Review Star Trek: Of Gods and Men Part 1.

[T'Bonz]

I had trouble writing my news article that refers to this movie, so I took a time out from writing and decided to finally watch this in hopes of having more of a knowledge of the movie.

At first, I winced at the effects, but after a few moments, as I got into the story, I forgot about them, and they seemed to improve. That's a compliment to the story.

The buffering? Ugh. After a few minutes, I took my husband's advice and hit pause and went off to do something else for a while. When I came back, it was almost totally loaded and I never had another problem with watching the movie.

In some ways, it did seem like they were trying to get as many "real Trek" actors in as possible. However, I liked the performances of some of them better than when they were on their respective shows. Wang was much better, ditto for the fellow playing Harriman. Of course, I found out in Babylon 5 that I prefer Koenig when he plays a darker character.

Masterson's Orion was just dandy and ah, what's his name, the Martok actor (sorry, I just don't have the normal Trekkie's memory) did a good job too.

Ship sets and scenes were fine. The appearance of Charlie Evans was a nice twist. I don't know if I would have bought that he was still pissed, but I could suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it.

The Vulcan scene just didn't work for me. Not one bit. Not Uhura's marriage which seemed unlikely and unrealistic, not her son and definitely not the grandchildren who laughed and acted like humans with ears. I prefer my Vulcans to be Vulcans and the 3/4 Vulcan grandchildren definitely should have been more Vulcan in behavior even if Grammie was human.

The destruction of the planet was pretty cool although the scenes of the weapon getting there was a bit tedious.

I enjoyed watching this and look forward to the next version. It's definitely a fan film, but having the professional actors in it raised the quality more than I'm used to seeing when it comes to fan films. The sets looked pretty good, many of the special effects looked pretty good, especially for a fan film and I'm interested enough to want to see what is in store. I'm pretty harsh in what I want when it comes to a show, which is why I nitpick, but at the end of the day, if I like what I see, in spite of flaws and am willing to come back for more, that's what really counts. And I do look forward to the next installment of this.

 

[Tralah]

About the Vulcans: Yes, I too found it quite surprising and hard to believe that Uhura ended up married to Stonn! The dialogue did mention that Uhura had worked with Spock, I think in an attempt to overthrow the Bad Guys? I guess I could possibly see Uhura meeting Stonn through Spock, but it was a bit hard for me to swallow. I actually didn't have too much trouble with the laughing grandchildren though. I figured some Vulcan families are stricter than others when it comes to allowing children to display emotions, and this family was a little more indulgent.

 

[Tallguy]

The kids and Uhura's marriage is one of the bits of the story that I just figure "Wow, things were sure different HERE." (Still... not... telling... why!) But even from Act I it can be seen that Vulcan has been in the middle of galactic upheaval for some time. Maybe Stonn was less of a butt when he had strife and conflict to occupy him. (Maybe that's why he was attracted to T'Pring - she had strife and conflict written all over her.)

Sitting down and watching the whole thing and seeing Vulcan explode, I thought to myself "Did I just kill Spock?!?" Naaaaah.

 

[Crewman6]

Finally got a chance to see this tonight. I sympathize with those with computer issues, my first two or three attempts were unsuccessful - nothing but dreadfully jumping video and audio.

But my computer was feeling well-rested tonight or something so the streaming finally worked.

First of all, let me just say that this piecemeal approach to releasing fan films (ahem, Exter) is extraordinarily frustrating and instantly lends an amateurish, unprofessional, "we're all just playing dress-up" quality to the entire production. Come on, guys, get your act together! If it takes two years to finish the thing, then just finish the thing!

Anyhoo....this effort was definitely a mixed bag. I guess I enjoyed it on the whole, but I have loads of issues with it.

Despite the presence of actual Trek alumni both in front of and behind the camera, this really ends up being "just another fan film" at the end of the day. It's not THE fan film, nor is it on par with the professional productions.

On a technical level, the FX here are pretty unimpressive. I've seen superior work on Exeter, NV and numerous "Star Wars"-themed movies in the past few years. It's too bad that it's not up to par. Five years ago, this might have been cutting edge, but now it looks a bit rusty.

On the other hand, something this fan film has going for it that NONE of the others do (at least consistently) is the acting. Yep, those people are pros and it shows. So many fan films are sunk (or at least fall short of greatness) because of amateurish acting. Sorry, folks, you may just be having fun and it may be the fulfillment of a life long dream, but most fan film actors just have no business being in front of the camera.

Nichols and Koenig slip effortless into their roles (at least in the opening Enterprise sequences). Alan Ruck is a reliable character actor with a massive resume and he does a great job here. I was surprised at how pleased I was to see Harriman again. No one has ever played a Klingon better than JG Hertzler and it's great to see him under the ridges again. Chase Masterson was surprisingly good and VOY vets Ethan Philips and Garrett Wang also acquitted themselves nicely.

It really was fun to watch the endless parade of cameos from so many Trek alum and they all seemed to be having a good time.

With all that star power, then, it is a shame the story is - at least thus far - so uninspired. Another poster here called it a "smoothie" of old Trek concepts we've seen before.

It's a shame that so many fan films lack the vision to try to tell us a new story and instead are so intent on cannibalizing and re-hashing what we've already seen before. So we have a "New Voyages" episode with both the Guardian AND Captain Pike AND Planet Killers....and now we have this movie which trots out the Guardian yet again, cribs stylistically from the various "Mirror" universe episodes and revisits a character no one probably had any interest in EVER seeing again - Charlie X. Seriously? Charlie X?! Khan he ain't and my spirits sank when I realized who the "mastermind" behind the plot was going to be.

I really think the Guardian of Forever is a terribly overused idea at this point. It was a lovely creation back in the 60's, but it really has no place beyond the confines of that one episode, if only because its existence raises so many mind-boggling in-universe issues. In reality, the Guardian planet would have to be the most well-defended, best kept secret in all of the Federation. You'd need to have an entire fleet protecting that planet with thousands of troops and force fields and ships and whatever give the incredible ease at which our entire universe could instantly be wiped out.

And so what do our characters find when they get there? Um, one (seemingly unmanned) orbital satellite and nothing else. That's just one of the numerous nit-picking continuity and logic problems with the script.

As others have pointed out - why would the Museum Ship be sent into the danger zone when Harriman and Uhura's ships just left the area. Why would Ethan Phillips' janitor character bring up a picture of the super-secret Guardian while discussing Kirk?

And why does the script break a major rule of the original Guardian episode by not having our main characters protected from the timeline changes? If you're going to rip off a classic episode, at least get the details right.

And, in the whole "alternate" timeline - I'm assuming it was created by the elimination of Kirk before he could be born - would the Federation REALLY have fractured in twain like that, leading to the creation of the rogue faction of baddies led by Harriman? Seems like a major stretch, even for the legendary Kirk to have that kind of massive impact on history.

The scenes that worked best for me were those on the Museum ship as our old friends came together. There was a genuine sweetness to their interactions and the scenes had a nice wistful quality to them.

But, in the end, this project thus far feels like a missed opportunity. It's a shame that the writers of these fan films are so often too narrow minded and too slavish in their adoration of the old series to really try something new. It's homage ad nauseum. They're come across like kids playing dress up in the backyard, but aren't bringing anything new to the table.

Maybe that's not the point. Maybe I'm holding them to an unrealistic standard. But it's not exactly "boldly going where no man has gone before." Too bad.

 

[blockaderunner]

That was just......I don't know what to say. I felt like I was watching a Tiajuana donkey show. I couldn't take my eyes off it but I felt reeeeal dirty afterwards.


The dialogue is just god awful. You'd think that having some seasoned actors like Koening and Nichols would slavage this thing, but they turn out having the worst dilaogue. It's as if some fan banged out the most fanboyish Trekkie dialoge tailored for just certain characters now they have the oppurtunity to see the objects of their worship spew them out.


The makeup was just rediculous. If you don't have enough green paint to cover your Orison Slave Girl, have her wear some frakin' clothes then instead of having us see pink spots on her body.


The storyline is sooo contrived and forced. Need we be reminded for the 2000th time that Kirk is god and all that happend or will happen is because of him? Sheesh!


I know. I know. It's a fanfilm: Made by and for fans. But is for possible for once, just once, that a fanfilmaker could think outside the box and make a film that could be relatable to the non-fan while, at the same time, pays homage to the object of their fandom? This isn't an indictment on just Trek. There are a ton of other fanfilms from other 'verses that are just as laughable when they try to be as serious as the original films/tv series.

I admire that they make the effort. But just effort is not an excuse for any sensible thinking person to give them a pass. If they keep up at it, really study the language of filmaking and not just fan slobber, and they could get ahead.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Short review: I liked the stuff on the evil alt. version of the Enterprise. But the Chekov/Uhura/Harriman reunion stuff was dull and the Vulcan stuff was even worse.

I'll go more in depth when I have time.

 

[trash80]

I didn't like the story so much but i enjoyed watching OFAM overall. I thought Garrett Wang looked very cool with his hair like that Well done to all concerned, i can't wait for P2!