Well, there's a saying I've heard:
"If you say your song is a rock anthem, you'd better mean it."
Anyone can say they've written a rock anthem. It might even have the formulaic hooks and transitions and everything.... then they run it up the flagpole of their target audience (and then some) to see who salutes. If no one salutes, it's probably not a rock anthem.
Same thing with a fan film. If you're going to say: "This will blow away anything that's come before, and will hold up well with any professional production to date." Well, that might be ambition.....but it's still going to depend on how the target audience (and then some) perceive it. You've thrown down the gauntlet... and even though there are some very good tools available to Joe Average Fan Filmmaker that take their fan films light years beyond what's come before, it's still not going to compete with what Hollywood can do, because Hollywood's always going to have the best available tech and resources, and people qualified to do the job that's asked of them (actors, directors, producers, VFX/SFX folk, CG artists, practical model builders, set builders, etc). What we have today are basically hand-me-downs.
When it comes to story, yes, there are some talented, unsigned, amateur scribes out there, but hardly any of them (myself included...and I'm very amateur) can avoid the tropes that seem to be the common complaint of the average Trek fan who partakes of fan productions: Winks, nods, in-jokes, overt references to canonical Trek, fan-service, etc.
I have a philosophy about recording music: "Don't record a song that you cannot reproduce live." If you have a band that has only one qualified singer, don't record the song with four vocal overdubs of harmonies and ad-libs, because the rest of your band cannot replicate that experience in the song. If you have a band with only one guitar player, don't overdub your guitar parts to where it sounds like you have three face-melting guitar players. The audience is going to expect to hear what you put down on the record. Sure, you might get some loud cheers and applause in your castrated live rendition of that song, but it's not going to be near as loud as it would be if you were able to reproduce
all your artsy maneuvering live.
Imagine what Hotel California would've come across like if only Don Henley had done all the vocal parts for the album version of the song, and then, when it came time to do it live, his was the only voice singing, and those wonderous background harmonies were very much absent. Folk are going to be disappointed. Thankfully, the band had the personnel necessary to reproduce the experience of the album version for a live setting.
With fan films: Don't let your ego write a check that your humility can't cash.
FF maker Ego: This is going to be a powerhouse production that will easily compete with the best Hollywood produced Trek out there. And, this will be
real Star Trek.
Audience: It looked like a fan film. The actors simply recited their lines with no conviction or emotion. The visual effects were hokey. The editing was clearly rushed. There was an inordinate amount of fan service. Oh...and it's
all real Star Trek, so where's your basis for comparison?
FF maker Humility: Oh, it was a labor of love. It's just a fan film. We have limitations you know.
Audience: Bullshit! Don't over-hype next time.
FF Maker Ego: Well, clearly you all don't know what it takes to make a fan film, and you just don't get what we're doing!
Audience: Any miniscule semblance of credibility you had just went down the drain.
When you make an overly bold claim that your upcoming fan-made Trek movie is going to be the Second Coming of the Great Bird of the Galaxy, you'd better be able to deliver, because the criticism (for good or ill) is going to be projected at the level for which you're hyping it....especially from those fans who feel they have not had
real Star Trek since 1966-69. If you stutter-step even a little in your delivery, that molehill is going to quickly evolve into a mountain.
Now, myself, I usually take such hype claims with a fifth of Tranya. I just want to enjoy what I'm about to see. I go in, knowing that the resources that these fan filmmakers have is sub-par (if not by much) compared to what Hollywood can produce, so my expectations are automatically lowered. If there are good things about the final product, then I like to highlight those aspects. If there's bad things about it, I'll try to give con-con where I can, but I don't want to bash them over the head with: "You did not deliver!" I'll leave that to the folks that actually fell for their hype.
Again, that's why I immediately acknowledge from the get go that my projects will not be movie perfect, and the limitations might clearly be visible. All I can hope for is that folk will enjoy what they see for what it is....not for what it should have been because of my hubris.
The scope of what I want to do (I beg forgiveness for the shameless, yet very vague self-promo) is something that (from episode to episode) can run in either the established canon/iconic characters (which will be a very tough road ahead because the expectations will be higher), and original characters which will lighten the load considerably, save for the task of trying to create characters that the viewers can connect with. I can also choose to either use an existing Star Trek ship, or try my hand at creating an original ship. The existing ships (Excelsior class, Miranda class, Constitution class, Galaxy or Sovereign class, K't'inga, B'rel, K'vort, etc) have the advantage of familiarity, both inside and out. Other existing, but lesser utilized ships (Akira, Steamrunner, etc) allow for a balance of some familiarity, and
some imaginative license. Completely original ships allow for the most imaginative license, as long as you don't go to the point of "This ship can kick a Sovereign class' ass!"
TL;DR? Go back and read what you glossed over.
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