Category: Starship Exeter

Categories
Star Trek Star Trek Fan Films Starship Exeter

The Savage Empire

Starship Exeter

This is an episode of a fan-made series whose storyline may be invalidated by later official studio productions.

Stardate 4943.5: When the starship Lexington’s crew is infected with the Canopus Plague, Starfleet dispatches the U.S.S. Exeter, under the command of Captain John Quincy Garrovick, to join the Lexington in orbit of Andoria and find out why the Andorian government hasn’t allowed her crew to acquire the Andorian-formulated antidote. Garrovick, communications officer B’Fuselek (who is himself an Andorian), and several other crew members beam down, finding that control of the Andorian government has been seized by a renegade faction backed by the Klingons. With the Klingons jamming communications between the surface and the Federation ships, it’s up to Garrovick and his handful of crewmates to restore the rightful government of Andoria – or watch it split from the Federation completely.

Watch Itwritten by Jimm & Josh Johnson
directed by Jimm & Josh Johnson

Cast: James Culhane (Captain Garrovick), Joshua Caleb (Lt. B’Fuselek), Michael Buford (Cutty), Holly Guess (Jo Harris), Patrick Scullin (D’Agosta), Keith St. Louis (Gov. Kinthmus), Nathan Wolf (Chang), Brian Peter (Andorian Spy), Ben Hazen (Ensign Halley), Mark Svara (Junior Communications Officer), Ian McLean (Andorian Senator Therin), Mr. Lamanchikafka (Commodore Jennings), Kegan Bader (Klingon Lieutenant), Jeff Lynk (Klingon Spy), Jesse Johnson (Klingon Guard), Clark Jones (Junior Science Officer), Rolf Anderson (Engineer), Charles Hackett (Crewman), Chris Cahoon (Crewman), Andy Heimstead (Crewman)

Review: This is the first full-length Trek fan film from Austin-based Exeter Studios, and while not without its flaws, it shows a great deal of enthusiasm and inventiveness. Particularly interesting is the producers’ decision to at least attempt to produce the entire show with strictly old-school effects – models instead of CGI being the most striking and visible example. Whether or not this concept works on screen may wind up being the determining factor in the viewer’s ability to really get into the story, especially viewers whose first Trek fan film exposure comes from the relatively luxurious New Voyages.

Categories
Star Trek Star Trek Fan Films Starship Exeter

The Tressaurian Intersection

Starship Exeter

This is an episode of a fan-made series whose storyline may be invalidated by later official studio productions.

Stardate 5013.1: The Exeter is en route to check up on a Federation Starbase on Corinth IV that has fallen out of contact. When the ship arrives, the planet is in ruins – a once-vibrant ecosystem reduced to a volcanic, earthquake-ridden world – and the Starbase is gone. Another Constitution-class ship sent to investigate, the U.S.S. Kongo, is found crashed on the planet – or at least its saucer section is. Captain Garrovick orders a search for the rest of the Kongo, and it’s found adrift in space at the center of a series of gravitational disturbances. The crew, including Garrovick’s former captain, is found dead – and so is a boarding party of reptilian Tressaurians, a species with whom Garrovick has had a very dark history. An alien device is discovered below decks, the source of the disturbance, and when Tressaurian ships arrive to retrieve it, Garrovick has it beamed to the Exeter and detonates the Kongo’s engines by remote. Science Officer Jo Harris, however, doesn’t believe that the device is of Tressaurian origin – and when another attack wave of Tressaurian ships is destroyed by a group of Tholian ships, it seems likely that the device’s inventors have come to collect it.

Watch Ittelelplay by Dennis Russell Bailey
story by Jimm & Josh Johnson and Dennis Russell Bailey and Maurice Molyneaux
directed by Scott Cummins

Cast: James Culhane (Captain Garrovick), Joshua Caleb (Lt. B’Fuselek), Michael Buford (Cutty), Holly Guess (Jo Harris), Patrick Scullin (D’Agosta), Elizabeth Wheat (Vandi Richards), Garry Peters (Kosnett)

Review: Hot damn. Now this is a Trek fan film. I’ll admit that I was originally skeptical of the first episode of Starship Exeter (see that review here), but as much as I admired their original intent to stick with lo-fi special effects, and as fun as that was to watch in places, here they managed to step up to the plate with some impressive CGI, and still didn’t betray the signature “look” of the original series. And this time they’ve got a story behind all this stuff which makes it even more impressive, and it’s directed well, and the acting has taken leaps and bounds. This is practically a real episode of Star Trek right here…but there’s just one problem.