I have mentioned it before. Maybe I just never noticed, but there is a huge load of independent Star Trek movies coming our way. We already introduced Star Trek: Renegades and Star Trek: Axanar, the first set after Voyager’s return, the latter before Captain Kirk. Star Trek: Captain Pike is – of course – also set right before Captain Kirk.
In the first episode of Star Trek: The original series, “The Cage”, Captain Pike discusses his previous mission – a mission at Rigel 7 – with the Doctor. The episode features a lot of flashbacks,and suggestions about what happened, but never a full explanation. Star Trek: Captain Pike picks up this part of the story and intends to cover all the questions the Star Trek fanbase might ever had about Pike. This 45 minute episode is planned to be the prequel to a feature length movie, “Encounter at Rigel 7”. The cast and crew want to prove themselves to the audience with this prequel, so that the fanbase knows what’s going to happen with their money if they donate for the feature length film.
I already mentioned that there seems to be a big hunger for much more Trek – and obviously it isn’t only the fans that want more. Walter Koenig himself (also starring in Star Trek: Renegades) just joined the supporters of “Captain Pike”. The project features an awesome cast, including Linda Park, Ray Wise, Dwight Schultz, Robert Picardo, Jorge Gallo and Chase Masterson. Sean Kenney is playing Commodore DePaul (most probably an ancestor of Lte. DePaul, also played by Kenney in TOS). The production team around director Todd Shawn Tei includes Tobias Richter, the talented man who already created the visual effects for Star Trek: Renegades and currently is working on Star Trek: Axanar and 5th passenger.
If you want to see the story around Captain Pike be a success, you can still donate for the project at Kickstarter and get one of the supporter’s perks reserved for yourself. And with “you can still donate” I mean: Click that link and donate! There’s only 12 days to go and this movie really needs some help from you guys! There’s still 90.000 dollars to go to make this project happen. Since Star Trek: New Voyages and Star Trek: Captain Pike are cooperating, the cost already could be minimized, but there’s still a lot to do. And even if CBS was planning a new TV series within the Star Trek universe, I’d still want to see this project happen.
For regular updates on Star Trek: Captain Pike you can visit the official homepage at http://www.startrekcaptainpike.com/ or follow the project on Facebook.
