Ken Thomson
aka Captain Ray Martin, USS Saladin NCC-500

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdAUh8GdFj4

This show KITUMBA is gonna look GREAT!

Chekov in a red shirt means he’s going to be Security Chief as he was in ST:TMP I take it? :)

Remember, Buck Rogers in his seminal incarnation is in his early twenties. So, Bobby is in the right age range for the character.

I admit to being skeptical about Bobby’s casting too. But, Retro Films has a clear vision about this new series and I’m just going to sit back and see what they produce.

Bobby is a good guy, and I have no doubt he’ll put his best effort into the role.

I would imagine that it would make a shed load of money for both parties and we would get to see a regular supply of good, new TOS episodes.

After all, we still need our fix, and a movie every couple of years is just not good enough….

Come on Paramount, what about it?
James C., has the thought ever crossed your mind?

My deepest thanks to James and Team for what they continue to give us, for free no less!

You continue to develop and expand on your love of Star Trek as well as showing what volunteering, passion and the desire to improve can do for fan fiction. To this day, I still hold New Voyages/Phase 2 as the epitome of what fans can do.

It’s astonishing how you guys started out with an Canon XL1s, moved onto some P2-based camcorders to the uber-awesome (and last time I checked costed your soul) RED camera. Just the photos alone give your production far more “professional” level of presentation compared to a lot of professional productions (for those that don’t know, RED is a new-ish type of camera that takes HUGE photos and film speeds and creates absolutely gorgeous video, while being extremely light and has the ability to use 35mm film lenses and accessories). Star Trek TNG took forever to even get to a cinematic level that you have achieved already with only a few episodes under your belts. And the respect for quality always blows me away.

I can only hope that any production I work on in the future could be even half of what you guys are doing. And I, for one, appreciate everything you have done.

All that being said, I don’t understand why so many feel the need to bash these people who are doing a lot more than ANY other fan production has been able to do. And to reiterate, if you think you can do any better, put your money where your mouth is.

On top of that, bashing the snot out of JJ Abrams for the new movie. If you people who love bashing it had ANY understanding of what is required to get a modern-day joe-blow audience to see a movie, you would understand they had to start somewhere. And this was it. The fact it is bringing in so much money increases the chances we will see something closer to the ideals held for Trek originally. On top of all that, you pin this all on JJ Abrams, when he is also working with a script by two extremely talented individuals who UNDERSTAND how to get an audience to come back. They were also working under the watchful eye of producers who vetoed anything they felt would hurt the movies reception by modern audiences. People shouldn’t look at this movie as part of what has passed. The new movie is something new and different, and really, who are we to say that the movie’s physics are wrong when we only have an early 21st century understanding of the universe around us. Were there people in the 60s who said communicators could never happen? Did they say quantum teleportation was a myth?

Consider the movie just part of the process of bringing real human stories back to the forefront of their storytelling. They had to start somewhere.

James Cawley and his crew didn’t NEED to do that, they simply stepped in where TOS left off and, in my opinion, updated it where necessary but still told relevant tales. I’ve loved the last three episodes and look forward to seeing what new fx, acting and scripts they come up with. Any aspiring filmmaker would be wise to follow how things develop and pick up on how things change and are improved. Kind of like a ladder to see how one group evolves their products to match with improved resources.

And for anyone bellyaching about any of this, really, if you haven’t noticed, today’s television doesn’t tell much about the human condition, throw topics on their ear or force us to look at who we are; they generally lean towards telling stories for people so they can feel that someone else’s life sucks more than theirs. Personally, I can anxiously await 1 or 2 episodes a year of Phase 2 for quality story telling.