Star Trek Phase II Re-Launches With New Vignette Featuring New Kirk + Refit Enterprise & more

Earlier in the summer the popular fan series Star Trek Phase II announced the recasting of their Captain Kirk. And tonight they released a new video vignette to re-launch the series which featuring Brian Gross’ Kirk along with their newly refit USS Enterprise. There is also another new member of their bridge crew which is going to blow you away. Watch it below .

 

 

Star Trek Phase II re-launches with new Captain Kirk and New USS Enterprise

Star Trek Phase II producer (and original Kirk) James Cawley has just sent over a link to this “Going Boldly” vignette which he is calling a “re-launch” for the fan series. It features Brian Gross as the new Kirk addressing his crew and it also shows off the newly re-fit design for the USS Enterprise. Pretty cool stuff.

The previously announced big change to the series was bringing on actor Brian Gross to step into the role of James T. Kirk, played in all previous episodes by producer James Cawley. Gross’ first episode will be “Bread and Savagery” which recently finished shooting. There are still a couple of episodes featuring Cawley that have yet to be released before his introduction as Kirk.

It is also interesting to see how the fan series which launched as Star Trek: New Voyages in 2004 continues to evolve. This new vignette demonstrates how the series is trying to move closer to the Star Trek: The Motion Picture era. Phase II’s Enterprise is now a step towards the full TMP refit.

It was actually four years ago that the Phase II team first announced their intentions to ‘refit’ their Enterprise, but that original plan was eventually put aside, until now.

The show has also brought on board a crewmember from the Star Trek animated series in the 1970s. The three-armed tri-pedal Edosian navigator Arex joins the cast, thanks to the CGI work done by Tobias Richter. Adding Arex was announced back in 2010 and he was originally supposed to come on board for “The Child,” which was released earlier this year.

For more info on the series visit the official site.

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It is nice to see several fans series.

But how do they pay for all this?

Awesome!

@1 Lost incan gold ;)

Love that Chris Doohan who contributed the voice of Arex is working with both STP2 and STC. Very Classy guy!

I think I’ll like this new Captain. Cool seeing Arex, and the effects are very well done. Looking forward to seeing what they do with this.

The detail is pretty amazing. The TWOK music really gets your heart racing! Spacedock is inside an asteroid?

Still not that Keane on the acting style but, the visuals continue to impress, and that reveal of the refitted enterprise and its jump to warp was incredibile.

Just out of curiousty is Arex’s voice someone filling in with a scratch V.O. track, for who you ultimately cast as him ? Or is that the actual voice over actor?

Just wonderful!
Very well written. Way to go PHASE II!!!

Any chance of getting those Enterprise shots as shiny wallpapers? :D

Much better, will be watching more.

A few things to be careful of:
– Avoid having the camera pointing up for conversations, normally this is used for making subjects seem more powerful and seems out of place here.
– Light the backwall white to avoid shadows and give it amore studio feel. Blue light looks out of place on the ship.
– Add movement to conversations: walking down corridor, walking around table whilst talking and show some full length shots as well.

Cool! I like the progression between TOS and TMP. The TOS/TMP Enterprise hybrid is a bit odd though. Also, that spacedock was originally planned for TMP but was first seen onscreen as a Tholian dock housing the TOS Defiant in the “Enterprise” episodes “In A Mirror, Darkly” parts one and two.

@7 That was Chris Doohan who is Scotty in STC and son of James Doohan that portrayed both roles

@10 as this was not a full episode, we will more of those types of conversations that you brought up in the future

Thanks and keep watching

You guys never cease to impress me. Can’t wait for more.

WOW !!!!!

You know, the competition between the fan crews on these new series is really making for near-professional Trek series now.

Cawley — I love the new great — great and BOLD move, dude! I am going to make another new donation.

PS: And the “hybrid” Enterprise is GENIUS !!!!!

Very nice!

Regards.

@14 meant to say “Cawley — I love the new Kirk — great and BOLD move, dude!”

I think they erred with the hybrid Enterprise. If it already has the TMP nacelles, what exactly was brand new in ST:TMP that caused so much trouble with the wormhole and what-not? They should have used the old glowing nacelles but added the glowing deflector as the bridge between TOS and TMP (which looks a lot more modern than the silly 1950s radar dish of TOS). That would fit with Scotty’s comment that “the new engines haven’t even been tested at warp speed” in TMP.

@10 Spot on observations. New Voyages/Phase II is the fan series that drives me to drink… they are always right on the cusp of awesome, then dodgy production practices creep in and I start nitpicking.

However, my biggest problems with NV/PII have always been more about editing and writing issues which result in a lot of bloat. This vignette could easily have been tighter and cut down to 6 minutes or so… Now I do understand the first half of the vignette was a farewell to people lost on the production… so fine, leave the funeral in and have Kirk’s final speech over a montage of the ship preparing to leave drydock.

Unfortunately, we had a complete extraneous scene between Kirk and the Admirals. Most of the information they provided had been imparted to the audience so there’s really no reason for it… It’s what I call New Voyages “Kitchen Sink Syndrome” where we throw every fanboy wet dream on the screen… oh look the Guardian of Forever, and we have not one but TWO Doomsday Machines!!! This series has always worked best with smaller character driven episodes like “To Serve All My Days” and “World Enough and Time.”

I will be honest… I got so used to James Cawley as Kirk it will take some getting used to for the new guy, but he does show some promise… but I do think he’s holding back a little and needs to be a little more brash! And I’m pleased as heck to see John Kelly back as McCoy.

Look closely these are not the TMP engines, but as the dialogue states “Experimental prototypes” that could lead to a fleet wide refit…

@19 Please no TMP PJs James. LOL!

“Come on dude, I just made a SPEECH! Don’t let me look like a D-bag to my crew!”

“Drake.. Magellan… Archer… I am way cooler than those guys. I just HAVE to go to deep space!”

What is coming up will blow your minds and socks off

It’s plenty cool but… why does Checkov have a boob arm?

Having now starting going through TOS in HD, and watching this WOWWOWOWWO!

Very, very nice FX work..and seeing Arex was a very pleasant surprise. Did Daren Dochterman do the new Enterprise FX?

This is near perfection!

Nope… I didn’t do these effects, these are all the great Tobias Richter and his “The Light Works” company. :)

LOVING the evolutionary attention given to Big E; gorgeous work by all involved. The new (old?) photon tubes were completely unexpected and particularly awesome.

Well done!

Amazing CGI! Better than what we see on actual TV productions. And nice homage to the Enterprise shots from TMP. And loved, loved, LOVED the asteroid spacedock…which if I’m not mistaken was based very closely on the early Ralph McQuarrie design concepts for the first movie.

Also liked the more sophisticated lighting on the bridge set.

Struggled with the transition from the stripped down orchestrations of a 60’s TV score to the James Horner material from a 1982 theatrical release and back again.

This is pretty random but kept thinking Dean Cain was over-dubbing Kirk’s lines.

But all in all, an impressive step forward for Phase II. (Speaking of which…sneaking the series name into the dialog was pretty clever.)

Nicely done! Very cool, indeed.

They even made Lt. Arex plausible (kudos Chris Doohan). ;-)
Brian Goss’ Kirk will take a bit of time to get used to; he’s solid, but almost a bit too boy scout; too earnst. I think James Cawley had a bit of Shatner’s world-weariness in his Kirk. Goss’ Kirk is good, but he needs to get just a wee bit more of that Shatner ‘je ne sais quois.’ Cawley understood what it is; my guess is Goss will in time as well…. I’m certainly hopeful.

All in all, a BEAUTIFULLY made vignette that has me thoroughly stoked for more Phase II. I’m just so glad that STP2 and STC can coexist side by side and that I can choose to watch them both (it’s not as if they’re on competing networks or anything, thank goodness!).

Way to go, P2 crew…. ;-)

@17 Prototype engines whic will eventually be redisigned into the movie-era versions. It fits very nicely with “Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise.” Look it up if you’ve never read it. It explains why the more extensive refit was needed,

@31 Absoulutely, Now we’re doubling up on Star Trek, which should all be good in the end.

Not bad. I think they need to tone the acting down 10%, just a little too much.

Spock looked a little too emotionally moved.

But ohterwise good stuff.

Woooowww No words o_O great work STPII

Superb, just superb I love it. Kind of reminds me of a star trek skit myself and some friends of mine did in high school drama class without the special effects, and sets.

#18- SPOT ON! They need to EDIT.
Arex? Wow!
Tobias’ fx: WOW!!
The PII Ent! But it shouldn’t have glowing nacelle caps, imho.
Spock- pluck those eyebrows ;)
Daren- WE NEED an HD TMP:TDE!

you cant judge the acting as if they were professional A list actors, it is sufficiant. Just enjoy the presentation. If any of us were involved our acting would be scrutinized as well. I think they did quite well.

You guys never cease to amaze me. New Kirk and a new Enterprise that symbolizes the relaunch of the Phase 2 series. Brian Gross resembles young William Shatner from the 60’s yet sounds similar to Chris Pine.

The Starbase where E undergoes her refit is quite reminiscent of the Tholian base where the Defiant is being studied in the “Mirror Darkly” arc from “Enterprise.” Very cool.

The ship looks great, Arex looks great, and the attention to detail on uniform decorations, especially when I set my Youtubes up to “11” HD was wonderful.

I am looking forward to all these (and the other) guys have in store.

Yeah, this wasn’t bad.

I do agree with what a previous posted said that they tend to be on the verge of fanboysim, so much so that it’s almost teeth-grating.

Also, I agree with what someone said about the music transitions. Would it kill them to actually use synth to create brand new musical queues that can be as iconic as the ones we already know? Nothing is wrong with using Synth. Many TV shows like Babylon 5 did and got along just fine.

I think it’ll be interesting to see how this series and Star Trek Continues progresses. It’s amazing how far fan productions have come in the past several years. I remember back in the day with that New Frontier show, it was so bad I couldn’t get much past the first season.

It’ll at least be nice getting some decent quality Star Trek, I mean, even a quasi-professional fan produced series is better than most TV shows that air these days, and its better than waiting 4 years between movies for our next dose of Trek.

I hope Star Trek Continues doesn’t do the fanboy-like stories like New Voyages tended to do (like using the Guardian of Forever). I think New Voyages should stick to more character driven type episodes.

Wow. Best piece of anything Trek i have seen since Star Trek in 2009. For a minute i forgot this was a FAN film and not something on a television station.

Love the seeing the Phase II Enterprise re-design finally onscreen after seeing the unused sketches by Matt Jefferies. And the realization of Lt. Arex was a surprise and a nice touch, as too is seeing the new Captain Kirk, who really does feel like some alternate reality young William Shatner :)

Can’t wait for more of the new Phase II episodes. Crawley and crew have really outdone themselves this time !!! :)

The new Phase II E is kinda cool but….

I still think this “1701 Prime Alternative” blows it away
http://www.mediafire.com/file/54wybly9vowxxe3/PrimeAlternative_HD.wmv

The 1701 Prime Alternative is a state of the art Three foot Studio Phy Model built by a veteran ILM model builder over the last 2 1/2 years and and due to be unvailed @ Vegas Con.

Designed* by two fanboys, one in CA and a CG artist in Fl;
by borrowing* design cues from the NX01, TMPE plus a little Kelvin, and then infused those cues into the great Matt Jeffries original design architecture.

check it out – link internal lighting animation design 1701TPA

Anonymous –

ok… time to masturbate to loving imagry… VERY impressive work, folks. I especially loved the Admiral (was he real world Military? i got that vibe that he was a Officer, active or retired). I was smiling ear to ear at his ‘Testement to THE STAR FLEET’ and swore i thought i was listing to a real world Admiral in some formation back on Ike. Very, very cool. I dont even think i got that vibe from ST2009 (but that movie had different vibs to entertain me) but this video, was even better than the STC, by no small measure. BZ, gentlemen…

Holy sh$t!!

Blown away

Arex

Newkirk

New E

And they even brought back the greatest warp effect of all time!

Lord Garth is happy
Lord Garth wants more

Wow, the Enterprise and especially Arex look off the charts amazing. Still not buying the new guy as Kirk, but hopefully he’ll grow on me.

This felt really genuine, an homage to the past (both of Phase II and Trek in general) and a bold statement about charting new beginnings. There had been some discouraging developments regarding this project of late, and I was becoming fairly convinced that its best days were probably behind it, that the energy and enthusiasm that had propelled it to occasional greatness despite the limitations of its creators had largely dissipated. In this case, I’m delighted to have been proven wrong. Phase II lives!

Fleet captain Garth back to active duty and now friends with Kirk. Interesting. I guess the treatment worked.

12 great thanks for the info. I just wasnt to make sure since its just a vignette, I was wondering if it was the voice actor you were going forward with. Chris did a great job from that brief bit of dialouge we here! cool he is going to be apart of two fan series

Awesome. Love the mood.