Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is a feature-length Sci Fi parody. A core group of five Finns together with more than 300 helpers, assistants and supporters, spent seven years to create this first-ever Finnish Science-Fiction adventure. And all this basically with a bit of blue linoleum and a few home computers.
Star Wreck was released under a Creative Commons License, which means you can download it for free. And there is the “Imperial Edition” that is available on DVD (for the reasonable price of 14.90 Euro), containing new special effects, a different looking fleet and different extras in different distributions all around the world. I personally do recommend supporting the crew with buying the Imperial Edition, but this review is about the movie available online.
Star Wreck: The Pirkinning is a cross-over of Star Trek – The original Series and Babylon 5. Captain James B. Pirk of Starship Kickstarter and his crew travelled back in time to 21st century Earth, to save it from hostile aliens. The past however is a dangerous place, and Captain Pirk ends up eating fast food while trying to seduce the ladies with his boasts about him being an intergalactic space hero from the future. With a less than glorious future perspective, Captain Pirk comes up with a rather questionable plan to save mankind.
The movie is entirely in Finnish, with downloadable subtitles in many languages. The spaceships – and the space station – look stunningly like those from the original series. What really amazed me were the special effects. There’s really no big difference with your “usual” Sci Fi series. The actors were filmed separately in front of a blue screen and everything else is computer magic. This worked out exceptionally well, really. I knew beforehand that the actors never acted together, but the illusion is just perfect. The characters’ interplay never ceases, and the storyline manages to captivate the attention. For me, the humour is a bit too cheap at times, but I do value the satirical tendencies of Star Wreck: The Pirkinning. The battles at times are a bit tedious and (especially) the second half of the movie could have been a bit shorter, but really just a little bit.
All in all “Star Wreck: The Pirkinning” is a truly enjoyable comedy with gorgeous special effects. The storyline is captivating, and a reminder of the dangers of mixing up ambition, cowardice and stupidity.
For information on the project, the cast and crew, the shooting, post production and much more visit www.starwreck.com.
