FanMade: New Phase II Enterprise + OGAM on DVD

This weekend both of the high profile fan-made productions, Star Trek Phase II and Of Gods and Men, will be holding showings at Dragon*Con in Atlanta. Both productions have also just released news, with Phase II unveiling their new USS Enterprise and OGAM announcing plans for a DVD.


 

New Phase II Enterprise
As we have previously reported, Star Trek Phase II (formerly Star Trek New Voyages) is taking the ‘post TOS season 3 concept’ further and trying to bridge the gap between The Original Series and Star Trek The Motion Picture. A big step in that will be the evolution of the USS Enterprise herself. In the upcoming two-part episode "Blood and Fire" (showing at Dragon Con this weekend and premiering online this Fall), the ship gets damaged, and in the follow-up episode "Enemy: Starfleet" we will see a repaired and modified Enterprise, which very much has elements of the original Phase II design from the 70s as well as TMP elements. This new Phase II Enterprise was designed by our friend Daren Dochterman, who worked on the digitally enhanced Star Trek The Motion Picture Director’s Edition DVD. Here are a couple of shots of the new E, sent to us by producer/star James Cawley.


The new Phase II Enterprise (click to enlarge)

TrekMovie asked Dochterman to detail how he put this new Enterprise together, here is what he said:

I wanted to keep it in line with what Matt Jefferies was planning on… I used the plans that Jefferies himself drew, so the proportions are correct. There are a lot of reference pictures of the Brick Price model that was started… but they are all unfinished, unpainted, quickly assembled shots that were obviously thrown together to get approval from Roddenberry. The closest view of what they were going for was in the teaser poster painted by the late, great John Berkey… where the ship is obviously the Phase II design shown at its completion… Mike Minor also did a production painting of this version. At this point Richard Taylor and Andy Probert and the team at Robert Abel and Associates ASTRA hadn’t yet incorporated their design ideas… so this was where they started from. I also used my own design sense in incorporating some of the textures and colors from the TOS Enterprise to help bridge the 10 year gap between TOS and TMP… I can’t wait to see what Joel Bellucci and the fx guys can do with it.


Berkey TMP Teaser poster (L) &
later version of Minor painting (R), altered to more represent TMP ship
(click to enlarge)

James Cawley, along with members of his crew and the stars of previous Phase II episodes Walter Koenig and George Takei, will be on hand at Dragon Con this weekend to show and discuss both parts of "Blood and Fire." The presentation is at 7:00 PM Saturday at the Sheraton Savannah. More info at Dragon Con’s TrekTrak site. More info on Phase II, at startrekphase2.com.

 

OGAM: Wins Awards + announces DVD
The other high-profile fan series making news this week is Of Gods and Men, the now completed three part miniseries starring Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Alan Ruck and an plethora of other Trek vets. This past week SyFyPortal announced the winners of their SyFy Genre Awards, and OGAM took home the award for Best Web Production. Director Tim Russ stated on the win: 

For everyone who poured their time, energy and creativity into the making of this project, I give my sincerest congratulations.

The other big news from the OGAM team is that they just announced plans to release the mini-series on DVD. The DVD will be re-mastered and edited to 87 minutes as a single film and will include some special features.


OGAM DVD announcement

Of course selling Star Trek related material is a no-no according to CBS, and that is not the plan according to producer Sky Conway. He tells TrekMovie that they are just trying to respond to the high demand for a DVD release, which will certainly be welcome over the online streaming viewing experience. Details are still being worked out on how they can do it, but the current plan is for fans to make a charitable (and tax-deductible) donation to a non-profit and then get a ‘complimentary DVD.’ More details will be provided this Fall, and for now you can sign up for the email list to be notified when the details get worked out. More info on the DVD and more at the OGAM website.

And if you are in Atlanta this Sunday, then check out the showing of Of Gods and Men, hosted by Rus and stars Walter Koenig and Cirroc Lofton. The festivities kick off at 1:00 PM at the Sheraton Grand Ballroom, more info at TrekTrek.com.

 

More FanMade coming up
Next week FanMade will be back with more updates on other fan productions, including some exclusives from Hidden Frontier and Farragut.

 

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Cool!

The Phase II Enterprise looks interesting…..but that’d still be one heckuva refit job. One that would take quite some time, months at least. Then to do an even bigger refit just a little over a year and a half later that would take two years doesn’t seem very efficient.

I’d prefer that Phase 2 just ignore everything after Season 3 and create their own future and look.

Oh wow!

That ship looks fantastic. Just what I expected the phase II Enterprise would be like.

And dare I think it, 1st?

2#

I agree.

Ship looks great BTW, but I can’t imagine why they would refit the ship, then refit it AGAIN two years later.

Starfleet must have money to burn, oh wait, they don’t have money in the 23rd century.

Meh… the *real* Phase II ought to be taking place *AFTER* TMP, not before. They’re going way off the reservation when they didn’t need to.

Telling tales of the SECOND 5YM is a much more ‘novel’ idea… but I know then they couldn’t utilize their standing sets if they did that.

Perhaps they should have considered that more fully and called this “Phase I” instead.

#3

Darest you not, Mark. I always hit refresh when I’m that quick on the draw.

Phase II E looks great! I can’t wait to see her in action, either. Nice work, Doc.

Do those of us who were already on OGAM’s email update list get a notification about the DVD’s? Or do we have to re-register?

This is the BEST Star Trek production that I have ever seen. Maybe this should have been Trek 11. Excellent acting from the leads, great special effects. This is truly great.

Daren does amazing work. And I respect his decision to follow Matt Jefferies original drawings, but I for one am quite glad that this version never hit the screen before. It’s pretty ugly. From the seemingly randomly placed windows on the sides of the primary saucer, to the weird chevron shapes on the front sides of the nacelles. It just looks like highly unrefined to me. I’m not sure how much of the eventual refinement for TMP was directly due to Andrew Probert, but based on his drawing style, I figure he made the biggest contribution to really making the Big-E shine when it made it’s first appearance in theatres back in the 70s. Of course the ultra-detailed Aztec painting scheme really helped a lot too, but this version of 1701 just looks sad to me…

When they say “Of Gods & Men” has been “remastered,” what does that entail? Did they improve the effects or something?

Has someone already said ‘cool.’
Dang.
Still…
Cool.

and… I’m… SPENT!

whoa baby, FanMade happenings seriously make my day. And I have submitted a proposal for “FanMade® by hitch1969© at trekmovies dot com” which essentially puts me in the driver’s seat of this column. Which also, when approved, will make me equally as excited. in tandem and conjunction. Big words n stuff.

THE WOMEN!!

=h=

#11

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

8 – This design had many features that were revised further to get the Star Trek: TMP enterprise.

When you consider that it was designed for a TV budget rather than a movie budget, what they did to update the design makes sense.

The rendering looks FANTASTIC! Looks as if Jefferies made it himself. Kudos.

I’m sorry but that looks awful. The design was never intended to carry over the TOS aesthetic, and they just don’t work together.

Also, the idea of trying to shoehorn in the failed phase 2 concepts into existing canon just doesn’t work. I could see incorporating a few TMP bits into the classic Enterprise, but this is neither logical or inspired.

A nice ‘in-between” look. I guess Starfleet decided they’d save some pennies patching up the Big E for the time being and use it to test out some new tech, figuring that it’d get a complete overhaul 18 months later

KUDOS to the James Cawley and crew!
F-A-N-T-A-S-T-A-C-T-I-C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#2 Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. I’m surprised that Cawley is going in this direction, as I always thought he was more of a TOS purist. Considering Phase II was never produced, he’s essentially making stuff up now instead of seemingly continuing the original mission. I’m curious to see how it turns out.

Way to go, James (and crew), looks GREAT!

Always great to see work that respects the original designs and the original designers. If its trying to be “Star Trek” (colon nothing), then visually it must begin and end with Matt Jefferies. Its so great to see this version of the Enterprise given life. Terrific work, Daren.

The franchise suffered through 25 years worth of episodes of trek (7 years each for 3 series and 4 years for Enterprise)(Plus six trek movies) over the course of 17 years. We have pages of posts of fans slamming Nemesis. If anyone has any background in business please confirm what I’m saying. The market was over-saturated with trek over the last twenty years. These fan made productions do not help JJ Abrams to reinvent the franchise. Someone at CBS needs to step in and take charge. Is there anyone over there with the title BOSS?

Daren, I love it!!!
You’ve obviously studied all the source material well, down to the round torp tubes. But wasn’t there supposed to be one instead of two?

If you go by their time frame it’s more like 7 years not 2, the Enterprise was suppose to have completed a second 5 Year mission inbetween the series and the Motion Picture.

An interesting ship, however one of the major concerns from fans who first watched TMP was that the engine nacelles lost the colorful rotation effects in the bussard collectors.

The rest of the ship being redesigned didn’t really cause the consternation that changing the engine design once did.

Nice work from the Dochter, though.

I like this version of the E! Nicely done.

That looks pretty sweet. A nice halfway point.

Now I’m waiting to see which news website picks these up as the JJ Enterprise first…

I just don’t understand why they will license books, comics, games and even recreated music scores for commercial release but not videos. So many Trek veterans are involved in both of these productions so it is getting harder to call these anything other than professionally produced. Should be a Win-Win for CBS/Paramount and they take a royalty in for something they put $0 into. But hey, what do I know? they’ve certainly been doing a great job over the last few years with the franchise right? ;-)

Hi Thomas Jensen (24) Gotta say I never liked the glowing nacelle tips. I vastly preferred the look of the movie Enterprise and Excesior. The orangce-glowing nacelle tips in the TNG era really annoyed me and felt like a backwards step!

And Michael (27) if you allow a fan production like Of Gods and Men a licence, why not new Voyages/Phase II or Starship Exeter or any of the other fan productions. Where do you draw the line? Paramount owns the copyright for Trek and perfectly sensibly wants to keep it for themselves: after all, they’re making their own Star Treks. The last thing any business would want to do is farm out the name to anybody and everybody, potentially diluting their franchise. The fan films are fan films. Some are very good, some are not so good. They are what they are and none the worse for it!

Snazzy!

So, just to clarify, the Phase II ship is canon?

Revisionist history is illogical.

Whatever about the pointlessness of the re-fit, they did a nice job, I must say.

Well done.
Nice to see how a gap in the Trek universe can be so cleverly and creatively filled – even when it tests the so-called canon. After all Trek is about good story telling with strong characters, and many of us are eager to explore those missing pieces. My complements to Cawley et al. for having the courage and imagination to take on the task.

I do have one request for those gifted effects artists out there. It would be a nice treat if someone were to create a high quality inspection type flyby (a la Star Trek: The Motion Picture) of the original Enterprise. Just a little something to say farewell to the old girl before her re-imagined version hits the big screen.

Some Star Wars fans need to make an internet production of a Star Wars story. See how fast Lucas pounces on you with lawyers and lightsabers. He used to understand how not to over-saturate the market with his product. I don’t know these days with this new animated movie.

Just one question. Why is the refit being done by piecemeal, such as, just the engines now, the saucer later, the deflector dish after that. My thought of a refit was, a ship goes into spacedock for a year or two and they do all the upgrades at once? No? Too logical?

Nice job, Phase II – you guys keep getting better and better at this thing!

I really like the design of the Enterprise, but the blue domes…they need to be toned down so that they don’t match the color on the warp nacelles, or go back to a yellowish color like the orignal.

Wow. I’m really not sure how I feel about this version of the Big E.

I like Daren’s work and I’m all for updating TOS for the 21st century but it feels a little … clunky? I don’t have a word to descibe my reaction at this point. I don’t hate it but I’m not in love with it either….

Gonna make it my desktop wallpaper to give my eye some time to get used to it…

Could they release the movies to youtube or whatever? I’d like to watch them.

@37 – Agreed. Can we see it in motion?

#33. In the episodes “Blood and Fire” and “Enemy Starfleet” the ship is heavily damaged. So, while the ship is being repaired, why wouldn’t Starfleet use uprated components?

To all,

During the original 3 year run, the Enterprise was constantly upgraded. Look at the Pilot version of the ship, vs. the “Where No Man Has Gone Before” version, vs. the 1st Season version, vs. the 2nd and 3rd year versions of the ship.

The bridge was changed, Sickbay changed, the Transporter room changed…

Starfleet CONSTANTLY upgrades the ships, as does our own Navy.

There’s no inconsistency here. Especially since the new Nacelles could have been designed as “Plug-in” replacements for the older ones, and exterior hull changes are just changing plates. A large enough engineering crew could have made all the changes in a month or two.

And the crew would have either pitched in, or gotten some needed shore leave.

#30

Calling make-believe pretend stuff “history” isn’t logical, either.

if anyone wants to “give” me a free DVD of any of these fine productions, i will gladly “give” them a donation equal or above whatever the thieves at paramount charge for garbage like “Nemesis: The Producer’s Cut”.

phase II ent looks mighty fine. i think it’s a hoot that one of the last things to go is the very 1950’s deflector dish though. shoving it back into the hull is a good start, i guess. the future sure is weird.

That ship looks amazing! It’s nice to see the Phase II prototype actually fleshed out and given life. Cheers!

39. Didn’t Will Decker oversee the refit of Enterprise? He told Kirk how he knew everything about the Enterprise, that it had been totally redesigned. How could he if the refit was done over time, piece by piece? What then did the “official” refit consist of?

CBS/Paramount will not allow this DVD sale to happen. People are very touchy about their creations or concepts they own, even if they are giving it away for free themselves. A group who created the greatest free Bible study program of all time got miffed when I distributed it on CD for free. The problem? Yes, I wasn’t charging anything for the program or the media, but I was distributing it with a small ‘Compliments of..[my company name].” at the bottom of the disk’s packaging.

A cease and desist order came very quickly. This was 2004 and I live in a town of 1500 people. Word gets out quickly these days.

My guess is CBS/Paramount’s reaction will be much swifter and very devastating. Don’t look for this to fly at all.

Phase II Enterprise… fascinating…

This is like a dream come true. Like James Cawley, I’ve been obsessed with the “Lost Generation” of Trek and I’m happy to see that version of the ship see the light of day in an actual production. I also like that Dochterman brought a bit of his design aesthetic to Jefferies’ original design; although, I’m not sure about the nacelle caps but they do invoke a 70s flare. It’ll probably grow on me when I see the ship in action.

Good job, Darren!

Stunted duck

I think Phase II is cool, but I had always assumed that they parked the ship in spacedock looking basically like it did in TOS. Then the ship is totally refit into what Kirk drove out of spacedock chasing V’Ger.

But then I though she was built in space too.

And if my Grandmother had wheels she’d be a wagon.

My guess about James Cawley’s decision to go ahead with the Phase II storyline is to avoid having to listen to the majority of nattering naybobs disapproval of his work.