Walter Koenig To Appear in Star Trek Fan Film
Category: Television
published May 28th, 2005
This is just all sorts of cool. Walter Koenig who is probably best known for his role as Chekov in the original series of Star Trek (though I personally prefer him as Bester in Babylon 5) has agreed to appear in a fan made Star Trek film. The film is to be called To Serve All My Days and is the first time that a cast member from a show has reprised his role in a fan made product. Koenig originally played Chekov in the Star Trek series and also played the role in the first six Star Trek movies.
To Serve All My Days will be part of New Voyages, which is a downloadable series made by a group of Star Trek fans who are producing episodes of what would have been the fourth season of the original Star Trek series. The rest of the cast are played by fan actors.
James Cawley who was behind the New Voyages idea contacted Walter Koenig through a mutual acquaintance who had appeared as a Klingon in one of the two New Voyages episodes that have already been shot.
The New Voyages team has got D.C. Fontana to write the script for this episode. Fontana was a writer on the original Star Trek. They have also gotten the approval of Paramount who own the Star Trek franchise. Paramount have given Cawley and his group a list of guidelines that must be followed. The group cannot sell the downloads for profit and they most credit paramount correctly since that is the source of the intellectual property.
The first episode of New Voyages managed an impressive 6 million downloads. The second an astonishing 20 million. Cawley is of the opinion that Paramount may eventually license some fan films as a way of profiting from the enterprise. His own suggestion is a charge of $1 per download with Paramount taking 75% of that.
To Serve All My Days will shoot in September 2005 but is not expected to be available for download until January. The episode will show Koenig playing Chekov at his current age while Andy Bray will play Chekov as his younger self.
Link: Star Trek: New Voyages
Eoghann Irving is amongst other things the creator and Editor of Solar Flare. He has a life long interest in all forms of science fiction and fantasy and a pressing need to share this interest with anyone who will listen. Find out more at his his website eoghann.com.| 2.9 |
Have some Sci-Fi or Fantasy related news? Tell Solar Flare.
5 Comments ... Have Your Say!
November 12th, 2005 -
You guys should cheek this site out. It’s pretty cool, for star trek fans it like a new online series cheek it out
|
|
2.5 |
not swallowing this (Profile) November 21st, 2005 -
This Internet public relations comment: “Eugene Roddenberry returns to “New Voyages”: As Consulting Producer, Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, son of Star Trek Creator Gene Roddenberry, lends the family name to the show!” is nothing more than a hollow smokescreen to lend false impressions to the Trek fans about the REAL copyrights and protected trademarks of this fan video.
People can say that people ’say’ a lot of stuff. I sorta doubt this statement. Some fans video makers are known for stating rumors as facts and the reverse just to promote their selfish motives over the real trademark and copyright owners rights. Unless ViaCom or Paramount issue a press release on these matters; Koenig, New Voyages crew and the rest of fan video pirates are just “puffing” to get naive to believe their are legit to watch instead of part of larger problem. Paramount give up 3 Billion dollar franchise to copyright and trademark pirates…Uh, NO! To pirate will involve studio lawyers and federal court.
Paramount could and will shut them down anytime. New Voyages has no special permit to pirate the Trek Trademarks and Copyrights than any other Trek fan video project.
I suggest you do some Internet research on this subject before you propogate more false rumors on this matter.
Did you know also: Koenig is a member of performers unions Aftra and SAG, and BOTH unions have an explicit rule that their members are barred from working on non-union productions as New Voyages. That rule is called ‘Rule #1′ of Screen Actor Guild and Aftra for video work. Any violation of that rule could cause the member union expulsion, fines or at least a membership suspension. Do yo think they will risk that?
|
|
2.5 |
November 21st, 2005 -
Hate to spoil your little rant, but they aren’t copyright or trademark pirates. They are a fan group making no money. Paramount considers this acceptable. If they were to charge, then they’re in trouble.
Which is probably why Koenig can participate, he’s probably doing it for free.
|
|
2.5 |
trek1 (Profile) September 4th, 2006 -
Looks like New Voyages is still in business. I hope they continue to be and finally get a license from Paramount.
|
|
2.5 |
November 9th, 2005 -
Actually a film called ‘Yorktown 2: A time to heal’ was the first fan film that reprised the role of a major charactor from TOS.
It starred George Takei as Sulu, and was in fact the first ST fan film ever made. Though not yet released to the general public
rumor has has it that it is out there somewhere, and hopefully will soon be made available on the net. Supposedly Paramount has
a copy and put a cease and desist on the production because at the time it was sounding a little too legit. Apparently, they had
no idea how to deal with what are now known more commonly as ‘fan films’. Star Trek: the New Voyages looks to be continuing what
this film set out to originally do.