Lord Yellowtail's Writing Room

So, I've known about this for a while, and I'm incredibly late in sharing it, but in my defense I've only had a working blog again for about a month.

This is the most awesome Star Trek fan film--the most awesome fan film, period--I've ever seen. The original Kickstarter produced this 20 minute trailer in the style and form of a fictionalized documentary about the Four Years War between the Federation and the Klingons before TOS--and in particular, the events that made Captain Garth of Izar famous across the Federation, and Kirk's hero. The Prelude to Axanar trailer was so successful that when it was used during the second Kickstarter to fund the full movie they raised over $600,000 dollars. The movie is shooting now (or has finished shooting) and is set to come out in 2015.

Over at their website, they're still taking donations through PayPal for the Kickstarter perks (e.g.: a Blu-Ray copy of the movie). And since no one is getting paid anything and no money is being made, Paramount isn't coming after them.

Here's a summary (Wikipedia):

Prelude to Axanar (working title: Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar, and long title: The Four Years War Part III: Prelude to Axanar) is a 2014 independent American fan made short film, directed by Christian Gossett and written by Alec Peters. Funded through Kickstarter, production sought $10,000 in funding, but in gaining $101,000, received more than ten times the amount originally sought. It had its public debut June 26, 2014 at the San Diego Comic-Con.

Set in the Star Trek universe, the film stars Kate Vernon, Tony Todd, Richard Hatch, Gary Graham, and J. G. Hertzler, in a documentary-style film recounting the events surrounding the Battle of Axanar, a major clash between the Federation and the Klingons.

The film is set about 22 years or so before TOS.

The entire cast list for the full movie is amazing, but special attention is due to Gary Graham reprising his role as Soval, who's got to be pushing 200+ at this point; Tony Todd; and J. G. Hertzler (best known to Trekkies as Martok, but playing a human captain here), and Garrett Wang (Ensign Kim from Voyager as a Klingon captain. I'm not immediately familiar with Kate Vernon, but she is awesome and I love that we're getting to see a female Starfleet captain in the TOS era.

Again from The One Wiki, here's the partial cast list for the full film:

Alec Peters as Captain Kelvar Garth, commanding officer of the U.S.S. Ares NCC-1650
Richard Hatch as Kharn the Undying, Klingon supreme commander
J. G. Hertzler as Captain Samuel Travis, Captain of the U.S.S. Hercules
Gary Graham as Soval, Vulcan Ambassador to the Federation
Kate Vernon as Captain Sonya Alexander, Captain of the U.S.S. Ajax
Tony Todd as Admiral Marcus Ramirez, Starfleet Commander in Chief, and
Garrett Wang as Captain of the first Klingon D-7 cruiser

All of those save G. Wang appear in the Prelude. And keep in mind that all these well-known, great actors are working for free because they love Star Trek.

Sometimes, I really do love Star Trek fandom the best.

So, without further ado, here's Prelude to Axanar.