A great deal of the fan-made productions right now are relying on the (cheaper to film) Original Series as the basis for their stories.
One exception to this rule is a project that has only recently come to light (in the last couple of months) in the form of Star Trek Futures.Ok - brief overview time; it's certainly different, making a nod to alternative realities rather than the staple of the Prime Universe we've been familiar with since 1966. Now we could easily just waffle on and copy some stuff direct from the Futures website but we're not like that as regular followers will appreciate. So let's get to the core, let's get into the background and really understand the concept. Now I'm not the best person to tell you about what makes it all tick however I do know a man who can. Put your hands together and welcome Dan Thale to SKoST Towers....
How long has Futures been a dream before it started to take form? What was your inspiration?
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| Armin Es'al (Cae Ambassador) |
In that story the protagonist experiences a
loss and thus has a different view of the world around them. Sound familiar?
Being a huge Star Trek: The Next Generation fan it dawned on me that I was telling the story of
Wesley Crusher. However in The Next Generation Wesley never really knew his father. So mid to
late last year (2013) I decided to scrap most of The Red Planet idea and
rewrite it as being a Star Trek first, story.
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| A'Ren |
To accomplish the story of bringing Wesley and his father together I needed a clean slate. So yes in a nutshell, it is the JJ Timeline. Or you can think of it as just one of the emerged alternate universes from the TNG episode, “Parallels” if that gets you in a tizzy. Anyway, you can say what you will about the new timeline and those movies, our story stands alone and only has a few things in common with those stories; namely the destruction of Vulcan and some costume influences. I think I always connected with Wesley and wanted to explore the possible relationship between him, Jack and Beverly. In whatever form it takes, a supportive family really molds an individual and I wanted to give Jack a chance to be a father.
Are we expecting some serious stellar action here?
The
short answer is yes, there will be action, but the majority of the
cinematography will be focused on telling the story through dialogue and
appropriate framing etc. As my influences have shown you don’t necessarily need
big flashy action sequences to get a story across. Additionally action is
expensive and thus has to be treated with the utmost restraint. The story that
we are attempting to tell is based on mystery, intrigue and seriously deep
running emotions.
The
short answer is yes, there will be action, but the majority of the
cinematography will be focused on telling the story through dialogue and
appropriate framing etc. As my influences have shown you don’t necessarily need
big flashy action sequences to get a story across. Additionally action is
expensive and thus has to be treated with the utmost restraint. The story that
we are attempting to tell is based on mystery, intrigue and seriously deep
running emotions.
Is it
significant that we are on the Enterprise-C and why that ship?
The original design was done by Andrew Probert
during the first season of The Next Generation. Since he had left the production by season three and various other reasons the design was changed to the model most associated
with the Ambassador class. I really wanted to use this original design as I
feel it is superior to what we see on-screen. Just a personal opinion. Also,
setting our story in the alternate timeline gives a simple explanation as to
why "our" Enterprise-C is different than what we've seen before.
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| Jack Crusher |
The Crushers will obviously have a different
dynamic since Jack is now in the picture. Through the limited lens of The Next Generation we
know that the relationship between Jack and Beverly was incredibly deep and
strong. So we'll get to see that. We'll also get to see Wesley as a younger
child who is just coming into the age of real deep human emotions and awareness
of serious consequences from his actions.
Other than the four characters, Jack, Wesley, Beverly, and Rachel
Garrett, there won't be any other characters from previous Trek. Personally I
feel to incorporate characters that were incredibly popular, yet are too far
outside of the integral story ends up hurting the feeling of the film. At some
point it just turns into fan service, which is not what this project is about.
My train of thought in this regard - If it's not important to the story then
it's not going to be on screen.
What
makes this different to all the other fan fiction series? It's quite a
cluttered market at the moment - surely there's a lot out there to
contend with?
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| Wesley Crusher |
In my opinion the more Star Trek that is out there the better. That being said Futures will be vastly different from other fan films. We aren’t trying to compete whatsoever with other productions. It will have a look and feel all it's own and to my knowledge, we are the only production taking place in this time period or even with these characters. We aren't trying to recreate anything, get CBS to notice us, or impress the audience with high-end techno-babble. We are going to tell our story in the way that we feel fit and not be beholden to any previous dogma of what Star Trek should and shouldn't be. It'll be modern, artistic and passionate.
What's
the concept and idea behind these more Star Wars Empire coloured uniforms? Is
that a hint of movie uniform style?
1. Budget -
to use the original Wool Elastique and color of the Monster Maroon it would
have just cost too much money. It was also difficult to find the correct color.
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| Beverly Crusher |
3. The Collar - It seems as though in every Star Trek series some designer creates a costume
that lacks a collar. Eventually they end up adding one and it improves the look
of the character ten fold in my opinion. Take Odo from Deep Space Nine for example. Weird
long necked shapeshifter in the first couple seasons, they add the collar and
he looks instantly more professional like a proper law enforcement official
should. Also an issue I had with the original Monster Maroon uniform was when
an officer took off his or her jacket there wasn't anything on them to denote
rank. Now that the The Next Generation style pips are on the collar this solves this problem.
This also goes for any of the flash back stuff we see in The Next Generation.
4. Mix and Match - I know I'm gonna get it for this one, I like the grey dress uniforms in
Star Trek Into Darkness, but I also like the uniforms from Star Trek First Contact.
So I split the difference between the two and came up with the grey.
5. Something Different - Why not?!
This looks like it's going to be DARK...?
Dark - Yup
What's
your next major goalpost? How will this be funded? Any perks for
donations ala Kickstarter or Indegogo?
Right
now we are solely focused on building the look and feel of this new world,
writing the screenplay, and gathering the best equipment we can for our budget.
We've just begun creating costumes and physical props. In regards to the short
film, and everything up to the completion of that, Star Trek Futures will solely be funded by
myself. I'm going 110% on this project so literally every bit of cash I have is
going into this. So in that vein, the goalpost would be to complete the short
film.
Post short film, we're going to do a Kickstarter with some cool rewards for backers. We're looking at having some "propaganda" style posters made up as well as some little 3D printed models of the Enterprise-C, Cae cruiser, and the Ra'Zae battleship. We're still working on the designs for the ladder.
Post short film, we're going to do a Kickstarter with some cool rewards for backers. We're looking at having some "propaganda" style posters made up as well as some little 3D printed models of the Enterprise-C, Cae cruiser, and the Ra'Zae battleship. We're still working on the designs for the ladder.
Is this a set arc
storyline?
Yes absolutely.
The story is going to take place over five episodes and will have a clear
overarching serialized format.
Are we looking at
sets or CGI /blue screen and what resources in the Star Trek universe have you been
tapping to get this off the ground? What makes this interesting for the techie
Trekker?
When inspecting
the landscape of current fan films I noticed that a lot of the films rely
heavily on CGI backgrounds. Not to say that this is a good way of achieving a
setting, but I firmly believe that if you really want to pull your audience
into the world you need a physical set with physical things to interact with
the actors. Proud to say that I was a handyman for about five years so I
definitely know my way around lumber and power tools.
So suffice it to say, the
goal is to create as many physical sets as possible. Couple that with the style
of filming we are going to use I believe that we'll be able to create a
believable set using the limited resources we have. We've already begun working
with some talented people to create some Star Trek VI style lighted LCARS panels as
well as some fantastic matte paintings.
Again, harking back to some of the other fan
films; there is a clear reliance on techno-babble. Personally I love all of it,
but we are really trying to appeal to a wider audience and will NOT rely on
tech driven dialogue. That being said, we will definitely be throwing a bone to
those hardcore techie Trekkers. So not to worry, there will be plenty of plasma
manifold malfunctions and dilithium instabilities. :)
Isn't
doing this in the more The Next Generation century going to be more expensive than Phase II or
Continues? If so, why/why not?
Not
necessarily, but everything costs $$$. We are heavily inspired by some of the
classic SciFi movies of the late 70's which don't necessarily have big flashy
lighted sets and such. The way that much of physical design of costumes and set
pieces is being flushed out now. We enjoy brain storming different ways of
creating amazing looking stuff on our hairline budget.
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| Cesera Prime |
Yup you
are exactly correct. The entire story takes place inside the Cesera System
which resides on the far side of the Beta Quadrant. It is about 10 light years
from the Romulan Neutral Zone and is situated between Starbase 123 and 174.
So who's
come up with the artwork so far and have you got any teaser images we can
use? How did you get them on board and what more will be coming?
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| Un'Cerar |
The Futures certainly looking good and our thanks to Dan for taking time out from his schedule to talk to us about this unique project. From what we've learnt here and through their media outlets this will certainly be a challenging project especially, if not only because of the choice of time period in which the arc will be set. With such prospects we'll be sure to keep track and update our followers as the Crushers return to the stars...
For more information on Star Trek Futures take a stroll over to their sites and pages which we've listed below.
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