My first words to my husband were “Live long and prosper.” During our wedding, the priest directed everyone to greet us with the Vulcan peace sign. Our kids won’t remember, but they wore Star Trek onesies (science blue.) So you could say Rob and I are pretty big fans of Star Trek.

We still watch the old shows, especially DS9, our fave, but there’s something exciting about new material. I’ll admit that I like the reboot – once I got over Kirk skipping graduation, commissioning, and FOUR ranks to Captain his own starship. (Okay, maybe I’m not quite over it. But imagine if they’d done ST: Reboot like the Honor Herrington series. Wow.) However, Rob and I have been pretty impressed by some of the fan films that are coming out. Another day, I’ll gush about Star Trek Continues – and talk about Star Trek: New Voyages, which I just discovered looking for the STC link. (Where have you been all my life?) Today, I want to geek out about the exclusive we got to see this month: Star Trek: Renegades.

For those that don’t know, Star Trek: Renegades is a full-length movie set 10 years after Voyager. Starfleet and the Federation Council have been corrupted and Earth is in danger. With Starfleet’s hands tied, Admiral Chekov and Captain Tuvok gather a band or mercenaries to deal with the crisis and help them root out the corruption. It stars Walter Koenig (Chekov), Tim Russ (Tuvok) Robert Picardo (Dr. Zimmerman/the EMH from Voyager), Gary Graham (Alien Nation, LOTR, Star Trek), Adrienne Wilkinson (Xena, Clone Wars), and a plethora of other known and semi-known actors. It’s a geek fest of SFF actors (probably for them as actors as well as us as viewers.)

Rob, my husband, soul mate and playmate in all things sci-fi, helped fund the film in its Kickstarter campaign, and one of the perks he got was a limited edition showing of the raw version. It’s the rough-draft version before final edits, the last special effects, and addition of the complete soundtrack. It’s interesting to see the story carried primarily by the actors and some simple SFX.

I’m not revealing spoilers, but here are a few impressions:

I like Chekov – and Koenig – older. He makes a good grandfather and admiral.

Scientist-turned-pirate Dr. Lucien looks so much like my good friend Laura, it was fun to watch, especially since she got to kiss Robert Picardo. Several times. In fact, now that I think about it, the older, married couple saw more action in the movie than the younger, sexier characters. Don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I approve.

The cast is really large for the movie, and to get you spun up fast, they brought in a lot of backstory data-dump as each was introduced. I’m hoping some editing will smooth that out. However…

The fight scene to introduce Lexxa Singh was nicely done. It almost smacked of cliché – well, no, it did – until they gave it a twist that brought a little joy to my writer heart. I won’t tell you what it is, but it’s fun.

There’s a great twist at the end, too, that they did a good job of foreshadowing without giving away until the very end.

Overall, some good actors playing fun characters in a fairly solid plot. My biggest complaint is that they are doing too much in too little time, so some of scenes felt forced. However, I get the feeling, they are setting up for a series of webcasts or movies. Either way, I’m in.

If you’d like to learn more, check out the website: http://startrekrenegades.com, and support them. Star Trek is a series that deserves to live long and prosper.