wrath of Khan. I can go watch those outings if you would rather I wasn't watching your production, but somehow I don't think that was Renegades' intention. But that's a common mistake in fan film productions i'm afraid. References should be used very very very sparingly, very rarely, and only if it's really going to mean something. As for the rest? eh, it's nice to see Koenig and Russ. I didn't ever like Icheb, so seeing him didn't phase me. The CGI arm made me laugh hysterically though. That was so over the top. Some of the stuff almost felt like I was watching some bizarre version of X-men. Which in one respect might work for a Trek show. The idea of very different beings with different outlooks working together, that's got some promise in and of itself, but... Outright criminals? No. The Federation, by extension Starfleet and Earth, should never be maligned in that fashion on a Trek show.
I'm not big on fan films; aside from a couple exceptions (Aurora and Star Trek Continues, which I think are both great), most I've considered to be fairly cringeworthy. I didn't have super high expectations for this going in, particularly given the fact that it's from the same team that made Of Gods and Men, which I found to be rather painful- it took me several tries to get through it all. Maybe the lowered expectations helped, because I was able to watch Renegades in one sitting and was mostly entertained. Also, I think it was just overall an improvement over their previous effort. Don't get me wrong- I didn't hate it, but I didn't exactly love it either. I certainly didn't think it was good enough to convince CBS to pick it up as even a web series. However, in my limited experience, I thought it was above average, as far as fan films go. The premise is interesting at least and it had a few amusing moments. I'm happy that it's not part of the official canon, but I wouldn't mind seeing it continued past this first installment. At this time, I'm not gonna dwell on the production's faults because I realize a lot of work went into this thing, plus it seems to have already been pretty thoroughly critiqued, here and elsewhere. The only nitpick I'll add is this one: I appreciate that they wanted to pay tribute to Leonard Nimoy in some way, but that Admiral Nimoy Memorial caption took me out of the moment. The fan service in this one wasn't nearly as bad as in Of Gods and Men, but that one little part was way too fan servicey for my tastes.
My god - you've stumbled across the answer - Q: I want to know what Starfleet has a 150 year old man heading security. A: They do not. Chekov is actually in a Star Fleet retirement home and only *thinks* along with a mentally ill Tuvok and equally ill Owen Paris that they are saving the Federation from an ominous thread. It all makes sense * Why the "cadets" (actually both his granddaughters) are able to wander in and out and have no classes * Why the walls are that odd yellow * Why nobody else seems to be around * Why the bad guys and the other characters are stock cliches Its also the reason why nobody seems to concerned about the two women (I forget their names) hanging around with Chekov - they are his carers.
I'm frankly amazed that anyone is surprised something that Sky Conway had a hand in is anything less than a money-grab from the fans. Maybe younger folks who don't know about his history?
Something else occurs to me - so you have the un-named admiral who dies trying to warn them of a conspiracy. He's killed while being videoed saying "there's a conspiracy" and then dies in a horrific explosion as soon as he's said that and the immediate response of the Federation is "what a terrible accident". It would be one thing if he had a heart attack off-screen or was killed in a transporter 'accident' but just as he says it...
Wow, you guys sure like to rip this one apart, don´t you. I´ve seen it and found it to be entertaining, sometimes even moving. Of course it is not "pilot" or "pro" quality. Although, if I watch other shows like "Dark matters", which probably has an x times higher budget, I think it is not that far away, in some areas even surpasses that. If watched as a fan film, it is surely one of the best. It´s a huge step from OgaM (which, I have to admit, it took me 3 times to watch through). Could they have done better? Most likely. They tried too hard to get too many storylines in there, it would have been better to concentrate on the main one. I think the acting was solid (Corin did a great job), sets were what they could afford. Definitally disappointed by the Starfleet uniforms - these need to be reworked for a series. VFX were overall pretty good with only a few mediocre shots. I liked Ichebs arm - thats really tough to do and since the VFX guys worked basically for free, the result is pretty good. So, I would recommend watching it as a fan film and not as a proposed pilot.
If you want positivity, I liked Wilkinson. I was a little iffy about her initially thanks to Xena (I could never work out if the problem was her, or she just got lumped with an irredeemably bad character), but she was pretty good here. I still don't get why she was Khan's kid though. If they continue like they say they will, maybe it will pay off. But just in the pilot it came across as very fanfic-y and distracting. It wasn't explored enough to count as contributing to character depth, and instead almost seemed like a replacement or shortcut for characterisation. Oh, and she had some dialogue that Shatner and Montalban themselves would have had trouble chewing on. I think it was 'A Few Good Men' where there was a scene with Tom Cruise trying to have a conversation only using cliches - Renegades had a lot of that, but played completely straight. I do wish the crew the best with the next one. And I do congratulate them on actually making a movie.
My question would be why doesn't any of their budget go to a writer? I appreciate that the writers are trying but all I see on their IMDB pages is fan or "no" budget films, and in the case of one as "story by" credit that doesn't suggest any of them know how to write a script. Why doesn't someone engage an ACTUAL script writer? I mean, they'll pay VFX houses money to make pretty ships, but won't get professionals on the writing side to do what THEY do? Forget if this is a fan film or not or a pilot or not: it's as vanity project, pure and simple.
I must say, the scenes in Starfleet Headquaters, with the same yellow background all over, kinda pulled me out of the movie every time. It was also distracting to see the extremely changing quality of the VX. But the beauty-shots made by Tobias Richter, and Ichebs arm were really good. The story was o.k., but I think, that it was not necessary to tell everyones life and motivation already in the pilot. That leaves nothing to explore in the next episodes. It felt like a little 80's TV, where all the guys state who they are and why they do what they do directly into the camera. I would have liked it better if they would have gone into the Anime direction, where the audience gets thrown in the middle of the Story, and have to figure out what is going on by themselfes. All in all I get the feeling, that I am watching an attempt to recreate Firefly in the Star Trek universe. The real test will be the next episode. The people behind Renegades know now, what the viewers like and what didn't work with them, so let's see if they actually come up with a good script, now that they do not have to focus on setbuilding and soundstageing and all. Overall I was entertained, so count me in for the next foundraiser.
She was pretty good, they do the character no favours with that terrible scene scribing on the wall nor the beyond cliched prison scene - all that needed cutting.