In the Middle of an Ambush: Trek Lives in the UK

There's a UK-made fan film? Seriously???

I couldn't have been more excited - I nearly fell out of my hand-forged captain's chair at SKoST Towers.

For as long as I can remember (which limits it somewhat due to my shocking memory) all of the major fan films and web-series have been born out of the States. I won't insult your intelligence but already you've come up with a list of at least six that are still in production now. Having one made on the shores of this Fair Isle is a real turn up for the books and we just had to find out more.

Already in production, Star Trek: Ambush is the brainchild of Greg Lock and sets a new crew right amongst the events of The Original Series or more specifically, just after the incident featured in Balance of Terror.

Now you're already wanting to know what makes this unique in the ever expanding library of Star Trek films and I think it has some great points which do stand it out from the field aside from being made in the UK (hurrah!). Already the Kickstarter fundraiser has amassed over $4000 which hit target (four times over) which means they aren't looking for the millions you might have seen elsewhere or expected. 

The crew of the USS Ambush seem to be be much more of an elite "damage limitation" team than the explorers we find on Kirk's Enterprise. Explained Greg: "There's a scene in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country that only appears on some versions of the film. It's really weird, it's on my two-disc DVD of it, but not on my Blu-ray of it. Anyways, the scene is just after Kirk and McCoy have been sentenced to prison on Ruthe Penthe set in the UFP President's Office.

Major West (played by Rene Auberjonois) comes with a flip chart and proposes a military operation to extract Kirk and McCoy from Ruthe Penthe, from the heart of the Klingon Empire. The President refuses to sanction the operation, and of course Kirk and McCoy got out anyway. But that scene always got me thinking, who would Major West have sent if such a dangerous and risky plan was authorised? The USS Ambush maybe?"

Running at just 20 minutes this production points a tight spotlight on a single mission to rescue a captured Starfleet commander from the newly rediscovered Romulans but while that might not pique your interest it's how they're doing this that really intrigues.

"An awful lot of work is involved in making any decent film and even a film that's only 20 minutes is no different. So as everyone is working in their free time, making a film that's 20 minutes long is a more realistic target." said Greg.

"The general saying with short films that we've come to appreciate is that there's two types of short films. Ones that are too long and ones that are way to long! In the past we've found that 15 to 20 minutes is an ideal run time for a short film; that way we can get right to the core of our material, without it being saturated with filler and we don't outstay our welcome with the audience."

It's certainly a clearly thought out project with the time constraint there to assist rather than hinder the creation of this short film. But is that all we're ever going to get? We asked Greg if there were any plans to take Ambush beyond this initial foray.

"The main purpose of Star Trek: Ambush is to introduce the audience to our new crew, to give you an idea of what they represent and let you see them in action. We hope that 20 minutes will be enough to get that covered.

It is something different and in my opinion hasn't been properly shown in Star Trek before. So even though I have plenty of ideas, I'd like to see how audiences take to Star Trek: Ambush first. Making a Star Trek film is something that I didn't think would be possible for me, so I'm focusing on getting this film done first.

But to tease you with a couple of ideas, I do have ideas in my head for a direct sequel. I also have ideas for a prequel that is set exactly 50 years after Enterprise and 50 years before The Original Series. That is when the assignment USS Ambush was created, so I'm really keen to explore the story and why such a offensive assignment was created in the first place. But for now, I'm trying not to get ahead of myself and get this film done first.

I'm also open to the idea of others taking the characters we give them in Star Trek: Ambush and incorporating them into their own original pieces of fiction. If someone likes the crew so much and wants to put them into their own stories, I'd probably be pretty cool with that (if they asked me). That's something I really like about Star Trek is how people take these great established characters and events, then do their own thing with them. It's like taking the ingredients and making your own unique dish."

For one it looks as though Ambush is going to be set largely on location rather than relying on standing starship interiors which will certainly mark it out against some of the more popular and well-known US productions. At the time we talked to Greg those location shoots were in the can and the next step of the project - building and filming interiors was the focus of his time.

"We have filmed approximately 50% of Star Trek: Ambush, which consists of mainly all our exterior scenes. It was important to us to get those scenes filmed just before the summer as an overcast day is in our opinion the best to film on. We get a nice soft natural lighting on the action and no harsh lighting that a clear summer's day can give us. Also as filming outside poses risks such as public interference and weather problems, we felt those scenes would be the better ones to get wrapped first.

Now our main task is to get the sets built and our plan is to work our team around the clock and build our 2 main sets together simultaneously. This way we can bring all our actors and crew down for the second part of the shoot and wrap them all in a solid block shoot like we did for the first part of production."

That's a fair chunk completed already however there is a lot more to come - interior filming and then the probably longer task, post-production to get all that phaser fire and those transport beam-outs looking just right.

"Shooting films on location is something that I'm used to and have done many times." continued Greg Lock. "From the start I wanted Star Trek: Ambush to take place over an away mission and I didn't want that away mission to look like it was taking place in a studio. The UK has loads of great natural locations and I really wanted to be able to take advantage of that and show the world that the UK can hold it's own in the world of Sci-Fi. We've even managed to film in a location that was used for Doctor Who back in the Tom Baker era.

Although most independent Star Trek films are mainly ship based, they're either filmed on a large set that stays up for months or they use blue/green screen. I didn't want to be restricted with a green screen, I want my actors to feel like they're there in the action and in turn I want my audience to feel that. 

Also I'm very keen to show that some of the more traditional methods of making films still have a lot going for them. Which is why we're also using models for the majority of our ships. Then onto large sets, if I was to build a set of a starship I would want it to be as grand as the sets of the Enterprise. The truth is making films is an expensive trade and getting the space to build these sets and have them up for the whole duration is a very expensive enterprise, pun intended! Particularly in the UK and in the aftermath of a national recession.

You just have to look at projects like Axanar, Phase II and Continues, they have the majority of their Kickstarters going towards renting warehouse units to keep their sets up there. It is an expensive thing to do and their very successful Kickstarter's reflect the money thats involved in that. I have nothing but the upmost respect for those projects, the sets for Phase II and Continues are flawless and very very impressive. The concept for the Axanar sets looks amazing and I can't wait to see them. As this is my first Star Trek film, I didn't want to get into that league just yet, particularly by myself. We're starting small and realistic, then we'll see where we can go from there."

And what of the cast - it's all good us talking about locations, spaceships and effects but Star Trek has always relied on a good set of characters and people to play them onscreen. Greg's been all over that factor too so there's no concerns here: "Our cast consists of 11 main characters, who are played by a number of professionals that myself and friends have befriended over the years. Also a lot of them have done other work within the film industry so when they're not acting, they're doing another job on the shoot. No one sits around waiting on our sets, this way we were able to save a considerable amount by having actors moonlight as crew.

Since my time at film school I've been very privileged to be included in a great entourage of actors and crew, and between us we have near enough every job covered, we're always helping each other out on various independent projects.

As for the characters, well we like to think that we're keeping Roddenberry's vision of a utopian future in mind. We only get to meet 5 crew members of the USS Ambush, but those 5 do cover a range of different cultures and personalities. We've got them covered from the number cruncher to the shoot first ask questions later type. When we're a bit closer to being able to release the trailer for Ambush, I'm hoping to be able to launch the Ambush website, which will have a very insightful interactive feature profiling the crew members.

The main challenge is getting everyone involved free at the same time. We all have full time jobs, some in the film industry, some not. But these full time jobs is how we pay our bills so that always takes priority. All our cast and crew and volunteering their free time to work on Ambush, so we can only work in that free time. Roughly half of us work weekdays the other half work weekends. We're based all over South England, covering over 200 miles roughly, so being able to get everyone together for a decent film shoot is a very big challenge in itself.

This does have an impact on the finished product in the sense that we can't have scenes right now involving hundreds of extras. The story was written with this small scale in mind though, so that can be said to influence the finished project."

Excellent news I'm sure you'll agree and we had to ask - when will we get to see some more of Ambush aside from the few shots and bits that are out on the Kickstarter page and social media sites?

"Concept art for the shuttle's will be coming soon, as for the ship, that's different." declared Greg, keeping his cards close; "I want a big reveal for the USS Ambush in the finished film, so that's going to be the first glimpse of the ship."

Dropping over to their Kickstarter page there's a wealth of info on what they have within the Ambush arsenal to make the movie a reality including studio space to build a shuttlecraft (looking forward to seeing that!), workshop space to build props as well as up to date camera and sound equipment to get the action on film.

Greg continued with news of how we, the fans, will get to see this new chapter in fan films; "As soon as we've finished our second part of the shoot, we're going to be working on a trailer. After that we'll still have many VFX shots to composite, models to build and then to shoot. We're still hoping for sometime around December for the finished film.

Star Trek: Ambush will initially be released online, exclusively to our Kickstarter backers. It will be eventually released online with public access, more than likely after all the perks have been received by our backers. Everyone will in the end get to see it somehow."

Though still in early days, there is a possibility of Star Trek: Ambush being shown as part of a Star Trek Fan Film Festival that Alec Peters of Axanar and Phase II is putting together. But I'm not going to get into that just yet, I need to finish the film first!"

You can follow Star Trek: Ambush on Twitter as well as getting up to date and seeing their promo trailer on the Kickstarter page.

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More News to Continue the Voyages...

We thought that These are the Voyages couldn't get any better. It was already (and we self refer here) probably the best Star Trek reference book ever written - but then Leonard Nimoy read it.

We knew that he had contacted author Marc Cushman over the content of the first season companion and recently we were even told from our Super Secret contact at Jacobs Media Press that there was something special coming because we weren't going to get a hardback copy of the first edition (Bah! we thought) but then this news broke and made our day. 

Jacobs Media Press released a new edition of These are the Voyages; The Original Series, Season One. The new edition has 80 additional pages based on an exclusive interview with Leonard Nimoy and material/photos from personal archives of contributors who contacted Marc after the first edition was released. 

Awesome! However not all was well in Trek fandom.

Now there's been a lot of discussion about this improved edition after fans bought the first which wasn't exactly the least expensive book produced only to find that a second was in the works/on shelves. The Facebook page for the book certainly gives the hint at some thoughts - Is it worth it? Why the hell wasn't the first book up to this standard? ...and the like (I've paraphrased there to give an indication so it's not precisely word for word but you get the gist).

It's a shame, if we're honest, that the first edition didn't work out the bugs, errors and teething troubles that have been highlighted and while the second edition does deal with a lot of the problems, we can see both sides here. It was never the author's intention to cause issues or anger from fans but only to produce an ultimate guide to the much-loved show. On the side of the reader we totally understand that forking out for the same book with corrections and updates isn't financially viable or desirable. 

Still, it is a good book and there's no denying it whether you have the first or second editions. We can only hope that the second and third season volumes don't go through the same process and are as perfect guides as possible on first run.

startrek.com

So what's the best way to find out about what's going on under the cover so to speak? Ask the author. Go to the source. Marc has been really communicative about the additions - the new Nimoy interview for instance now sits within the section dealing with the filming of The Cage and includes the origins of those distinctive ears within its pages. Not only does that add to the wealth of information but there are several other notable quotes and information including some more documents and memos from Robert Justman (right). The tragedy is that this information appears to have only been available after the original publication and therefore omission was unavoidable because Marc didn't know it was there in the first place.

Of those 80 extra pages a lot is taken with a ton of new, previously unavailable photos and Marc even pointed us to Balance of Terror and Arena as just two episodes which have benefited from the additional work. In the former the pre-production section is much expanded with the creative process as well as two or three new pictures including a personal favourite of the Commander Hansen on Outpost 4 -  not something I've seen before or how about preparing to film the cube ship in The Corbomite Maneuver? Take your pick as there are a lot more. 

I know this is going to be another mammoth reading project for me but I have some holiday time coming up and this will be top of the list. To fully detail all the changes would take a long time but I can see they have only been meant to enhance the experience not detract and I understand from Marc that it was not meant to be a bigger volume, just more thorough!

Has it been a success though is a big question. Well, how about the fact it's now available on Kindle in the United States, the UK, Australia and Canada. Top that off with the news that this book has also been translated into several different languages and will be available within days in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Mexico, and Brazil. There's surely no wonder Spock himself chose to be interviewed for such a work?!

In the near future we'll have some more news on this fantastic literary series and maybe even a word or two from the man himself, Marc Cushman.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL

We can now reveal that Season 2 will be available for pre-order through www.thesearethevoyagesbooks.com) on Monday, March 3. The target publication date is March 25 and the book orders will be filled soon after that date.

Here's a sneak peak of the blurb currently available just to tempt you AND a first look at the new cover!

"For Gene Roddenberry and his talented staff and crew, launching Star Trek was a near impossible task. Keeping it on the air was even harder. Leonard Nimoy almost didn't make it back to the Enterprise for the start of Season Two. Lucille Ball gambled big in putting Desilu behind the chancy sci-fi venture, and would become the next to fall, losing her studio. Discover the real reason Gene Coon suddenly quit as series producer at the mid point of Season Two. Learn which stories by renowned science fiction masters never made it to the screen and why, and which episodes almost didn't make it in front of the camera. Read the memos from Roddenberry and his staff, and NBC, concerning all 26 Season Two episodes, and witness the continuing deception by the network over the TV ratings, and how the fans took on a corporate giant to save their favorite series."

These are the Voyages Season One is available now from Amazon priced £18.23 ISBN 978-0989238120

To see our full review click right HERE

Did you know you can now join up with us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter or even +1 us on Google+? If you didn't why not drop over there now!

All images courtesy of Jacobs Media Publishing

Star Trek: The Original Series: The Folded World

Receiving a new Star Trek book to review is always a pleasure but when you're faced with the potential of some kind of spacial rift in the back cover blurb you're more tempted to open an airlock without a spacesuit than get turning those pages.

So that was the situation I faced with Jeff Mariotte's new The Original Series novel, The Folded World. The back cover gives every indication (as I've mentioned before) that this is going to be something akin to The Animated Series episode The Time Trap and numerous Voyager episodes.

Moving past the wonderful cover art, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my expectations were not met and The Folded World has much more to offer than an expansion on a 30 minute cartoon from the 1970's or 1993 Voyager. It's got character, atmosphere and mystery which make an interesting soup in this new release. Linking an average diplomatic mission, spaceships trapped in a constantly changing rift with unstable crew and an alien world seemingly under attack certainly provides more than enough entertainment in 288 pages to handle and it doesn't seem that there's any excess along the way. It's streamlined, straight to the point and laced with an air of mystery that makes the cover synopsis a terrible understatement. Ok, here's the general gist of the story; the Enterprise is carrying the Ixtoldan diplomatic party back to their home world to begin admission to the Federation when the Starfleet ship ahead of them, the USS McRaven gets into distress and Kirk chooses to go and help (cue shuttlecraft and spacesuits). They find a weird rift in space where the ship is trapped and then end up embroiled in all sorts of temporal madness which isn't all it appears to be.

There's a lot to like about this novel so don't let that "spacial rift" put you off one bit. While not only do the ensemble The main triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy are all together for once in the main thread of the story however they are somewhat overshadowed by Petty Officer Miranda Tokolo who has some serious issues in the attic. If that's not enough there's a third element to contend with in the form of a separate narrative which runs in parallel and actually opens the book. More on that in a bit.

Characterisations of the main cast are pretty spot on with some exceptional sparring between Spock and McCoy which is absolutely in character. McCoy here is at his transport-hating, counselling and grumbling best, getting a chance to show off all sides of his personality during their off-ship activities. There's some of Kirk's past on show here, reflections on a fondly remembered childhood after trauma - mention of the incident on Tarsus IV which played a part in the episode The Conscience of the King - which helped him regroup. While not initially evident that this is relevant to the plot, it does become so as we move further into the story and echoes the experiences of Miranda Tokolo which help in making her such an interesting addition to this story. We also get to know a girl named Aleshia pretty early on and her story is the strand which seems initially separate to the main narrative. The way in which Mariotte has played this piece is very different, especially opening the book through unknown eyes. While she is questioning the events occurring around her we are left in the same position knowing nothing of what is happening but learning a bit more with every return to her village. Fairly insignificant within her community this girl has a terrible life ruled by famine and "domestic" violence it is just the tip of the iceberg. The conclusion of which is perhaps one of the pivotal moments of the story.

The Folded World really made me think. It's not a difficult book to read but there are a lot of threads which you have to try and pull together - one of which I hadn't cottoned onto until it appeared in the text and a second, a personal trauma, which was announced with chapter-ending grandeur was  then seemingly neglected until the closing paragraphs. With the events that take place within the story I was puzzled as to why this wasn't played upon a lot more and wondered if taking it away would have had any effect on the story in any way whatsoever apart from reflecting on Kirk's childhood memories.

I could try and point out one piece as the most important element of this novel however it's not one with anything I would call a sub-plot. The elements in each narrative strand all play a significant part here and it all comes together in a matter of time. Oddly that's something that is played with a lot here and not in the usual and perhaps expected manner that we have come to know from Star Trek. The Folded World has a unique perspective on the fourth dimension, using it both as a factor to consider within the spacial rift and as an element of the narrative itself. While this might sound a bit confusing in a review it makes perfect and Spock - logical sense when you read the book. Initially I found The Folded World a bit confusing. The opening section cleverly asks a lot of the reader; acceptance of a race of people and a viewpoint we have not experienced before. Seemingly intended for that precise purpose it works a dream and don't think it'll get answered straight away; as I noted, time is an overriding factor in Jeff Mariotte's work here. Not to give too much of the plot away, the crew's encounter with something inside the rift means experiences become more than a dream and we even get a nod to Star Trek of Kirk's future in one fleeting moment. It's a brief few lines but all the worth being there just for a bit of universal continuity. 

The mix of action and intrigue is managed expertly and accompanies the story well. It seemed that events occurred because they made sense rather than being used as set pieces. Explaining why some of them happen in the first place plays it's own part. In some respects it could be said that this is a novel offering some deep insights into both main and guest characters if only fleetingly on occasion however the Miranda Tokolo character is certainly centre stage. The thought of reading an Enterprise encounters a right and has an unstable crewmember on board might be initially off putting but the back story is both homage and believable to boot. Dealing with being the lone survivor from the Romulan incident featured in Balance of Terror would be enough to manage with on its own for most people but there's a deeper issue as well as the affections of two Enterprise crew to deal with into the bargain. It's going to be a bad day and they're wearing red. Tokolo is essentially built around this troubled mind and so remains as the flash point for much of the circumstances during the bulk of the away mission. It's a good exploration of character however it's very obvious what we're dealing with rather than exploring the nuances of Miranda's personality through the narrative.

Where I find this book slipping into very familiar territory is the portrayal of the Ixtoldan diplomats. Their stereotypical stuffiness and elusive nature is a Star Trek staple. It does play a part but they do come across as particularly average and stereotypical in their nature of the type of guests Kirk would have threatened to stick in an airlock on occasion. While their presence is not as secondary as it might appear, they are somewhat forgettable. Scotty certainly has his hands full and whether Mariotte has made the character a little softer than we might have expected is up for debate. On occasion he does raise himself to face off against the guest party however there seems to be lingering doubt in his own abilities that didn't really surface in the TV series. Aside from the Chief Engineer though the rest of the bridge crew are relegated to a few lines here and there but no serious standout moments when most of the story is set away from the Enterprise on an alien craft.

Indeed, those settings are well imagined and visualised whether an alien planet or a rotting starship, you can feel the atmosphere and sense either very real danger or the dark, gloominess that greets Kirk and the away team. The threat and the twists of the story are well concealed as Mariotte talks about the experiences that the crew encounter and how it affects them each in turn and how they make sense of what occurs during the mission.So let's add psychology to the mix of issues and themes being dealt with here. It certainly suits McCoy who really steps up to the plate.

The inclusion of the Ixtoldans is the initial catalyst for events due to the links to the USS McRaven which in turn leads Kirk and the Enterprise into this encounter but there is payoff which can't be said of all the strands explored with The Folded World. The rift itself which acts as the story's focal point is well realised and visualised by Mariotte and genuinely feels different. The further I read the less I felt that we were about to hit a slight rewrite of The Time Trap. In fact the author has created something that I found really interesting in this swirling mysterious space. Everything within The Folded World has a purpose and paying attention to the clues makes for a good reading experience. On occasion I referred back to previous chapters to make sense of dialogue or events as they unravelled within the text just to see how the seeds had been laid earlier. The later third of the novel is very action orientated and some of the exposition is almost lost within the sequences that occur there and close the story. At this point it's as if the story's pace shifts noticably as everything begins to draw together but yet it's not all over and done in a few pages giving a more natural end to the adventure. Leaving a few bits open-ended might be Mariotte's way of ensuring he can produce a sequel of sorts.

Also worth noting is the conspicuous lack of "drop in" references to other episodes that are not directly related to matters within the plot. I breathed a sigh of relief over this I can tell you. Mariotte has relied on making us identify with the cast through their actions and dialogue which is very accurate rather than playing on knowledge of other stories to show his subject knowledge and this makes the book much stronger. Creating a believable (and twisted) plot has proved a great strength here and it's been a good read and certainly currently in my top three Star Trek novels of the year. I have to say that after a tepid start that was, ironically, all in the mind, this book picked up speed straight away and turned into a very enjoyable read. Yeah, there are similarities and after so many adaptations, novelisations, episodes and movies, the odd repeat or deja vu moment is acceptable. A great effort that would make me want to read another tome from Jeff Mariotte in the future without doubt. I actually like the fact that it's a secondary character who mainly steers the plot here and unusually I actually liked Tokolo and how Mariotte dealt with her and the troubles she contends with. Perhaps Mr JJ Abrams should give him a call and put him on the writing staff for the next movie especially for the female characters. Also, an apology to anyone who wanted detailed plotting of the story - I haven't gone into any detail because I think it would ruin your enjoyment from page one. 

The range seems to be very dedicated to The Original Series at the minute with a few more volumes to come in the next few months although I believe there is an Enterprise volume just around the corner however and David R George III's The Fall will be coming later in the year crossing The Next Generation with Deep Space Nine - but such occasions seem very rare.

Star Trek: The Original Series: The Folded World is available from Simon and Schuster priced £6.99; ISBN 978147670282