Work Print of New Voyages' "Origins" Episode Released

I must admit I struggled to follow this one. At first I thought it was just because it was a rough cut and the edit was a little clunky, but in the end there seemed like a lot being shoehorned into the story. Between this and 'Torment of Destiny', there is such a stark contrast of New Voyages old and new. Super interesting to see as a fellow filmmaker.

Someone on YouTube asked whether there was a scene missing that provided a bit of context for Pike's 'dressing down' of Kirk, and to be honest, that is how it seemed to me as well. Perhaps because it was a rough cut, the tension created through other means (music etc?) would have made Kirk's actions more dramatic to justify Pike's reaction. Otherwise, it just seemed uncalled for and the tone was off with the rest of the story. You don't need to yell someone to prove a point.

Overall though, its a fun piece of work. Pulling off a fan film is no easy feat, certainly not at New Voyages level, and even though it wasn't completed, still very interesting and inspiring to watch.

 

Only if you discount Star Trek 2009.

The one constant in Trek fan films seems to be weak scripts.

 

Considering how often the professional writers fall short, that's not in the least bit surprising. Writing a good story is hard even if you start with a compelling premise.

 

Yep.

As I've said many times, screenwriting is a different animal than novel writing, and what works in one doesn't necessarily work in the other, which is not about difficulty, it's about form and that one skillset does not necessarily translate to the other. Lots of great novelists who've tried to make the transition haven't been successful, especially at first (Michael Chabon's two early cracks at adapting his Kavalier and Clay were pretty bad...I've read them). Star Trek had this problem in its first season with established SF writers who couldn't deliver a workable story, let alone a screenplay.

Screenwriting is a particularly dense kind of writing, it's half narrative and half blueprint and all structure. I think they look simple to non-screenwriters who then assume they can write a good one because they can't know what they don't know.

 

It's understandably rough in the edit, and production/sound effects are unfinished. Honestly, I was just happy to finally see it. There's a gem of an episode in there. I hope we can see some of the other lost episodes in some form or another.

 

The 2 videos are ALSO gone from Cawley's channel (same as Torment of Destiny)

 

Oh. Wonder why.

 

He's done this before.

Maybe his Star Trek license overlords said, "hey..."

 

Looks like both videos have been made private, which is what they were before last week. I was hoping to watch them again, but I'm not upset about it.

 

I didn’t think they’d be up long.

 

Thank you!

 

So where can we watch it now?

 

James Cawley's house, on his personal PC I would imagine.

 

This is in the Internet. Nothing is ever truly gone.

 

Anyone downloaded them? I had been planning to watch them at some point when I had spare time.

 

For those interested, someone snagged the "Origins" workprint and put it up on YouTube:

 

I wonder how long it will stay up? James Cawley is usually pretty protective of his work!
Having said that, I hope someone will do the same with "Torment Of Destiny" as I waited too long to watch it in January and missed it entirely!

 

I'm hoping that at some point Cawley posts up his Bread and Circuses sequel that was supposedly ''in post-production'' for the last 6 or so years. That's pretty much the sole remaining episode still to see the light of day