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Sci-Fi Television

Star Trek Continues Meets Kickstarter Goal, Aims For Stretch Goals 165

Posted by Soulskill from the boldly-going-as-far-as-the-budget-takes-them dept.
jdavidb writes: A couple of months ago on Slashdot, I learned about Star Trek Continues, a faithful continuation of the Star Trek original series five-year mission, lovingly recreated by Vic Mignogna and a dedicated cast and crew. The original Enterprise set from Desilu has been recreated, great scripts have been written, fantastic guest stars have been enlisted, including stars from the original series and other Star Trek voyages, and the three episodes filmed so far look like they genuinely came from the era that produced the original series. Continues has now turned my children on to original series Star Trek, and we eagerly await more episodes.

Continues has two more days to go in their Kickstarter campaign. They have already raised enough money to produce two more episodes and meet their first stretch goal: creating a set for Engineering. They're also bumping up against their next stretch goal: creating a planet set so the Continues Enterprise team can visit strange new worlds and experience the tragic loss of nameless redshirts.
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Star Trek Continues Meets Kickstarter Goal, Aims For Stretch Goals More

Star Trek Continues Meets Kickstarter Goal, Aims For Stretch Goals

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  • Now they just need intensity from the actors. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 14, 2015 @06:20PM (#49057121)

    I want to care about this. I really do. But the acting is justflat. None of them feel like they've got skin in the game. I don't know what it would take but the entire series would become a different thing if they could somehow be gotten INTO the story. Because for now they're really not.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Shatner was a stage actor - that's why he acted so BIG.

      And speaking of flat, ST:TNG doesn't hold up. I remember back in 1987 when it first came on and how excited I was to have a new Star Trek. Watching on Netflix now, I can't help thinking what a piece of shit it was. Yeah, there were some good episodes, but it sucked.

      Voyager sucked too, Deep Space Nine was held together by Brooks but was still kinda crappy; although better than the other new Star Treks.

      These new guys are doing a respectable job but I see

      • You can skip the first season of TNG, especially the first season. Patrick Stewart is also a stage actor, but the cast didn't have any chemistry until later on.

        • You can skip the first season of TNG, especially the first season. Patrick Stewart is also a stage actor, but the cast didn't have any chemistry until later on.

          I'd argue you can skip much of the second season as well.

          • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @08:37PM (#49057589)
            Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Anonymous Coward

              The Emissary sucked, just as all Worf centric episodes. I always skip over those.

              For season one Where No One Has Gone Before, The Battle, Datalore, Too Short A Season, When The Bough Breaks, Home Soil, Conspiracy and The Neutral Zone are worth watching.

              For season two, just skip the Worf, Deanna Troi and Wesley Crusher episodes The Child, The Dauphin and The Emissary. You can also safely skip that paddy crap Up The Long Ladder and the clipshow Shades Of Grey.

              The rest of the seasons are fine if you avoid the

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @08:07PM (#49057497)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • WTF are you talking about?

          The acting in the first season was absolutely painful. And while we're bitching, the effects were really awful, too. The CG was ugh from the very beginning (Q's net in Encounter in particular looked like something from the cutting floor of Tron, perhaps something shat out by the MCP) and the cinematography was frequently WTF, making TOS look competent by comparison.

          With that said, you kind of have to watch the first two episodes if you want to comprehend TNG. So if anyone was thinking of skipping them, don'

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by Anonymous Coward

            That might be because there was no CG in the first season of TNG. If you couldn't tell, then you're a fucking moron and supremely unqualified to critique anything.

            • That might be because there was no CG in the first season of TNG.

              Really? The web wasn't done with computer imagery? I didn't assert 3D. I know explosions and whatnot are practical through most of the series.

            • That might be because there was no CG in the first season of TNG.

              The crystalline entity was CGI.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • What's wrong with the premise? If you're asking yourself "How can you build a civilization that communicates in metaphor?" you're asking the wrong question.

              Oh, sorry, I want at least the slightest nod to science in my science fiction.

              • Re: (Score:1)

                by Anonymous Coward

                The fact that so much technology has been pursued or invented based on stuff seen in Star Trek means that it's the most SciFi of any other show. I'll give you a hint: Babylon 5 didn't inspire the creation of the space shuttle, cell phones, PDAs, tablet computers, voice recognition, computer language translators, etc., Star Trek did.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by kuzb ( 724081 )

                  "The fact that so much technology has been pursued or invented based on stuff seen in Star Trek means that it's the most SciFi of any other show"

                  No it really doesn't. It's as much bullshit as any other science fiction show out there. All scifi has "magic" in it so the story can be furthered. Frankly, Star Trek has an inordinately large amount of bullshit - but it's entertainment. Half the problems are solved with auxillary power, the deflector dish, a force field, or telling the engineers to redefine th

                • The fact that so much technology has been pursued or invented based on stuff seen in Star Trek means that it's the most SciFi of any other show. I'll give you a hint: Babylon 5 didn't inspire the creation of the space shuttle, cell phones, PDAs, tablet computers, voice recognition, computer language translators, etc., Star Trek did.

                  And Star Trek did? [Citation needed]. Noam Chomsky was building generative grammars in 1957 to try to solve the language translation problem, which time machine did he use to watch Star Trek? Walkie-talkies were in use during WWII, and communicators were just miniature walkie-talkies (notice how onboard the original Enterprise, they still used wall-units to communicate). In fact, while the premise of the original series was summarised as "Wagon Train in space", it was really "Wagon Train on a battleship in

                  • In fact, while the premise of the original series was summarised as "Wagon Train in space", it was really "Wagon Train on a battleship in space".

                    A wagon train is sort of like a fleet. It's responsible for its own defense; you can't call in the cavalry, because radio hasn't been invented yet. And it's invading someone else's territory.

                • Star Trek had plenty of cool ideas that have become reality, but every one of those ideas existed before Star Trek... it just made them more widely known, so it's a bit of a stretch to say it inspired all those ideas.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by kuzb ( 724081 )

          "It was also uplifting escapism entertainment that could still do serious drama, something I think we've lost with the current emphasis on dark violent dramas"

          A lot of your argument is good, but fuck this statement. My biggest complaint with star trek has always been that it tends to cater to the "can't we all just get along?" bullshit far too much instead of focusing more on how human beings (and societies as we know them) really are. This is why the most critically acclaimed star trek episodes are almos

        • First of all, you've got TNG classified in the wrong category. It's not science fiction, it's a drama set on a spaceship. Where's the science? There's no science in it, the writers famously wrote "technobabble" as a placeholder in their scripts and later some tech expert would come up with something meaningless like "the power of the resistors is fluctuating in a quantum state." The writers were adamant that they weren't writing science fiction, in fact they looked on sci-fi authors as some sort of less

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Bobtree ( 105901 )

            Star Trek TNG is science fiction because it explores the social issues of living in a future with FTL space travel, alien life, teleportation, replicators, communicators, tricorders, holograms, AI, androids, insecure computers, and so on. The science in science fiction can be fictional. More notably, Trek content routinely features scientists and engineers as main characters, with exploration and scientific and social progress as core themes.

            • Star Trek was fine science fiction, but it was soft science fiction, and the science part of the fiction wasn't often the core of the story, nor what made the show good.

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • It had more than its share of gimmicks (engineering failures used as plot devices, apparently the concepts of fail safe and even the lowly circuit breaker don't exist in the 24th Century) but on balance it stands the test of time.

          What annoyed me the most is that no prisoner could ever be contained. Every. Single. Prisoner. Left. Their. Cell. Every. Fucking. Time.

          Really? They don't know how to do security? Oy oy oy.

      • ...If only some film maker would get a kickstarter program going to make something by the masters: Heinlein, Asimov, etc .... Those guys wrote great stories and in this day and age, shouldn't be a problem bringing it to the screen.

        Be careful what you wish for, Hollywood has mangled many of my favorite SF. That said, I think the state of special effects is such that Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad is now doable. I've always thought it would make a great TV series.

      • I always felt TNG was really flat, the acting was so cold and stale. The movies were fine, but not the TV series.

      • The problem is that Star Trek isn't a very good science fiction premise.

        Premise is largely irrelevant; it's more about the execution with special attention to commanding performances and excellent writing. The problem with Star Trek (and I've seen every episode of every incarnation and all the films) is that it's hit and miss with the acting and writing. I kinda like the premise, as most sci-fi is about "us" versus "them". The concept of exploration, the search for knowledge and the betterment of the human race and the galaxy as one large community is something everyone on this

      • The problem is that Star Trek isn't a very good science fiction premise.

        Really good science fiction isn't really about the space exploration or the robots, or the time travel, or what have you. Really good science fiction uses those features to make you think about things that you might not otherwise have context to think about.

        When you watch Star Trek, the original series especially, you really need to take it in with the culture of the time. It was a time when racism was normal, and women were treated as second-class citizens. Star Trek presented a scenario where men and wome

    • The original acting was pretty bad as well. Not to mention the sets, the entire premise (Really, the Captain, First Officer and Chief Doctor of a star ship beams down to $random planet in T-shirts? What Starfleet manual did that come out of?).It was the time and place that made Star Trek what is was. This was 1966. We hadn't made it to the moon but NASA was on a roll. 2001 hadn't even hit the screens.

      The stories really don't age well, the characters really don't age well and we sure the hell didn't ag

      • Re:Now they just need intensity from the actors. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @07:22PM (#49057349) Journal

        I watched Doomsday Machine a few months ago, and within 5 minutes I'd forgotten about the mid 60s sets and effects. The story and acting was that good.

        • But. But. They did it again [wikipedia.org].

          Captain Kirk beams over to the Constellation with Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy, Chief Engineer Scott and a damage control team to investigate.

          I guess it's a set-setting thing. I did a lot more pot back then.

          What were you smoking?

      • The original acting was pretty bad as well. Not to mention the sets, the entire premise (Really, the Captain, First Officer and Chief Doctor of a star ship beams down to $random planet in T-shirts? What Starfleet manual did that come out of?).It was the time and place that made Star Trek what is was. This was 1966. We hadn't made it to the moon but NASA was on a roll. 2001 hadn't even hit the screens.

        The stories really don't age well, the characters really don't age well and we sure the hell didn't age well.

        Ultimately, that's the problem. I thought the original Star Trek was great. But, it was 1966 and I was 12 years old. In reality, the "good old days" never actually existed and they weren't actually as good as we remember them.

        A faithful re-creation of the original Star Trek is NOT a good idea. There simply have been too many advances in the last 40 years. The cheap sets, cheesey special effects and bad acting just aren't tolerable any more.

        • There simply have been too many advances in the last 40 years. The cheap sets, cheesey special effects and bad acting just aren't tolerable any more.

          Either they're still tolerable or you haven't been watching much television lately. There are a lot of good shows, but holy shit, the majority are pretty awful. I think of ToS more as on-screen theater than some gritty, brutally-realistic drama. It's like Shakespeare. You gotta watch it with a certain perspective and malleability in order to enjoy it.

        • Maybe not to you, but I've seen the three episodes of "Star Trek Continues" and I thought they were great. Yes, the acting the isn't always the best, but the effort faithfully created the look and feel of the original show and the stories were really good. You might not like it or think it's a good idea, but other people, like me, disagree with you, and are willing to finance the project so that it can continue. Therefore, it is a good idea.

      • Have you watched many 60's shows lately? TOS may not be great but it is far from bad when measured against other 60's shows. Batman, Bewitched, Colombo, I don't see them aging any better, but I recently watched "The Devil in the Dark" (lava monster protecting its children) and thoroughly enjoyed it. There are of course a lot of bad episodes but there are also a lot of good ones. TNG, VOY, DS9, and practically any other show is the same, there are a few gems, most of them are serviceable episodes and som

      • Gee, a television show shouldn't feature its stars performing most of the action? The thing that ticks me off more than anything else about criticism of shows like Star Trek is people who refuse to acknowledge the trade-offs that needed to be made to make a _television show_ 50 years ago. Sure, let's have Ensign Ricky and a team of redshirts we don't care about be the away team because that's more realistic, and no one is interested in watching the show.

  • Oh good! (Score:4)

    by eyenot ( 102141 ) <eyenot@hotmail.com> on Saturday February 14, 2015 @06:32PM (#49057155) Homepage

    Out of the like, 3 of these continuation series that I took a look at a couple of years ago, this was IMHO the best one that was getting the least attention. I'm glad to hear that they've made it through their kickstarter.

  • Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Saturday February 14, 2015 @07:14PM (#49057323) Journal
    Sometimes the thing that makes a series a classic is the finite nature of its run.

  • I thought these were of good quality and are looking forward to the next episodes. However I really do not understand the fixation with all these fan productions and the current Star Trek franchise to have to reuse the original characters. Why not new characters and stories on a similar ship.

    I would really rather see 24th century fan productions with new characters, a different ship or space station. New DS9 episodes with different characters would be good to. They could even have the original DS9/Voyag

    • You might like http://starshipfarragut.com/ [starshipfarragut.com]

  • Dang, another lost generation. STTOS is a lost art, apparently. At least amongst the /. crowd.

  • I swear the title ended with stretch goats and wondered if another meme had whooshed over my hat but yeah, never mind...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tepples ( 727027 )

      I swear the title ended with stretch goats and wondered if another meme had whooshed over my hat

      The only "stretch goats" meme on Slashdot is Goatse, and that's highly not safe for work.

  • How did they secure the rights to make these episodes? You'd think that would be the most expensive and most restrictive part.

    • How did they secure the rights to make these episodes? You'd think that would be the most expensive and most restrictive part.

      They didn't. CBS or Paramount or whoever generally turns a blind eye to projects like these as long as they don't make any money. Other than the recent films (which arguably are only Star Trek in name), the franchise is dead. It's possible even that they're keeping an eye on how the public receives it in consideration of creating a new official television series. I think if there is to be a new series they should put it on HBO and go for broke. Good actors, good writers, the occasional full-frontal and behe

  • It's the geek's time-honored right to rant and whine that Big Media produces nothing but remakes and sequels. But when given the chance to show what he can do, it always Star Trek: Back To The Future.

    • It's the geek's time-honored right to rant and whine that Big Media produces nothing but remakes and sequels. But when given the chance to show what he can do, it always Star Trek: Back To The Future.

      It is ironic, though it may be because the Big Media remakes and sequels are often so shitty that we geeks spend the remainder of our lives trying desperately to scrub their memories from our minds. For example, if Alien 3 and 4 had been as good as the first two I would be cool with a new one every few years until the end of time. Another issue is that people tend to think sequels and remakes come at the cost of the exclusion of new/original works. As if making Star Wars XIV somehow prevents someone else fr

      • As if making Star Wars XIV somehow prevents someone else from making a Heinlein film.

        Which it does, to an extent.

        At one end there's a limited amount of production capacity - studios, render farms, key grips & best boys (whatever the hell they are).

        At the other the public have a limited disposable income to spend on tickets, figurines and stuff.

        Something has to give.

  • Please, for the love of Pete's sake, either get a steady cam or don't attempt the "lead the actors down the hall with the camera while they're talking" shot. There was one shot so bad that it totally pulled me out of the scene. I think the camera guy might have stumbled or ran into someone. It was that bad.

    • In the TOS episode "'The changeling", we follow behind Nomad as it moves down the corridor. You can clearly see that the camera is tilted a little bit, as the camera mount doesn't seem to be able to handle all the weight. At the time, you might have just dismissed it as the crazy 60's camera angle photography that you often see in the old batman shows, but Star Trek never really did that, so it's really out of character. The episode is still one of the best anyway....
    • Or be faithful to the technology of the time and put the camera on a dolly. Even just glue three casters onto a cheap tripod....

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