May Round Up: The Blagger's Top Six

May was a quiet month on the news front with only a few bits to choose from - but having said that, there were some strong contenders.

Orci Goes Alone for Star Tr3k

The top story of the month has to be that Robert Orci was confirmed as the director (and writer) of the third Star Trek outing based around JJ Abrams reboot vision. While there was much rejoicing on the announcement that Abrams would no longer be involved in the director's chair at least, opinions were muted when it came to the untried Orci calling the shots for what could be the 50th anniversary movie.

I think we have genuine concerns that now JJ has defected to Star Wars he has no thoughts about what will happen to the franchise he leaves behind. These may not be any safer hands and while Orci's credentials are decent (and much better with Kurtzman), this will be a big challenge and perhaps not the one to be playing with at the start of your directorial career.

Phase II and Continues

The two big hitters in the world of fan films both made announcements this month and neither was what we at SKoST expected.

Firstly Phase II was asking for more money to complete (yes, complete) The Holiest Thing which was supposed to have premiered in February and was pulled at the last minute. Some of the funding raised through the Kickstarter campaign is going into finishing off Bread and Savagery and Mind Sifter but the announcement that some was going towards a supposedly (near) completed episode was a shock. This need for cash might also have something to do with moving to new, larger premises which are costing a fair chunk. The quality of the show has improved since it's early beginnings but the issue is that long delays seems to come with the territory - hopefully not as long as Kitumba though. As we write, Phase II is now $10,000 off their stretch goal to produce Mind Sifter. Perks for donations include stickers, LCARS graphics, a Phase II uniform, signed Spock ears and more.

What makes it even worse for the Phase II guys is that Continues is chomping close at their heels. While the former has been around for a lot longer, fans are heaping a ton of praise on Continues which offered up a nice promo poster of its third episode which will be premiering in June. The last release, Lolani, was met with mainly positive reviews, citing the show as being the closest thing to The Original Series that it could possibly be. The stakes for episode three could not be higher and these guys have worked hard to make sure that the deadlines they set and announce are adhered to. 

In Your Price Range?

If you happen to have $35 million of disposable income then why not get yourself an eight-bedroomed mansion complete with USS Enterprise cinema? 

Former CEO of the FriendFinder Network, Marc Bell has been forced to put his eccentric property on the market after some, erm, less than positive financial results. The rest of the house barely gets a mention as all eyes are immediately trained on the one-off movie theatre which replicates the bridge of the Enterprise-D. The level of detail is superb as you can see. All the chairs recline  and the ceiling is dotted with stars for effect. The concession area on the way in is reported to resemble a transporter room guarded by a life-size Borg. 

For a gimmick this is amazing but you're going to need to be a serious fan with an equally serious amount of money to be able to move in. If you want to lend me the cash on a permanent basis then get in touch...(!)

Virtually There

...And if you can't afford the house, why not try on that Oculus Rift VR device again? 

Last month we talked about the reproduction of the USS Voyager bridge, well now in May someone brightspark has completed a replica of the Enterprise-D bridge. Definitely worth taking a look because Enda O'Connor's work is magnificent and having the Borg trash-talking on the main viewer is a nice addition to the ambience! The most criminal thing about this vid is that only 3500 people have seen his work. No excuses now, get over there on YouTube and take a good look.

Stranger Things Have Happened

The wonderous iO9 site dropped a bomb this week, sparking rumours of a new Star Trek series that would be launched after the third movie is released. Apparently it's going to be going down the reboot universe line and might have something to do with The Next Generation as (pinch of salt required) they're looking to cast a young Deanna Troi...We suspected any new show would be following the Abrams route but this is a big curve ball - are we ready to see the Picard era rebooted just yet?!

Sneaky Peaks

Ok - usually we'd wrap this up in the Eaglemoss monthly section but hey, it's been a slow month on the news front. The publishers of The Official Starships Collection posted a little video of a photo shoot this week but what really caught our eye were the two or three little glimpses of models that have yet to be released in the UK. For reference we got to see the Xindi-Insectoid ship, the Romulan Warbird from the 22nd Century (although we have a better shot below), Krenim Temporal Weapon ship (here, left in hand)  and the Nebula Class if only for a matter of seconds. 

Thanks also to +Ed Thomas who spotted the Valdore and the USS Prometheus in there too. The latter actually gets subbed for the Dauntless. This little tease trail also gives us an idea of the scale of these new ships - the Xindi ship looks huge while the Prometheus seems to be along the small and thin lines of the Excelsior.

For those of you on other soils it'll give you some good close ups of the range thus far although it does tend to focus more on the first ten issues than any others. We've included some more shots below if you missed the appearances of those ships yet to dock at your newsagent.

Xindi Insectoid ship (big!)

Romulan Bird of Prey (22nd Century) along with the USS Enterprise-E, a de-throned Dauntless, USS Voyager, Borg Sphere and Jem'Hadar Battlecruiser

Not-yet-released Nebula-class back row second from right - same width as the D and the Warbird?

Sideshot (sorry bit blurred) of the Nebula-class between the Warbird and the Galor class (back row)

Single shot of the USS Prometheus...before it's taken out - which is what they're probably discussing.

Blink and miss it - the Valdore shows it's wings from a distance

Oh and the official site has also dropped two new images of the Nebula Class and the Xindi ship on their upcoming ticker.

As if that's not enough, Entertainment Earth and Memory Alpha posted up some new images of the 22nd Century Romulan Warbird and the Maquis raider. 

The latter model will be the smallest ship produced so far and should be the most detailed given its size. From the shots below it looks like these might be two fantastic models with a lot of surface detail apparent on both. Here are the magazine covers (provisional) plus the model shots recently revealed.

Were there any other stories from May that got you interested? Is there one we've missed out on here? Drop a line below!