Check out parts one and two of Demons:
Demons: A Star Trek Fan Production
- Thread starter Joshua Irwin
- Start date
Here is the link to segment 2:
I can't be the only one here who watched this.
Visually this is pretty nice. The sets are obviously good, even though the camera placement and lighting occasionally betray the plywood and paint. The cinematography is on the high end for a fanfilm. The VFX are also very nice.
The biggest nonspoilery problem with this film is that it's just too damned talky. Characters land a point and then they keep on going. And going. And going. The only thing that keeps such scenes from devolving into an endless Potemkin-esque talkfest is that it's cinematographically 30x as sophisticated and doesn't reinforce the redundancy and that the lead actress (Fox) can sorta pull it off...but that said she's not good enough to carry it across the finish line....I don't know that anyone could. It's totally overwritten and overlong by a factor of 3.5x.
Most of the blocking and staging works. Most. Not the fight scene. It's terribly staged, goes on far too long, has no energy is ends up being more laughable than tense.
It's hard to talk about the story without $poilering it, so...
These guys have potential, they just really need someone to hone their scripts.
Visually this is pretty nice. The sets are obviously good, even though the camera placement and lighting occasionally betray the plywood and paint. The cinematography is on the high end for a fanfilm. The VFX are also very nice.
The biggest nonspoilery problem with this film is that it's just too damned talky. Characters land a point and then they keep on going. And going. And going. The only thing that keeps such scenes from devolving into an endless Potemkin-esque talkfest is that it's cinematographically 30x as sophisticated and doesn't reinforce the redundancy and that the lead actress (Fox) can sorta pull it off...but that said she's not good enough to carry it across the finish line....I don't know that anyone could. It's totally overwritten and overlong by a factor of 3.5x.
Most of the blocking and staging works. Most. Not the fight scene. It's terribly staged, goes on far too long, has no energy is ends up being more laughable than tense.
It's hard to talk about the story without $poilering it, so...
The idea of dealing with PTSD is one fanfilms go to a lot, and, sadly, here again it's mishandled because in it traumatized characters are expected to get back on the horse and (hu)man up. I could and would buy this if this ship and crew were out on the frontier and having to deal with a horrible situation in the aftermath of a tragedy without having first been back home or to a base. But no, once again they're pulling out of dock with these traumatized senior crewmembers who shouldn't have been allowed anywhere near active duty. This just makes Starfleet look stupid and incompetant.
Logical lapses abound. While this ship was being repaired did no one go through all the logs or tapes? Did no one clearing the dead man's quarters of his effects find this alien whatchamacallit? What sort of incompetents repaired and refitted this ship? Why did he put it in the safe in his cabin? Was that the most secure spot on the ship?
By far the worst thing is what the story does to Beck by having the character find this message (which should have been found already, as above) about this artifact being so super duper important that the "fate of the galaxy could depend on it" and instead of immediately reporting this to the Captain—whose decision it must be—after she inadvertently activates this total unknown she scans it and then goes to have a little lie down! As such she's directly responsible for everything that happens thereafter, including the deaths and injuries. This would absolutely result in a court martial in anyone knew what she did.
Everything else I could pick on are nits. The turbolift has lights when the Captain is in it and then its dark when he steps out (I see this too much in fanfilms). etc.
Logical lapses abound. While this ship was being repaired did no one go through all the logs or tapes? Did no one clearing the dead man's quarters of his effects find this alien whatchamacallit? What sort of incompetents repaired and refitted this ship? Why did he put it in the safe in his cabin? Was that the most secure spot on the ship?
By far the worst thing is what the story does to Beck by having the character find this message (which should have been found already, as above) about this artifact being so super duper important that the "fate of the galaxy could depend on it" and instead of immediately reporting this to the Captain—whose decision it must be—after she inadvertently activates this total unknown she scans it and then goes to have a little lie down! As such she's directly responsible for everything that happens thereafter, including the deaths and injuries. This would absolutely result in a court martial in anyone knew what she did.
Everything else I could pick on are nits. The turbolift has lights when the Captain is in it and then its dark when he steps out (I see this too much in fanfilms). etc.
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I thought it was a good effort, my criticism largely mirrors Maurice's - most of the acting and direction was serviceable, yet it was too talky, particularly the long heartfelt conversion in the middle of a crisis and the setup was goofy with the ship having time for a new crew and refit with new torpedo tubes and engines, but no one cleaned out the XO's safe? I think it would have been better if Excalibur had just received a patch job out in the field and was staffed with crew who just been M5'd - then the action could have more naturally progressed from the discovery in the safe and the PSTD story would have fit better if the traumatic event had just happened. Also, i would have liked if the Klingons had an actual purpose to the story.
Another positive, I liked the use of the Beyond costumes, they worked surprisingly well with the TOS sets. However, that a couple of the characters had 09/ID costumes was distracting, I was first thinking that they were supposed to be enlisted, but then that wasn't the case. I also thought the McGuffin prop had a nice TOS design vibe, e even if ultimately it didn't seem to be worth fighting over.
Another positive, I liked the use of the Beyond costumes, they worked surprisingly well with the TOS sets. However, that a couple of the characters had 09/ID costumes was distracting, I was first thinking that they were supposed to be enlisted, but then that wasn't the case. I also thought the McGuffin prop had a nice TOS design vibe, e even if ultimately it didn't seem to be worth fighting over.
