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Apparently you missed the super CGI bionic Borg arm, and how integral it was to the story.
Star Trek: Renegades
- Thread starter Danlav05
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+1,000,000
^ Ditto! 
I think this is the problem with many fan projects. Instead of figuring out what story they want to tell and then wrap it in Star Trek, they try to make a story out of Star Trek itself???
I think this is the problem with many fan projects. Instead of figuring out what story they want to tell and then wrap it in Star Trek, they try to make a story out of Star Trek itself???
Exactly!, The problems with the story, aren't money related... The issues with the edit isn't money related, and the production design choice to make Yellow the primary color of star fleet walls, wasn't money (well unless they got a good deal at lowes..)
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That's what I think it is, too. A lot of them seem to take Trek tropes and run with them, hoping the nostalgia factor is enough to carry it forward where the story doesn't. "Yeah, our story's a mess, but we brought back that guy from that one episode! TRUE STAR TREK!"
"IN BRIGHTEST DAY,
IN BLACKEST NIGHT!
NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT!
LET THOSE WHO WORSHIP SKY CONWAY'S MIGHT,
BEWARE MY POWER,
GREEN ICHEB'S LIGHT!!!"
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Agreed. That was just... just an awful style choice.
"IN BRIGHTEST DAY,
IN BLACKEST NIGHT!
NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT!
LET THOSE WHO WORSHIP SKY CONWAY'S MIGHT,
BEWARE MY POWER,
GREEN ICHEB'S LIGHT!!!"
Ooh, you're right! The Green Icheb works better than HULK HAND!
"IN BRIGHTEST DAY,
IN BLACKEST NIGHT!
NO EVIL SHALL ESCAPE MY SIGHT!
LET THOSE WHO WORSHIP SKY CONWAY'S MIGHT,
BEWARE MY POWER,
GREEN ICHEB'S LIGHT!!!"
He's no Hal Jordan if all he can conjure up is chicken wire.
If this was a pilot, I wouldn't be coming back for more.
I'll give them some credit for the lighting and camera work not being awful. But the special effect shots were far too long, the entire Chekov's granddaughter subplot could be cut entirely (it adds nothing to the plot), the script is awful, Icheb is Mega Man for some reason and ship designs are uninspired.
But the acting isn't that bad. It's decent if you aren't sober.
I'll give them some credit for the lighting and camera work not being awful. But the special effect shots were far too long, the entire Chekov's granddaughter subplot could be cut entirely (it adds nothing to the plot), the script is awful, Icheb is Mega Man for some reason and ship designs are uninspired.
But the acting isn't that bad. It's decent if you aren't sober.
None of them are about anything really. It's just an excuse to show starships flying around and fighting. Comparing it to Star Trek, every movie and episode is at least about some idea or message. Hell even Into Darkness was kind of about American foreign policy after 9/11. There was a lot of Truther craziness, but it was something.^ Ditto!
I think this is the problem with many fan projects. Instead of figuring out what story they want to tell and then wrap it in Star Trek, they try to make a story out of Star Trek itself???
With one or two minor exceptions... THIS. So much this.
None of them are about anything really. It's just an excuse to show starships flying around and fighting. Comparing it to Star Trek, every movie and episode is at least about some idea or message. Hell even Into Darkness was kind of about American foreign policy after 9/11. There was a lot of Truther craziness, but it was something.^ Ditto!
I think this is the problem with many fan projects. Instead of figuring out what story they want to tell and then wrap it in Star Trek, they try to make a story out of Star Trek itself???
In fairness, not every Star Trek episode was "about" something either. TNG's "Power Play" comes to mind.
In terms of fan films trying to "say" something, really the only one that comes to mind is Star Trek Continues' second full-length episode, "Lolani."
An argument could be made for Starship Exeter's "The Tressaurian Intersection" and Starship Farragut's "For Want of a Nail," but the rest of the TOS-based fan films all tend to be exactly as you describe, absent any message or greater meaning.
Even Phase II's "Blood and Fire" is diluted by being stretched to two episodes. ("Perhaps 'because it is there' is not sufficient reason for producing a rejected script from 30 years ago...")
The point is simply that you're right - Renegades wasn't really about anything other than "Let's do Star Trek does The Dirty Dozen!" It can work if you're an ongoing series and it's not what you do every single week; TNG did Die Hard, DS9 did (figurative) westerns. Enterprise did The A-Team once. These are just the ones that spring to mind.
It's all well and good if it's a gimmick-y episode once in a while. But if it's your only schtick, it's not enough.
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I watch a terrible, terrible program called "Midwest Country," where people sing country western style music... poorly. You'll see all kinds of washed up and wannabes, and one of my favorites (as in he's so bad he's bad but interesting) is an artist named Jeremiah Sundown, who will sell you his version of many popular songs, for twice the price of what you'd pay for a compilation CD of the original artists. In other words, you get familiar songs, but sung poorly, with the artist asking for money to take more of the songs sung by better artists, in order to put his poorly executed spin on them.
Renegades decided "we can remake The Dirty Dozen, but in a Star Trek setting," and they did so... poorly. With the original still out there, and considered to be an excellent film in its own right, why they chose to put their spin on it, I may never know. Unless you have the means and the motivation to do it properly, leave it alone.
Renegades decided "we can remake The Dirty Dozen, but in a Star Trek setting," and they did so... poorly. With the original still out there, and considered to be an excellent film in its own right, why they chose to put their spin on it, I may never know. Unless you have the means and the motivation to do it properly, leave it alone.
I agree that "Lolani" has a message, but it's worth noting you needn't do a polemic to be about something, you just have to have a theme and a story which explores it.
(Once it was clear Exeter's "The Atlantis Invaders" was never going to happen—due to its scope—I started noodling with a script that would be something both more achievable and about something. It was political and about real-life concerns, but not in a "white on the right side" way. I still like the story and will probably eventually do it as a non-Trek thing.)
(Once it was clear Exeter's "The Atlantis Invaders" was never going to happen—due to its scope—I started noodling with a script that would be something both more achievable and about something. It was political and about real-life concerns, but not in a "white on the right side" way. I still like the story and will probably eventually do it as a non-Trek thing.)
"There's a sucker born every minute"?
take this as true, why on earth (or the until federation of planets, im not sure how that expression works in the future) would the granddaughters come back, after grandpappy Cheko, mistakes her hand for a bomb?
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Because they love Poppy, even if he's a bit deluded and reactionary.
So how does that help me? I don't drink.
I finally had to see this to see what the argument was about. Now that I've seen it, I say this as nothing but a fan: It was shit.
It's not just any one thing. it's not just the script. It's not just the design, It's not just the acting. The entire production is FUBARed. Just fixing one aspect wouldn't have helped.
Or rather, only fixing the element that's supposed to tie everything together - the direction - would have overcome any significant number of the problems. I don't know what Tim Russ's problem was, but he should have seen this shit coming as he was filming. It's like the boatload of professional actors they managed to score were playing down to the acting skills of the rank fan amateurs in the cast. Pros are supposed to raise the quality of the piece, and it was Russ's job to make sure that happened. He should have demanded more script changes, scrutinized the design and effects more closely... or just bailed and let someone else take the fall. Instead, he ran with what ends up on the screen, which is shit.
Take what I said with as many grains of salt as you like. I'm just a fan... but the whole point of this project is to create something trek fans might like, isn't it?
I'm not aiming this at Renegades, but at the tendency in fan productions to put known name actors in their works. For those pros, who might have credits on Broadway, in films, and television, this must be a bit of a letdown for them, perhaps like the indignity of having to do the dinner theatre circuit just to make ends meet. Actors want to act, so it has to be psychologically depressing for them if all they can get is a gig in a fan film.
I mean, if you're going to pursue professional actors for a film, give them something that emphasizes their strengths as an actor, where they can do the kinds of scenes they want to do but never got a chance. Have them involved in rewriting their scenes if needed. Take advantage of their knowledge and advice. The experience should be as fun for them as it is the fans seeing them working again.
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