Watch: “The Bunny Incident” – A Star Trek Fan Film Starring Elementary School Kids

(Photo: Brenda Yelvington)

Just in time for Easter, today we present a new short fan film made by music students from Parkland Elementary School in Van Buren, AR. The musical film titled “The Bunny Incident,” has the crew of the original Star Trek on a mission to save the Easter Bunny from the Klingons. For a film made with a cast of 4th and 5th graders, it is impressive and even got the attention of William Shatner.

A community effort

The film was written, composed and directed by Kevin Croxton, and Emmy-winning composer who also happens to be a teacher at Parkview Elementary. Every year Croxton comes up with a new film project for the music club, with past years doing Harry Potter, Star Wars and other themes. When Croxton found out that the sets formerly used by fan film Starship Exeter were being stored in Arkansas, the lifelong Trek fan jumped at the chance to use them for this year’s film.

Croxton works with his cast on the bridge of the Enterprise (Photo: Brenda Yelvington)

Croxton tells TrekMovie the films are a great way to teach kids the process of production. The students took to Netflix to study their roles by watching the original Star Trek with many becoming new fans of the series. Working on a tight school’s budget, Croxton was able to get Rubies Costumes to provide most of the wardrobe at wholesale prices, using the new movie version because those were the only ones with children’s sizes available. Parents joined in to help with additional costumes and makeup. Others volunteered to help with the production, including digital artist Robert McConnell providing the visual effects.

Parkview Elementary parent applies Klingon makeup (Photo: Brenda Yelvington)

Shatner approves

None other than the original Captain Kirk has given this video his approval to the efforts of Croxton and his Parkview students, saying on Twitter “Quite a lot of work when into this, and adding the hashtag #impressive.

 

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First! This is AWESOME, well done, and ADORABLE! And I LOVE the way the kids are imitating the original actors. Well done! Thanks for making my day!

Eggcellent!

That was great! Well done!

That is just so damned cute. Love the lyrics set to some of the original music.

Shat should have played the E Bun. Otherwise, a tremendous effort!

Very nicely done guys, congrats.

Bravo!

Mr. Spock, set your phasers on ADORABLE!

Has CBS sued yet?

haha, right..

I particularly liked the idea to give lyrics to all those iconic TOS music pieces! :-D

They brought back black face klingons. You guys should be happy.

Well done kid! I am envious as I would have loved to be on the set and portray CAPY JTK when I was their ages. When I was their age, the show was on TV in its first run so it would have been a miracle to be on the Desilu lot back then.

What fun, this video is OBVIOUSLY made by Trek fans! Not only are the kids great in their roles, but the production values are darn good, including the sounds and music cues of the original!

The composer came up with new lyrics for the Star Trek theme song, too.

A great way to make a new generation of Trekkers, and a great way to teach many skills!
Bravo Parkview!

Definately a season 3 episode.

This was just FABULOUS! Great job, everyone! (I’m an original Trekkie and I KNOW!)