It has been a long time getting here, but at last the third and concluding chapter is available for viewing. I had made a deliberate choice to not view the parts released earlier until now so that I could see the whole movie at once. I'm glad I did.
This is a curious production that is very pleasing on the one hand and frustrating on the other. It is great to see all of these actors working in a Star Trek story, again. Many of them get to do more than they ever did in their original appearances, and they generally rise to the occasion with solid and even occasionally superior performances. I especially liked Alan Ruck, whose original appearance in Star Trek: Generations was not much more than a cameo. Here, he really seems to care about the character of Captain Harriman and makes him real. Nichelle Nichols overacts a bit but also gives believable emotion to her character. Walter Koenig had already shown what a talented actor he is on Babylon 5 but I enjoyed his performance here, too. There were plenty of other good and enjoyable performances from many familiar and a few unfamiliar faces.
The story works, though it is very derivative. For the hard-core Trek fan, and I am one, it was fun to see all the plot threads and elements from the earlier series tied together in a functioning story. There are not a lot of surprises, though. And I was a bit disappointed in the way that, at the end of the story, all has been reset. We do get one unexpected result from the actions of the story, though, that was an amusing twist.
The frustrating part of this movie is that for all the professionals involved, it is surprising inept in the technical production. The lighting and photography are uneven and often distracting. I was surprised at the amount of grain in some of the scenes. The audio is just off. Apparently, many scenes shot on the Enterprise sets required ADR to replace unusable audio, but it is not done well. As others have commented, the visual effects are adequate but not much more. I have seen considerably better in pure fan films like New Voyages, Starship Farragut and the Hidden Frontier spin-offs (yes, I've seen all these fan films which means I am a real trekkie). The battle scenes, in particular, were not well designed and seemed a bit haphazard.
Still, I do recommend this to any Star Trek fan. The faults are out weighed by the things done well and it is hard for me to see how any but the most cynical and jaded fan boy could not enjoy this. I don't think I can recommend it to non-Trek fans, however. It relies so heavily on the vast continuity established in prior Trek works that I'm not sure it would all make sense without some knowledge of the canon. But if you're not a Trek fan, you'll probably never hear of it, anyway.
This is a curious production that is very pleasing on the one hand and frustrating on the other. It is great to see all of these actors working in a Star Trek story, again. Many of them get to do more than they ever did in their original appearances, and they generally rise to the occasion with solid and even occasionally superior performances. I especially liked Alan Ruck, whose original appearance in Star Trek: Generations was not much more than a cameo. Here, he really seems to care about the character of Captain Harriman and makes him real. Nichelle Nichols overacts a bit but also gives believable emotion to her character. Walter Koenig had already shown what a talented actor he is on Babylon 5 but I enjoyed his performance here, too. There were plenty of other good and enjoyable performances from many familiar and a few unfamiliar faces.
The story works, though it is very derivative. For the hard-core Trek fan, and I am one, it was fun to see all the plot threads and elements from the earlier series tied together in a functioning story. There are not a lot of surprises, though. And I was a bit disappointed in the way that, at the end of the story, all has been reset. We do get one unexpected result from the actions of the story, though, that was an amusing twist.
The frustrating part of this movie is that for all the professionals involved, it is surprising inept in the technical production. The lighting and photography are uneven and often distracting. I was surprised at the amount of grain in some of the scenes. The audio is just off. Apparently, many scenes shot on the Enterprise sets required ADR to replace unusable audio, but it is not done well. As others have commented, the visual effects are adequate but not much more. I have seen considerably better in pure fan films like New Voyages, Starship Farragut and the Hidden Frontier spin-offs (yes, I've seen all these fan films which means I am a real trekkie). The battle scenes, in particular, were not well designed and seemed a bit haphazard.
Still, I do recommend this to any Star Trek fan. The faults are out weighed by the things done well and it is hard for me to see how any but the most cynical and jaded fan boy could not enjoy this. I don't think I can recommend it to non-Trek fans, however. It relies so heavily on the vast continuity established in prior Trek works that I'm not sure it would all make sense without some knowledge of the canon. But if you're not a Trek fan, you'll probably never hear of it, anyway.