Phase II - Act One of "KITUMBA"

[TrekGirl]

I hope this wasn't already posted on here somewhere, but here goes.

James Cawley posted the following on his Facebook page:

Here as a surprise for all My friends and Phase II fans IS A SPECIAL LINK TO VIEW act one of "KITUMBA"! It has not been color corrected yet, but I hope it will wet your appetite for the rest! Please remember to visit my youtube channel and view the Teaser first, so that the story makes sense to you !!lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfFggXwE8oQ

 

[Mysterion]

Huzzah!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The Klingon guy - Ksia? - reminds me a little of Christopher Lloyd.

 

[USS Intrepid]

The Klingon guy - Ksia? - reminds me a little of Christopher Lloyd.

Oh yeah.

 

[scifib5st]

Does he have a Scottish accent?

 

[E-DUB]

Can't wait to see the whole thing. Seemed for a while they were coming out with a new ep every few months and now..........

 

[DCR]

Can't wait to see the whole thing. Seemed for a while they were coming out with a new ep every few months and now..........

Well, I know there were issues involving Kitumba and hard drives that caused serious delays in its release. IIRC it had to be completely recut and partially reshot.

I'm not in the know by any means, but I wouldn't be surprised if we don't see both Kitumba and Bread & Savagery released within the next twelve to eighteen months.

 

[Potemkin_Prod]

Looking forward to the rest!

 

[pymfan2000]

So excited for the rest of the episode!

 

[TrekGirl]

The past few days have been some exciting ones for Star Trek fan productions. I'm a big fan of both Phase II and STC, just as I am a big fan of James and Vic. It was actually being a fan of Vic's voice acting & music that led me to discover James Cawley and this whole world of fan productions in 2009. The panel they did together with Gil Gerard was so EPIC. I've always loved TOS & was amazed at what these people were doing! Although I lament that they went separate ways, we ended up with two awesome productions. It's still hard for me not to imagine the possibilities, had they continued to combine their considerable forces and love of Star Trek. Different personalities, but both larger than life, magnetic people. And both so full of WIN

 

[DCR]

The past few days have been some exciting ones for Star Trek fan productions. I'm a big fan of both Phase II and STC, just as I am a big fan of James and Vic. It was actually being a fan of Vic's voice acting & music that led me to discover James Cawley and this whole world of fan productions in 2009. The panel they did together with Gil Gerard was so EPIC. I've always loved TOS & was amazed at what these people were doing! Although I lament that they went separate ways, we ended up with two awesome productions. It's still hard for me not to imagine the possibilities, had they continued to combine their considerable forces and love of Star Trek. Different personalities, but both larger than life, magnetic people. And both so full of WIN

Exactly (minus the personal experience which I don't have).

As a fan, I love the fact that both productions exist so there is more for me to enjoy. And it's not just Phase II and Continues, there's all the other TOS-era stuff out there that I want to see when and if it gets completed. (Fan films are always an if before the first episode comes out, it's hard work)

Phase II
Continues
Farragut
Begins
Excalibur
Axanar
Ajax
Ironsides

Look at all those projects, and at least three groups with standing full-scale bridge sets, and they're just what's out there for TOS and earlier; and three projects have passed the first episode hump. If even half the other four make it, we're entering a golden age.

It's a great time to be a TOS-era fan.

 

[Captain Randy Hall]

Consider my appetite whetted, Trek Girl! I'm avoiding any other story elements until it's completed and ready for viewing!

 

[Kelso]

Nice!

 

[Psion]

That was great! K'Sia was awesome!

 

[DarKush]

This was pretty good. Looking forward to seeing the whole thing. Gil Gerard!

 

[publiusr]

Great stuff.

 

[Michael]

Hm, I dunno, maybe I'm spoiled because of the high quality of the first Continues episode and even the earlier Phase II efforts, but this first act didn't quite work for me, personally. The dialog-heavy scenes in the transporter room and during the dining seem much too long and ridden with clumsy exposition. Also, Ksia's costume looks really ill-fitting and especially his dialog seemed too quiet and not really well edited.

Here's hoping some of this will be fixed in a tighter edit.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Hm, I dunno, maybe I'm spoiled because of the high quality of the first Continues episode and even the earlier Phase II efforts, but this first act didn't quite work for me, personally. The dialog-heavy scenes in the transporter room and during the dining seem much too long and ridden with clumsy exposition. Also, Ksia's costume looks really ill-fitting and especially his dialog seemed too quiet and not really well edited.

Here's hoping some of this will be fixed in a tighter edit.

Totally agree with the sentiment that the scenes are too talky. Saw the unofficial release of this episode and the dialogue is clunky throughout, and the scenes are filled with much more "telling" and less emphasis on actually "showing." Every scene with Ksia feels like an infodump of backstory and they are painful to watch.

However, not only are the scenes overly talky, but they are overwritten and the dialogue isn't interesting or how people actually talk.

 

[GSchnitzer]

Hm, I dunno, maybe I'm spoiled because of the high quality of the first Continues episode and even the earlier Phase II efforts, but this first act didn't quite work for me, personally. The dialog-heavy scenes in the transporter room and during the dining seem much too long and ridden with clumsy exposition. Also, Ksia's costume looks really ill-fitting and especially his dialog seemed too quiet and not really well edited.

Here's hoping some of this will be fixed in a tighter edit.

Totally agree with the sentiment that the scenes are too talky. Saw the unofficial release of this episode and the dialogue is clunky throughout, and the scenes are filled with much more "telling" and less emphasis on actually "showing." Every scene with Ksia feels like an infodump of backstory and they are painful to watch.

However, not only are the scenes are overly talky, but they are overwritten and the dialogue isn't interesting or how people actually talk.

The main challenge we had to face was being faithful to the original source material while simultaneously trying to make the necessary changes.

The late John Meredyth Lucas (who wrote four episodes of TOS) wrote a very interesting episode about the Klingons for the aborted Phase II television series back in 1977. So all his interesting stuff about Klingons predates anything that we learned about them from the not-yet-envisioned motion pictures or The Next Generation.

We could have made the changes we thought were necessary to his never-actually-quite-finished script, and we actually did make some changes, but if we deviated too much, then it would no longer be John Meredyth Lucas' "Kitumba" (and folks in the know were really interested in seeing his vision realized.) But we also wanted to honor and do justice to 25+ years of Klingon lore that the franchise has built up since that time. We already get e-mail from people saying "How dare you change a single word of Lucas' great original 'Kitumba' script!" Conversely, we get angry letters from people that say "Gowron said in 'Rightful Heir' that there have been no emperors for 300 years; how can you possibly ignore that comment?" As a result, despite or more likely because of our attempted balancing act, the script which, like all of John Meredyth Lucas' scripts, was kind of expository-heavy to begin, probably has too much yadda yadda yadda dialogue, trying to reconcile Lucas' Klingons with 25+ years of Klingons.

Nevertheless, I'm proud of our (still as yet unfinished) episode, even if it doesn't actually become our new high-water mark.

 

[Maurice]

Well, having read a JML Kitumba draft one can argue that the episode did alter the story rather significantly as is, first by crunching a 2-parter down to 1, adding characters, etc. etc. Given that, tightening and trimming the dialog wouldn't have been any bigger sin.