All posts by ThatBlairGuy

That Blair Guy has been working in software for longer than he cares to admit. These days he works throughout the software stack from the web UI down to SQL (and sometimes no-SQL), generally on the .Net framework, with frequent excursions to NodeJS, Linux, and PHP.
Fanfilms

A New Episode, and a New Installment

Starship Farragut

When Starship Farragut released their first episode last February, their goal was to release new episodes at a rate of two per year. The first episode, “The Captaincy” premiered at the Farpoint convention, so with the 2008 edition of Farpoint approaching, it occurred to me to check whether there were any updates.

Sure enough, when I visited Farragut’s web site (http://www.starshipfarragut.com/), I was greeted with an announcement that a new episode was available for download.

“For Want of a Nail” premiered on October 13 and was released on the web (with a variety of download mirrors) on December 3. I haven’t had a chance to view the episode yet (I may have an opportunity this weekend), but the trailers make it sound quite enticing.

Starship Exeter

After downloading the new Starship Farragut episode, I decided to check the status of another fan series, Starship Exeter (http://www.starshipexeter.com/). Rather than the “all at once” approach Farragut and New Voyages use for releasing their new episodes, Exeter has been releasing individual acts of the episode as they finish the post processing.

The advantage to this strategy is that you get to see new footage a little more often. The down side of course is that when a segment ends on a dramatic note, it can be quite frustrating waiting for the next segment to be released. In the case of Exeter’s current episode, “The Tressaurian Intersection,” it was a year between the release of Act II and Act III. (As frustrating as that might be, it’s still faster than IMPS: The Relentless which is coming up on three years since the last installment was released.)

As with the Exeter episode, I haven’t had a chance to watch Act III of “The Tressaurian Intersection” yet, but I do remember Act II as a classic cliffhanger. I’m definitely looking forward to watching it, though I can’t help wondering whether I should wait for the ending piece to be released.

Fanfilms, Music

Luke-Ski Music Videos

Every so often I’ll check out Luke Ski’s site to see if he has any interesting projects going on. Visiting the site today and progressing onto YouTube, I discovered a batch of music videos based on his songs. Some appear to have been created with Luke Ski’s direct input, some by his fans.

Check them out if you dare:

Holding out for Hiro

You Don’t Know Jack

Wannabe a Slayer (Only visible on YouTube)

Stealing Like a Hobbit

And then, it appears that somebody took a part of one of Luke Ski’s derivative works and created their own derivative work, “Jedi School Dropout” (featuring an excerpt from Luke Ski’s “Grease Wars”).

Commentary

Terminating the NFL

Fans haven’t had much good to say about the Fox network since Firefly was canceled (likewise for the cancellation of Futurama), but I do have to give the network credit for being able to laugh at themselves (for example, the various Fox-targeted jibes on The Simpsons).

For the past several years, Fox’s Superbowl coverage has included a “robotic football player” jumping around during the breaks where they name the sponsors. The spots promoting The Sarah Connor Chronicles, featuring the football player being attacked by Terminators, definitely got my attention.

I haven’t regularly watched anything on broadcast television for a few years, but this has me intrigued. (Seeing the two commercials they ran may also have something to do with it.)

Conventions

Farpoint’s Change of Address

The Farpoint Convention has a new web address — http://www.farpointcon.com/. They’ve actually had that one for a few years, but because it worked through a redirector, a lot of people didn’t know about it. And just to confuse things, Google is still redirecting people to the old hosting provider, which has out-of-date information.

So if you’re planning to attend Farpoint, make sure you check out http://www.farpointcon.com/. (Fanboy’s convention list has been using the new address since the 2003 event.)

Fanfilms

Another New Voyage

The New Voyages team has released their third episode, World Enough and Time starring George Takei as Hikaru Sulu.

At the moment, the episode is only available for download via Bittorrent, though a streaming option is also available. (Check the New Voyages web site for more information.)

I chose the Bittorrent option which took about an hour to download the 370+ MB file. (Your download time may, of course, vary for a number of reasons.)

Two quick notes for those who decide to download it that way:

  1. It may be just my download or it’s possible the filename got scrambled at the source. Either way, the file extension should be “.MP4” and not “.MP4(2)”.
  2. As you may have guessed from the previous item, this is not a MPG or WMV or even a .MOV file. To view the downloaded version you’ll need a fairly recent version of the QuickTime player. (I have no idea whether there might be some other viewing option, that’s what worked for me.)

I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve had a chance to watch the episode in it’s entirety, but what I’ve seen so far is quite impressive. They’re getting quite good at the visual effects and the acting keeps getting better.

The episode’s somewhere around an hour long which is about 18 minutes longer than any normal length “hour long” episode on TV.

Fandom

The Creation of a Toy

It’s not unusual for fans to build replicas of props in a favorite movie or TV show. You see that sort of stuff pretty much anytime fen gather. The really popular stuff – phasers, communicators, and the like – ends up being made available at the local toy store.

A more unusual event is when fans create something new that’s based on a movie and the toy companies decide to make that available too. Not because it was in a movie, not because there’s an established market for it, but because it’s just so right.

Take for instance the case of R2-KT.

Back in 2004, Katie Johnson was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. Her father, Albin Johnson, was the founder of the 501st Legion Star Wars Costuming Club and when word got out, fans world wide started doing everything they could to support Katie and her family.

In April of 2005, Katie’s sister said she wanted R2-D2 to watch over her Katie the way he’d watched over Amidala in Episode II. The R2 Builder’s Club (a group that builds remote controlled R2-units) got involved and set out to build one, to be named R2-KT in Katie’s honor. When it became apparent that the droid wasn’t going to be ready soon enough, Andy Schwarz, one of the club’s members, repainted his own R2-D2 and dispatched him to watch over Katie until R2-KT could take over.

Katie passed away in November of 2005, but R2-KT has been accompanying members of the 501st as they visit kids in the hospital.

At San Diego Comic Con this week, Hasbro and Lucasfilms have released a limited edition R2-KT toy in conjunction with a $100,000 donation to Make-A-Wish. At a glance, it’s just a pink R2-D2 toy. But when you know the story behind the toy – it’s a lot more.

Links of Interest:

Fanfilms

New Voyages Episode Premier

New Voyages has announced that the premier of the new episode, “World Enough and Time” will take place on August 23. The event will feature a special streaming live video broadcast from Beverly Hills with George Takei, James Cawley, Marc Zicree, Michael Reaves and others involved in creating the series. The premier event will be followed by a streaming broadcast of the episode.

An advance screening of the episode will take place during the Shore Leave 29 convention.