During the past weeks we introduced quite a few independent Star Trek film projects. And now it’s time to catch up on those projects.
Axanar – the story takes place 21 years before the first episode of Star Trek, featuring Captain Kirk telling the story of Garth of Izar (Kirk’s personal hero) during the 4-years war. In 2014 more than $600.000 were raised via crowdfunding. This money was used to build Ares Studios, a 16.000 ft warehouse that by now is a fully functioning sound stage, as well as building the first sets. Now Axanar is back on Indiegogo. Plans obviously change, and instead of one feature-length movie Axanar is going to be divided into four episodes. The funding goal is set with ambition, and – I can’t help it – somehow the concept from Axanar’s Homepage is a bit contradicted by now. Originally Axanar wanted to prove “the idea that a studio doesn’t need to spend millions of dollars to produce a feature quality production” – close to 2 millions of dollars later this idea seems obsolete. Still, Axanar is an exciting project, and the first episode is to be released in 2016. The Captain’s log is offering daily updates on Axanar, and the entire team makes an effort to keep fully transparent on where the money of their donors goes.
Captain Pike – the campaign on Kickstarter wasn’t succesful, but with a second campaign on Indiegogo Captain Pike did reach their financial goal to produce Act 1 (30 minutes) of the planned 90 minute movie. Unfortunately the SFX and VFX department still need money, so there is another Indiegogo campaign for that. Making a movie – even a short movie of 30 minutes – on a budget of $50.000 is going to be hard. The campaign is over on Thursday, so there isn’t much time left to kick this independent project off the ground!
Renegades – the pre-premiere of the movie was a blast, and donors already could watch Renegades as well. The reception of the movie by the audience was generally good – though there have been critical voices out there as well. To me this isn’t a surprise. Renegades promised to go where no Trek has gone before, and they did. Star Trek always has been “clean” entertainment, while Renegades is diving into the darker, edgier corners of SciFi. The official premiere of Star Trek: Renegades is going to take place in Crest Theater on Saturday August 1, 2015 at 4:30 pm. The address is 1262 Westwood Blvd, LA, CA 90024.
