Really great episode, enjoyed it quite a bit.
STC Ep. 6: "Come Not Between The Dragons" grading and discussion....(possible spoilers)
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
I just watched on my iPad and lighting seemed bright and normal.......
Star Trek Continues, Episode 6
“Come Not Between The Dragons” **** (4/5)
The Enterprise is boarded by an unknown lifeform.
We have to admire the Star Trek Continues production group even if for no other reason than their proficiency in delivering productions on time as promised and with a respectable regularity of two episodes a year. By fan film standards that is an admirable achievement when considering these works are made by volunteers in their spare time.
The other element worthy of respect is their overall production standard. Contemporary resources allow fan films to look far more polished than they could have possibly once imagined. This not only allows them to produce work roughly similar to contemporary productions standards, but also to replicate work that rivals or surpasses standards of years past.
“Come Not Between The Dragons” is good work overall. However, I hesitate calling it excellent overall even though there are things in it I think are excellent.
The story resonates with things we have seen before in TOS in that appearances can be deceiving and circumstances can be not what they initially seem. “Charlie X” gave us a frustrated adolescent with little empathy for others and possessing a weapon to vent his frustration. “The Squire Of Gothos” gave us a somewhat sadistic mentality that turned out to be nothing more than a spoiled brat run amok. “The Devil In The Dark” gave us a rampaging monster that was actually a mother protecting its unborn young.
I admit this story did not play out as I had somewhat expected based on the few stills from the episode released over some weeks prior to the episode’s premiere. I was surprised…in a mostly pleasant way.
In “Come Not Between The Dragons” the Enterprise is boarded by an alien lifeform…that is actually looking for a place to hide. All well and good, but something is looking for this alien and the danger it presents could well send the Enterprise crew into murderous insanity.
By now Vic Mignogna and company have pretty well made the TOS universe their own. There are still some small dissonances between this and the familiar original version, but much of that is due to a separation of fifty years and a new cast playing the familiar roles. While there are resonances of Shatner’s performance in STC’s Kirk this is unmistakably Vic Mignogna’s Kirk. This isn’t a bad thing and it helps the show from being a parody. And this is true of not only the entire cast, but also of the production as a whole. The weakest link, to me, is Grant Imahara as Sulu. The guy just needs to chill out and relax and refrain from trying to mimic George Takei.
These films allow fans to indulge themselves to varying degrees regarding the sandbox they are playing in. Some like to make radical changes to “fix” and update the sandbox while others are more restrained and seek only to tweak or polish the sandbox to an extent. STC falls mostly in the latter camp. Still, in every episode, there is a tendency to indulge in something that would not or not likely be seen in the original source material. This is often in terms of special f/x, but it also includes the tendency to reference materiel that did not yet exist when the original source materiel was first made. In “Come Not Between The Dragons” that indulgence is in the form of interesting visual f/x.
I will say I don’t think everything new seen in this episode would have been flat out impossible back in the day if one allows for more available time and money than TOS had at its disposal. So STC is showing us some things that could have been done back in the day, but only under ideal conditions. The most notable visual can be seen in the earlier released teaser trailer, depicting a hull breach in the ship’s main saucer. The p.o.v. zooms in through the breach into the ship’s interior. It’s an interesting visual and on first pass one might be inclined to think this couldn’t have been done in the 1960s. But thinking about it it’s possible that a series of mattes used in succession could have achieved a reasonably similar visual effect. On a more practical level we get some interesting shots of the ship’s interiors having been trashed along with bulkheads breached. We rarely saw this in TOS and the closest example was the interior of the wrecked Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine."
By now most everyone should remember TOS’ rubber-suited Gorn (“Arena”), the plasticky insanity parasites (“Operation—Annihilate”), Yarnek the Excalbian (“The Savage Curtain”) and the mother Horta (“The Devil In The Dark”). TOS valiantly tried to give us genuine looking aliens at a time when television resources were really challenged to deliver such things. Today’s resources make it significantly easier. It would have been relatively easy for STC to have designed and craft an alien to suit contemporary expectations. The problem with that is it would have looked wholly out of place on a show trying to look like it was made fifty years ago albeit with a bit more polish.
And so we are introduced to Usdi, an alien lifeform who inhabits the cold vacuum of space.
This alien doesn’t look like something from a modern feature film. Nonetheless it is a rather cool looking design (courtesy of Greg Dykstra) that looks somewhat anime like (to my eyes). In some respects it is simplistic and yet it takes the idea of a guy in a rubber suit and manages to give it a polish that makes it work within the context of the TOS/STC setting. It would be interesting to know if this alien was all cgi or if there was a fullsize puppet or even costume involved here. *(Note: I've just learned that Usdi was someone in costume and with no cgi involved, which makes the depiction all the more excellent.)
It’s easy to say something doesn’t look convincingly real, but candidly some actual lifeforms here on Earth don’t look all that real to our sensibilities either. The oceans are full of lifeforms that can be seen as genuinely alien and when brought to the surface out of their element they can look just as unconvincing as fictional sci-fi creatures.
Usdi's design and execution is one the excellent aspects of this episode in that it manages to create an alien we could believe might have appeared on TOS…albeit with a bit extra time and money. We also soon begin to empathize with Usdi because it is not a menacing being beyond its initial appearance.
Another admirable element of this episode is seeing many of the cast having moments and something to do. This time around we see more of Uhura and they touch upon some of the skills fans have long believed her to have. We also get to see more of Lt. Smith who seems more like a contemporary style strong female than what we might have seen in the past. I admit I like seeing Smith in these stories. In extent STC gives us something we saw little of in TOS: women getting into hand-to-hand fighting.
I’ve seen this episode three times so far and I have liked it better each time. But with that said I am still bothered by certain things that bring my estimation of the story down a notch or two.
The first thing that sticks out, to me, as a bit of dialogue spoken by Kirk around the thirty-five minute mark. The scene is set in the briefing room and Kirk utters a few words that I could never envision William Shatner’s Kirk ever saying. I can’t imagine the TOS writers ever writing those words either. It’s an example of a tendency I sense that the Kirk character needs to be “fixed” somehow to redeem him in some measure to contemporary viewers. It’s a much smaller example of something STC made an entire episode about in “The White Iris.”
I understand the gist of what Kirk is trying to say, but I take issue with how they have Kirk saying it. It just strikes me as wrong and maybe even a little pompous.
But more to the point Kirk doesn’t need to be fixed and I wish they would stop trying.
Todd Haberkorn’s performance as Spock seems to get better every time around. Unfortunately the writers don’t always get how Spock expressed himself. Sometimes they have him say things that don’t ring true or at least saying things in ways that don’t ring true.
One thing this episode was nicely devoid of was any obvious references to post TOS productions made decades after the fact. Nothing like referring to something more recent to ruin the illusion you’re trying to sustain it’s still 1969. This includes using terms and phrases that were not in common usage so many years ago.
The second big flaw I see with this story is the final act. Simply, it drags on far too long. The episode drags on easily five minutes longer than necessary and it feels anticlimactic. It really needs to have been tightened up. That could have done partly by putting more action into the previous three acts and give us a full 50 minute episode rather than 40-45.
I know my final quibble will likely draw criticism, but I was not that impressed with Gigi Edgely’s character. She looked like she was quaking almost all the time and she mumbled a lot where I missed a lot of what she was saying. She really stood in contrast to the outgoing McKennah, Smith and Uhura.
Finally, I always like seeing Doug Drexler's Enterprise model. He polishes the images of the original without sacrificing the overall look and feel the original elicited in many if us.
In the end this is another good—if not quite excellent—outing for STC. In my opinion they have yet to produce a stinker and the worst they’ve done so far was only fair in my view.
“Come Not Between The Dragons” **** (4/5)
The Enterprise is boarded by an unknown lifeform.
We have to admire the Star Trek Continues production group even if for no other reason than their proficiency in delivering productions on time as promised and with a respectable regularity of two episodes a year. By fan film standards that is an admirable achievement when considering these works are made by volunteers in their spare time.
The other element worthy of respect is their overall production standard. Contemporary resources allow fan films to look far more polished than they could have possibly once imagined. This not only allows them to produce work roughly similar to contemporary productions standards, but also to replicate work that rivals or surpasses standards of years past.
“Come Not Between The Dragons” is good work overall. However, I hesitate calling it excellent overall even though there are things in it I think are excellent.
The story resonates with things we have seen before in TOS in that appearances can be deceiving and circumstances can be not what they initially seem. “Charlie X” gave us a frustrated adolescent with little empathy for others and possessing a weapon to vent his frustration. “The Squire Of Gothos” gave us a somewhat sadistic mentality that turned out to be nothing more than a spoiled brat run amok. “The Devil In The Dark” gave us a rampaging monster that was actually a mother protecting its unborn young.
I admit this story did not play out as I had somewhat expected based on the few stills from the episode released over some weeks prior to the episode’s premiere. I was surprised…in a mostly pleasant way.
In “Come Not Between The Dragons” the Enterprise is boarded by an alien lifeform…that is actually looking for a place to hide. All well and good, but something is looking for this alien and the danger it presents could well send the Enterprise crew into murderous insanity.
By now Vic Mignogna and company have pretty well made the TOS universe their own. There are still some small dissonances between this and the familiar original version, but much of that is due to a separation of fifty years and a new cast playing the familiar roles. While there are resonances of Shatner’s performance in STC’s Kirk this is unmistakably Vic Mignogna’s Kirk. This isn’t a bad thing and it helps the show from being a parody. And this is true of not only the entire cast, but also of the production as a whole. The weakest link, to me, is Grant Imahara as Sulu. The guy just needs to chill out and relax and refrain from trying to mimic George Takei.
These films allow fans to indulge themselves to varying degrees regarding the sandbox they are playing in. Some like to make radical changes to “fix” and update the sandbox while others are more restrained and seek only to tweak or polish the sandbox to an extent. STC falls mostly in the latter camp. Still, in every episode, there is a tendency to indulge in something that would not or not likely be seen in the original source material. This is often in terms of special f/x, but it also includes the tendency to reference materiel that did not yet exist when the original source materiel was first made. In “Come Not Between The Dragons” that indulgence is in the form of interesting visual f/x.
I will say I don’t think everything new seen in this episode would have been flat out impossible back in the day if one allows for more available time and money than TOS had at its disposal. So STC is showing us some things that could have been done back in the day, but only under ideal conditions. The most notable visual can be seen in the earlier released teaser trailer, depicting a hull breach in the ship’s main saucer. The p.o.v. zooms in through the breach into the ship’s interior. It’s an interesting visual and on first pass one might be inclined to think this couldn’t have been done in the 1960s. But thinking about it it’s possible that a series of mattes used in succession could have achieved a reasonably similar visual effect. On a more practical level we get some interesting shots of the ship’s interiors having been trashed along with bulkheads breached. We rarely saw this in TOS and the closest example was the interior of the wrecked Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine."
By now most everyone should remember TOS’ rubber-suited Gorn (“Arena”), the plasticky insanity parasites (“Operation—Annihilate”), Yarnek the Excalbian (“The Savage Curtain”) and the mother Horta (“The Devil In The Dark”). TOS valiantly tried to give us genuine looking aliens at a time when television resources were really challenged to deliver such things. Today’s resources make it significantly easier. It would have been relatively easy for STC to have designed and craft an alien to suit contemporary expectations. The problem with that is it would have looked wholly out of place on a show trying to look like it was made fifty years ago albeit with a bit more polish.
And so we are introduced to Usdi, an alien lifeform who inhabits the cold vacuum of space.
This alien doesn’t look like something from a modern feature film. Nonetheless it is a rather cool looking design (courtesy of Greg Dykstra) that looks somewhat anime like (to my eyes). In some respects it is simplistic and yet it takes the idea of a guy in a rubber suit and manages to give it a polish that makes it work within the context of the TOS/STC setting. It would be interesting to know if this alien was all cgi or if there was a fullsize puppet or even costume involved here. *(Note: I've just learned that Usdi was someone in costume and with no cgi involved, which makes the depiction all the more excellent.)
It’s easy to say something doesn’t look convincingly real, but candidly some actual lifeforms here on Earth don’t look all that real to our sensibilities either. The oceans are full of lifeforms that can be seen as genuinely alien and when brought to the surface out of their element they can look just as unconvincing as fictional sci-fi creatures.
Usdi's design and execution is one the excellent aspects of this episode in that it manages to create an alien we could believe might have appeared on TOS…albeit with a bit extra time and money. We also soon begin to empathize with Usdi because it is not a menacing being beyond its initial appearance.
Another admirable element of this episode is seeing many of the cast having moments and something to do. This time around we see more of Uhura and they touch upon some of the skills fans have long believed her to have. We also get to see more of Lt. Smith who seems more like a contemporary style strong female than what we might have seen in the past. I admit I like seeing Smith in these stories. In extent STC gives us something we saw little of in TOS: women getting into hand-to-hand fighting.
I’ve seen this episode three times so far and I have liked it better each time. But with that said I am still bothered by certain things that bring my estimation of the story down a notch or two.
The first thing that sticks out, to me, as a bit of dialogue spoken by Kirk around the thirty-five minute mark. The scene is set in the briefing room and Kirk utters a few words that I could never envision William Shatner’s Kirk ever saying. I can’t imagine the TOS writers ever writing those words either. It’s an example of a tendency I sense that the Kirk character needs to be “fixed” somehow to redeem him in some measure to contemporary viewers. It’s a much smaller example of something STC made an entire episode about in “The White Iris.”
I understand the gist of what Kirk is trying to say, but I take issue with how they have Kirk saying it. It just strikes me as wrong and maybe even a little pompous.
But more to the point Kirk doesn’t need to be fixed and I wish they would stop trying.
Todd Haberkorn’s performance as Spock seems to get better every time around. Unfortunately the writers don’t always get how Spock expressed himself. Sometimes they have him say things that don’t ring true or at least saying things in ways that don’t ring true.
One thing this episode was nicely devoid of was any obvious references to post TOS productions made decades after the fact. Nothing like referring to something more recent to ruin the illusion you’re trying to sustain it’s still 1969. This includes using terms and phrases that were not in common usage so many years ago.
The second big flaw I see with this story is the final act. Simply, it drags on far too long. The episode drags on easily five minutes longer than necessary and it feels anticlimactic. It really needs to have been tightened up. That could have done partly by putting more action into the previous three acts and give us a full 50 minute episode rather than 40-45.
I know my final quibble will likely draw criticism, but I was not that impressed with Gigi Edgely’s character. She looked like she was quaking almost all the time and she mumbled a lot where I missed a lot of what she was saying. She really stood in contrast to the outgoing McKennah, Smith and Uhura.
Finally, I always like seeing Doug Drexler's Enterprise model. He polishes the images of the original without sacrificing the overall look and feel the original elicited in many if us.
In the end this is another good—if not quite excellent—outing for STC. In my opinion they have yet to produce a stinker and the worst they’ve done so far was only fair in my view.
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I thought that was very good.
A well thought out and interesting review. I agree with most but not all of it. This is in no particular order but:
- I think it was unrealistic that a hole that size was made through several areas of the saucer section exposing it to the vacuum of space and no crew members died. If they had Kirk would have been less sympathetic to the creature than he was fueling his anger even more.
- The engines being off line was a gimmick to keep the ship there and does not fit with any modern warship being able to take a pounding and "stay in the fight". Especially my beloved Enterprise.
- I liked Gigi's performance a lot. I thought as a victim herself it fit the pattern of withdrawal and mirrored what they had the creature do and that is go into hiding. She played it very vulnerable and in stark contrast to the other crew members who were acting out their anger.
- I especially agree with the thoughts on Kirk. Kirk is a man of action and that is how I have always seen him. He is Type A all the way and efforts to soften him up some are more 2016ish than 1966. That being said no one does it better than Vic. Vic, Todd, and Chris now own those roles. Scotty at the Jefferies tube was classic.
- Overall I give a 5/5. Hats off to Greg for the story and the creature.
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I thought Gigi Edgley was the standout here. I liked her a lot on Farscape and I didn't see anything of that character here. She inhabited the role and utterly convinced me that she was living it.
I've also gotten to really like Todd Haberkorn as Spock. I still think Vic Minogna is really doing more of an impersonation of Shatner as Kirk, rather than just playing Kirk, but to be fair it's a pretty good impersonation.
MacKenna was also good here, though again I think another established TOS character could have easily taken her role. And it was nice to see more Uhura, since I've always liked Kim Stinger's take on the role since she was on New Voyages.
I've also gotten to really like Todd Haberkorn as Spock. I still think Vic Minogna is really doing more of an impersonation of Shatner as Kirk, rather than just playing Kirk, but to be fair it's a pretty good impersonation.
MacKenna was also good here, though again I think another established TOS character could have easily taken her role. And it was nice to see more Uhura, since I've always liked Kim Stinger's take on the role since she was on New Voyages.
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Usdi was all a guy in a suit; no cgi or puppet
In the least they could have mentioned something about atmospheric shields or inner bulkheads activating when the hull was breached.
Agreed. I saw no reasons why the engines would be off-line.
It's not her performance that bugged me. It was the character she played. I will say I became less critical with each viewing, but the character still irked me to some degree.
And a couple of those modern phrases would be "anger management" and "Ya think?" Just small things that take you out of the moment, but that's a testimony to how very good "the moment" is.
IMO, the stark difference in GE's character was intentional, as somebody else said. She was resonating with Usdi's vibes of fear, whereas the rest of the crew were picking up the violent emotions from Usdi's dad.
Oh, my. You have a valid point I hadn't considered. I feel like an idiot. It puts her performance in an entirely different light.
Now I have to watch this again.
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What an unpleasant task!Oh, my. You have a valid point I hadn't considered. I feel like an idiot.
Now I have to watch this again.
I thoroughly enjoyed this episode! The teaser was enough to hook my family to watch it alongside with me, and watching Star Trek as a family is something I haven't experience in a long, long time.
Something which really got me overly excited was the grainy, high angle shot of Engineering as fights break out across the deck. That was on point!
I'm so proud of Continues - always delivering something cool and exciting to look forward too. Bring on the next one!
Something which really got me overly excited was the grainy, high angle shot of Engineering as fights break out across the deck. That was on point!
I'm so proud of Continues - always delivering something cool and exciting to look forward too. Bring on the next one!
I have some thoughts. I'm going to watch it again and write a full review. But while I quibble on execution, at least this about was about something, that it had something to say.
On that, I applaud the production. As well as using a practical creature suit.
On that, I applaud the production. As well as using a practical creature suit.
I really enjoyed this. Seeing the crew have a rumble in engineering was great (it could only be more authentic if the distance shot had very obvious stunt actors!), and the rock monster costume was amazing. As with the rest of STC, it's like seeing lost episodes of TOS.
I think it has a mashup effect, drawing from Devil in the Dark, Day of the Dove, and Lolani (one of its own).
It's not easy to create new plots that don't in some way repeat what's done before.
The ultimate message is not something we've seen before, and not a topic that would likely have been covered back in the 60s. The 60s were more interested in macro-level sociological/ideological issues.
STC can be very preachy and sappy. That sounds like a bash, but it's actually a good thing because it's in stark contrast to the pessimism and shoulder-shrugging cynical acceptance of the cruel world that we're stewing in these days.
If STC wants to keep tackling social ills they should encounter a planet where everyone is embroiled in polarized politics. Sort of Idiocracy without the punch-lines.
It's not easy to create new plots that don't in some way repeat what's done before.
The ultimate message is not something we've seen before, and not a topic that would likely have been covered back in the 60s. The 60s were more interested in macro-level sociological/ideological issues.
STC can be very preachy and sappy. That sounds like a bash, but it's actually a good thing because it's in stark contrast to the pessimism and shoulder-shrugging cynical acceptance of the cruel world that we're stewing in these days.
If STC wants to keep tackling social ills they should encounter a planet where everyone is embroiled in polarized politics. Sort of Idiocracy without the punch-lines.
Oh my...
Do not mess with McKennah
I think that this episode was Michele Specht’s strongest performance yet.
However, would TOS have gotten away with a scene like this back in the 60’s?
Do not mess with McKennah
I think that this episode was Michele Specht’s strongest performance yet.
However, would TOS have gotten away with a scene like this back in the 60’s?
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