‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Documentary Kicks Off Crowdfunding Including Digital/Blu-ray Pre-Orders

Today 455 Films, the team behind the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind and others, has launched a brand new crowdfunding campaign in support of their latest Star Trek documentary. This time they are turning their gaze to Star Trek: Voyager and as of today you can support the effort and secure yourself a copy, along with many more perks.

The Voyager Doc needs you

Just as they successfully did with What We Left Behind, 455 is looking to the fan community for support to help complete the as yet untitled Voyager documentary. Production began in early 2020 with the filming of the cast on Star Trek: The Cruise. Production has slowly continued during the COVID pandemic but it’s still in the early stages and there’s a lot more to shoot.

Exclusive preview image from Voyager doc

Funding will go to support additional filming as well as post-production, which includes editing, music, animation, and licensing of Voyager footage. The team is also hoping to remaster that footage in HD as they did for the DS9 documentary. Currently, they are seeking $150,000 for their first goal, and in just a few hours they have almost reached it. More funding will allow them to add additional stretch goals, including the HD remastering.

This video released today features Voyager stars Garrett Wang and Tim Russ talking to Lolita Fatjo about the documentary, plus a few surprise guests.

Pre-order for Fall 2022

There are many different levels of support and perks you can select for the Voyager documentary. If you want to secure a digital release you can pick up the Digital Bundle for $25, with a target release of September 2022. The Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack perk is $35 with a target date of October 2022, and if you bump that up to $50 you can get the “Bragging Rights” perk which adds some collectibles and your name in the end credits of the doc.

Andre Bormanis and Brannon Braga from the Voyager documentary

Perks include collectibles and celebrity meet-ups

In addition to securing your copy of the doc, there are also perks for support levels ranging from $15 to $10,000.  There are quite a few collectibles available for support in the $35 range including various tee shirts and pins.

For $100 – $150 you can get in on some celebrity Zoom calls with cast members from DS9 and Voyager. And they are even offering “Away Missions” for $1000 where you can join up with other fans for guided tours of some iconic Voyager locations. And if you want the full VIP package you can get the Associate Producer perk for $10,000.

These tees are one of the many perks available

To support the doc visit the Indigogo page.

Visit the official site at voyagerdocumentary.com, or follow VOY Documentary on TwitterInstagram, and Facebook.


Find more news and analysis for Star Trek documentaries.

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Done and done. It’s great to see that people have rediscovered Voyager and that it’s found so many new fans.

So true! That’s why I love being on sites like Reddit, because it’s tons of both new and old fans and it’s really fun to read new fans get into these shows for the first time (not as bitter and cynical like us oldies ;)). Streaming has really created a new generation of fans than past generations since you can literally watch all the shows in one place and it’s just easy to binge everything and give them all a fair chance.

TNG, DS9 and VOY seems to get the most attention since they probably all take place around the same time and of course the first two have become iconic. In my mind VOY is too, but I know I’m in the minority on that. ;)

But that’s also why Star Trek endures because while we don’t have the fandom as deep as Star Wars, Harry Potter or Marvel does, most new fans do learn to love and appreciate it pretty fast and become highly devoted to it. None of these shows will ever go away because of it and and will continue to build on the fandom, even 20 years after being off the air like Voyager has been (especially now that these characters are starting to pop up again in the new shows). Still pretty amazing to me.

Yah, it is cool to see that on Reddit almost every day there are “where do I start with Star Trek?” and “Just finished this series so what should I watch next?” posts from newcomers.

So many of them though get hooked with Voyager, and then struggle to get into the first season of either TNG or DS9.

Covid seems have brought a lot of new fans to the franchise, by providing the opportunity for those who always “meant” to give Trek a try to have time to make the investment. But the frequent comments from new viewers struggling with early seasons (“What episodes can be skipped? posts) really underscore that the franchise as a whole needs to do better in launching its new shows. Not a new problem for Trek, but one that bites harder now. I can see why the execs at ViacomCBS are pushing harder to get the new series “cooked” in development.

In the streaming era, new viewers are looking to get hooked in the pilot or first 3 episodes. A lot of the sci-fi show’s that I really like, including The Expanse and 12 monkeys, not just Trek, seem to really take 6-10 episodes to establish their world and characters and get the plot moving. It seems to be a problem for the genre as a whole.

By the way, I do see TrekMovie article links as posts regularly on Reddit, so I do hope that it draws people here as a reliable source of news. Some of them have no idea where to look and sound like their first exposure to Trek commentary is the worst of the YouTube guys.

Babylon 5 takes something like 18 episodes to get going, apparently. I truly could not get past the first season, despite everyone telling me I was so close to recognizing greatness. I may die in ignorance.

Yeah I agree with everything that you said, especially about new fans and Reddit. I bring it up a lot myself because for whatever reason, it seems to be the only place that I go to whenever talking about Star Trek that has not only a diverse flurry of wide ranging fans but a lot a new and younger fans as well. As you said almost every time I go you find posts from new fans who just discovered Star Trek for the first time and truly excited about it. They usually watched one of the 24th century shows (it does seem to be TNG and VOY a lot) but also TOS and ENT and want to keep going (although yes TOS does seem to be the lesser show because it’s so dated now but others still watch that first too). Star Trek is like a gateway drug. It’s why I ALWAYS say even if you don’t like the new shows, if they are successful enough they will get new fans who will watch the older shows as well.

But it also proves that Star Trek has something for everyone these days and that new fans can appreciate the old shows just like old fans who started watching them when they started airing. And that’s another thing fun reading those posts, because sadly this board clearly skews very oooooooold at times. And I don’t really mean age wise (although it does) but people are just SO stuck in their ways to the point you literally know what a person usually thinks about a show or movie before you even read the post. It’s unbelievable how narrow minded so many people are here about any particular show or film. It doesn’t matter if it’s the old stuff or the new stuff, a particular series or set of movies everyone has drawn sides; many decades ago and can’t be budged to think any differently about any of it. And I’m guilty of that too at times, I certainly won’t lie. Again, it’s understandable if you been watching it for 30+ years and you already have it in your mind what defines Star Trek, then oddly it seems harder to accept certain shows and films.

But that’s why I love reading over there so much because you find a lot of new fans that don’t have any of those hang ups yet. They certainly have their opinions like everyone, but its not so baked it to the point of stubborness like so many of the old fan boards. One of the best conversations I had over there was over a year ago was with a young girl, and I mean young, like 12 years old. She had never seen or heard anything about Star Trek until she watched it for the time that year on Netflix. She watched Voyager and super excited about it. She was just amazed by the stories and loved Janeway and Tuvok the most. She was also from Sweden. She binged nearly the entire show in just a month and was asking so many questions about the other shows and the episodes she really loved. 12 year old girl was Sweden and now newly minted Voyager fan. She PM me for a few days asking about DS9, TOS, TNG, etc. It was a lot of fun talking to her and I hope she watched some of the other shows after wards.

It’s so weird to talk to people there and then come here where it feels like an alternative universe where people are beyond stuck in their ways and keep suggesting certain shows are dying off (or should die off) and I’m like are you kidding me??? There are probably more people watching all these shows today than ever before. We just don’t have standard tracking since it’s not traditional TV people are watching them. The streaming model has really changed the game. These shows are on five major streaming sites for a reason. The fact we have so many new Star Trek shows coming obviously tells you that. But you got fans here citing UPN ratings and syndication numbers like it’s still 1989 or 99 just tells you how stuck in the ways they are because most of the new fans were not even born when a lot of these shows originally ran.

We need more of that and less bitterness and ‘this show isn’t Star Trek enough’ views, old or new shows. Sadly as much as I love this board it probably just scares a lot of newbies away.

…aaand they hit the goal already. Most impressive. Stretch goal I assume includes HD transfers and some new CGI. This will be fun for everyone involved!

Yes, we want HD lizard babies!!!

LOL, they already reached their first goal after a few hours! Amazing! You have to give credit to the fans, they always support Trek whenever it’s needed. They been doing it since 1966 and still doing it.

Looking forward to this a lot. Not as much as What We Left Behind but still can’t wait for it. And it would be great to see the show get the HD treatment like some of DS9 for it’s documentary. My guess is like DS9, they will get more money than needed and maybe can use it to update more footage.

To bad they won’t do a remaster project like they did with TOS and TNG. Both VOY and DS9 deserve this.

There is a possibility it could happen eventually within 10 years from now if tech is developed that could possibly lower the costs.

I’d imagine the success of Kurtzman Trek era will also factor as that will translate in a more prosperous cBS/Paramount and they could afford to spend the money on modernising its older properties to effectively future proof them for new generations.

It may not happen, but I like to think there is always a possibility. Never say never.

A proper remaster of DS9 and Voyager could cost $60-75 million. After getting burned by TNG, they’d never undertake that assuming they could get it all back with physical media sales. Voyager is clearly very popular on Netflix, but I can’t imagine they’d cover even most of this cost for exclusive rights. Paramount+ is getting investment, but probably would prioritize spending on new content over remasters, even though we could make the case for them getting their money back after just a few months of Trekkers not cancelling the service every few months. I would keep a Paramount+ subscription going all year if it was the only place for every Trek show in HD, let alone 4K.

They will be able to remaster it using AI deep learning software in several years at a fraction of that cost. Trust me, it’s coming.

They seem to be zipping along towards 400K. A lot more then the 150K they needed.

Edit…. towards 500K now.

Edit….next stop, 600K

I like the episode with the museum of the distant future that depicts the Voyager crew as vile space fascists in black leather or what not. It makes one think and then think some more.

Living Witness!
Voyager really did do well by high concept sci-fi. It was sometimes taken for granted or overshadowed by pervasive issues the series had, but they churned out some very clever and entertaining adventures at times, and I would rank Seven and the EMH up with the very best of Trek characters, and Living Witness with the very best episodes.

It’s one of the reasons I love Voyager so much, because it did a lot of the high concept and ‘weird Trek’ which is my favorite kind of Star Trek. I love all the time travel and spatial anomalies stuff and Voyager did that the most out of all the shows.

But they also did their fair number of socially relevant shows too (the kids today would call it SJW ;)) and Living Witness is definitely one of the best they did. And yes, what’s funny is that episode is still just as relevant today as it was when it first aired. Of course it takes place in the 31st century which tells you some of these issues will never truly go away as long as people constantly mistrust others and what so much of what Star Trek is about in general.

I hope they will do some HD remasters like they did with the Deep Space 9 Doc.

It often bothers me when I see people disparaging Voyager.
Because I fell in love with Star Trek because of Voyager, I was young and did not care about any of the problematic stories (Threshold I’m looking at you), but it led me to other series and it holds a dear place in my heart.
I am happy to see people are supporting this! I hope I get to zoom with Kate! lol

Backed, and gladly.

Anybody happen to know how its first 24 hours compare to the first 24 hours for the DS9 doc?

Memory Alpha has quotes from Ira Steven Behr from an interview in 2018. He says: “Then in 29 hours, we made like 159,000″. This was while talking about their initial goal to collect 150K in 30 days.

Whoa! So in other words, this annihilated that! Very impressive.

Not an entirely fair comparison, though, since this one was promoted heavily to people who’d backed that one. Pretty cool, either way.

Yes, people are probably happy with what the company delivered last time and are therefore more ready to give them the benefit of the doubt with this documentary. Last time there wasn’t really a precedent for fans crowdfunding a documentary.
Or Voyager really has a lot more fans than some people here give it credit for.

Probably a bit of both, I’d imagine.

Wow nice! Voyager is blowing the doors off of DS9!

Well, they did do a pretty good job with WWLB. Reputation can calm the contribution jitters…

Yeah true! This group did an amazing job with WWLB and why everyone is now excited for this one.

Voyager isn’t at the top of my list of Trek viewing. Maybe it’s time to give it another look….

As an aside, I’m wondering how they will handle Jennifer Lien, Robert Beltran, and the Kate Mulgrew/Jeri Ryan friction ?

That’s not a fair comparison given DS9 pioneered this and that team has the DS9 donors list to work with as they start this campaign.

Yes, which is why I already said it’s not an entirely fair comparison.

I’ve recently started a compete series re-watch of Voyager so look forward to this documentary. I wonder if they will next turn their attention to a documentary on Enterprise.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. I would back it, for sure.

Did the bragging rights + silver coin. And then I broke down and got the Janeway mug.

Awesome. Have they said if they plan to HD remaster some VOY clips please?