New Documentary Short “Our Star Trek: The Fifty Year Mission” Focuses on Fan Series Star Trek Continues

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“Star Trek – it’s iconic, but many misunderstand its meaning,” quoth the creators of a documentary short released today entitled Our Star Trek: The Fifty Year Mission. What does Star Trek and the vision of creator Gene Roddenberry mean to fans that watch the series’ (old and new) in the modern era? That’s the question fueling the 10 minute film, which follows the cast and crew of the fan series Star Trek Continues. Hit the jump to watch the film.

Our Star Trek: The Fifty Year Mission
A new documentary short film Our Star Trek: The Fifty Year Mission centered around fan series Star Trek Continues debuted today on Vimeo. Writer/Producer Erik Lee hopes that the new short film will help spread the vision of Gene Roddenberry by teaching people a little bit about what Trek means to fans and superfans today. Lee told TrekMovie:

My team has produced this documentary short film about what Star Trek is about and the humans who create it. I truly believe the film has a chance of doing some good, even in a very small way, by spreading Gene Roddenberry’s vision in a simple and sharable way.

Our Star Trek was shot on the set of Star Trek Continues during production of their latest episode “The White Iris”, which is set to debut this Friday at Phoenix Comicon (6:00PM Arizona time). TrekMovie’s own Kayla Iacovino (yours truly) was also on set for booth shoots. Eagle-eyed viewers can catch her in both films!


 

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They may not be Shatner and Nimoy but they do re-create the magic!

TOS era is the wackiest, most epic period imo.

Quite worthy of a look, IMHO.

I feel like the biggest appeal to Star Trek TOS is the sense of adventure and the characters. Of course the stories for the most part were well written. For a low budget show TOS was pretty ambition and had everything you could dream of for a space adventure show. It had episodes dealing with time travel, alternate universe, alien occupation, cloaking device, space battles, genetic engineering, and other great sci fi concept. It’s pretty obvious science fiction in those days were influence by what was going on in the world.

I feel like different people did a great job with the franchise. Rick Berman was good with TNG, Ira Ber did a good job with DS9, and Manny Coto was doing a good job over seeing Enterprise. I enjoyed Voyager, but it lost a few points for not sticking to it’s premise.

Their episodes have been fantastic. They really have continued the spirit of TOS and their acting and production values are superb.

I recently binge – watched episodes 1 to 3 again. My wife thought it was a new TV series and had no idea it was a fan show.

I’ve been known to be harsh on the Trek movies and spinoff shows but there’s something special about Star Trek Continues. I look forward to seeing more episodes. Great job Vic!

@ all: Have you heard of the first critics of Star Trek: Renegades from the preview viewing @Fedcon Germany? Seems like it is really, really bad movie. And the problems are not small problems like bad special effects. The script is the problem! They say the story is confused and doesn’t make any sense. It isn’t understandable how it is possible that they worked so long on it which such a terrible result.

And in the comments section they say: “So maybe we should look forward to Star Trek Beyond again? ;)”

Just wanted you to know about it.

Nicely done, but more like a “vic mingoga” documentation – the others didn´t have much to say it seems. Sad that its only STC and not the rest of the indy fan production scene as well. Mentioning the vast landscape of other fan projects or showing some bits of them wouldn´t have cost them a dime. And I´m sure all other projects would have welcomed them as well.

The way it is it just feels like a 10 minute STC promo – which is of course fine, but then I would advertise it as such and not “this documentary film explores the people who create Star Trek today and their quest to get it right.” – which would include a lot more people.

@stephan – I´ve found only one review for Renegades, which seemed to be quite positive: http://www.scififantasynetwork.com/star-trek-renegades-pre-premiere-at-fedcon-24/

Vic, we’re gonna have to imprint your m-grams on the useless brains of the suits at Paramount and CBS so that just MAYBE we’ll get some promotion and excitement for the next feature film and Trek in general. Seriously, you guys have done more promotion for STC in two months than Paramount has done for the franchise in the past two years.

oops — meant ‘engrams.’
While I’m at it, can you guys put out a cartoon series and a line of toys?? I miss those and have a 7-year-old boy who I keep telling needs to build Daddy a starship. Toys would help so much to bring him up right.

I found this incredibly heart warming. Great Job.

@Bill Murray – May 26, 2015

I’m not stephan, but it is obvious that he refers to this link:

http://www.robots-and-dragons.de/artikel/15673-star-trek-renegades-eindruecke-vom-fedcon-screening

Im Deutschen lügt man, wenn man höflich ist.
(Faust 2)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Looking forward to this! STC is like having TOS: Remastered season four. I wish CBS would get the audio for TAS out of mothballs and make a CGI Star Trek: Reanimated series. Add a few new guest voices to replace the massive number of Doohan/Barrett characters and we’d have 22 episodes that would appeal to the demographic that likes The Clone Wars and Rebels.

#8 northstar

This is my reaction too, I completely agree with you.

test

Space magic, adventure, ‘beyond the ratings’ stories… AWESOME! Melllvar sums it up nicely: “They may not be Shatner and Nimoy but they do re-create the magic!”

Whatever the 50th Anniversary brings (or not), celebrate WE will. Star Trek continues…

Northstar and IDIC:

The headline itself says the doc focuses on STC. If you are making a 10 minute documentary it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to fly all over the country to film interviews. Maybe STC was closest to where the documentarian lives?

#18 THX 1138

You make a good point but why not honestly call it a documentary style promotional for STC?

I like STC, I’m not making a big deal of this, no use to debate it, it is simply how I see it. It is meant to appeal to our emotional love of Star Trek (and it does), but it also seems a promo and thus a wee bit manipulative somehow.

But no big deal, you might be right entirely.

Vic & Company are doing a great job with Star Trek Continues. I gave to the Kirkstarter because of the quality of their work. Hats off to them and everyone who works on the show to bring quality Star Trek to the fans.

I’ve tried some of the other fan shows… and they are just too campy for me. I admire all of the fan shows though for their dedication and the fact that they make no money and spend their own money to create these shows. There is plenty of room for all of these shows on the Internet. Kudos to CBS for allowing access to their property.

12. Bill Murray – May 26, 2015

Yes, odradek did provide the correct link.

http://www.robots-and-dragons.de/artikel/15673-star-trek-renegades-eindruecke-vom-fedcon-screening

The review says that a lot of plot points feel very forced as well as the dark atmosphere which sometimes even come accross as unintentionally funny. And too many characters are bloating the story.

But interesting to hear about other reviews. This reviewer really seemed disappointed.

I think the STC production is located close to where the documentary filmmakers live which is why they chose STC. I dunno how anyone could expect additional fan shows to make it into the documentary film without more time, travel and money. It’d been nice to see though. Bravo for what they were able to produce.

The title to this article is very misleading. That’s a promo video, not a documentary.

Would love to know more about the performer of the theme the end credits music. Sean Tomson?

@ 23 – Stephan
I think that (indeed, surprisingly dark) one forgot that it’s a low budget ‘pilot’.

This article starts with a drawing. Made me dream about a new animated series; somebody kick that please. Also, wouldn’t it be interesting to see ‘the 5 Year Mission’ crew meet another alien who explains they are on a boldly ‘50 Year Mission’ (maybe a cultural thing and ’cause that race lives longer).

15.
I agree with you Dom. I would love to see the animated series get a major makeover. 22 hour long episodes with new animation or perhaps live action. That is year 4. Then do the computer games 25th anniversary edition, Judgement Rites and Secret of Vulcan Fury and there is the 5th year. It would be glorious. Star Trek Continues looks really good. They seem very faithful to Star Trek. I wish them continued good fortune.

In agreement with #8 and #16.

Love it!

Great doc of a great Trek series!

It’s a breath of fresh air whenever STC puts something out.

Trek is not dead as long as these folks are about it.

And yes, I spied Kayla’s backwards robot walk in this!

28. Optimistic Doodle – May 26, 2015

“@ 23 – Stephan
I think that (indeed, surprisingly dark) one forgot that it’s a low budget ‘pilot’”

No, the article stated, that the settings, sets, special effects and the acting were very good. By “dark” the tone of the film was meant. The story was dark but not in a good way.

33. Stephan
OK, thanks for the clarity.
Overall positive reviews. Guess we’ll all have to wait for the final version to watch the pilot ourselves.

Always happy to see more Trek, keep it coming in 2016 ;-)

@odradek – thanks for the link.

not sure how it’s “obvious” that’s was what stephan was referencing. ;)

STC: ‘White Iris’ link is online:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUg8-Tz69_I

LLAP

Audio doesn’t wok.

B kramer

Watched it the other night when Wyatt (STC actor who plays Chekov) posted it on his fb page. I got lost in it in a way that made me feel like I was watching a new TOS episode. Amazing!

That’s great PEB. I enjoyed it too.

LLAP