Star Trek: Horizon Film
4 min read
A new feature-length fan film will be set in the world of Star Trek: Enterprise, after the fourth season of the prematurely-cancelled series.
In Star Trek: Horizon, “the Coalition of Planets, a young alliance of worlds led by Earth, is at war with the Romulan Empire,” and “forms an alliance with T’mar, a Romulan deserter, in the hopes that she can provide valuable intelligence on her former masters.”
The crew of the NX-04 Discovery is captained by Captain Harrison Hawke, who took command of the ship just as the war with the Romulan Empire began.
“Star Trek: Horizon is a feature-length film, made by fans in love with Star Trek, that is set during the time of Enterprise (the fifth Star Trek series). It is our goal to create a feature film that is worthy of the name Star Trek and that can close out the story threads that were left hanging after Enterprise‘s untimely cancellation in 2005.”
Tommy Kraft, the filmmaker behind Star Trek: Horizon, explained how the project came to be and what fans can expect from the movie.
TrekToday: When you decided to get out of game development, why did you choose to develop short films instead?
Kraft: Game development was always more of a hobby for me. I was never able to find the passion that I have with film that allows me to sink my entire life into a project for years on end, as I have with Horizon. I absolutely love a good video game that tells a good story, so who knows, I could end up doing that again someday!
TrekToday: After almost a dozen other films, why did you decide upon Star Trek as a topic?
Kraft: I’ve always been a dreamer and a huge sci-fi fan. As a very young kid I’d watch Star Trek and it would captivate me so much with all of the amazing possibilities and ideas it presented. Until now, I never felt I had the experience to do a feature film justice, let alone a Star Trek feature film.
TrekToday: Why did you go with the time frame of Star Trek: Enterprise instead of one of the more popular Trek televised series?
Kraft: The answer is kind-of similar to why I chose to do a Star Trek fan film. Around a year and a half ago, I was going through a very hard time. Having not watched Enterprise since it first aired, I decided to start watching it again. It was like an entirely new show to me, and I absolutely fell in love with it. It became my favorite Star Trek series, and was actually quite instrumental in changing my life and helping me find myself. Not only do I think Enterprise told some great stories, but it has great personal meaning to me as well, which is a combination that has given me endless inspiration to keep working on this project day-and-night for the past year.
TrekToday: What do you expect fans to take away from Star Trek: Horizon?
Kraft: Hopefully, they’ll come away feeling like they’ve just experienced a classic Star Trek story that not only builds on what has come before, but finishes storylines that Enterprise didn’t get a chance to when they were cancelled. I wanted to tell an emotional story, an action-packed story, and a moral story, and I think I’ve hit upon a script that manages to do all of those things quite well.
TrekToday: What will be the next project, after Star Trek: Horizon?
Kraft: Honestly, I’m not sure yet. I’ve been thinking about a number of things that I’d like to do, but I haven’t made any concrete decisions. I’ve been thinking a lot about doing an original space epic I’ve been writing for the past few years, but my entire life is Horizon right now, so I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it.
TrekToday: Thank you, Mr. Kraft!
A Kickstarter program will begin within a week or so for Star Trek: Horizon, to help fund some of the filming costs. Fans will be able to see the first five minutes of the film when the Kickstarter campaign begins. TrekToday will provide the link to the Kickstarter campaign on both Facebook and Twitter once the campaign goes live.
Star Trek: Horizon is expected to be released at the end of the year.
For more information on Star Trek: Horizon, head to the link located here. Kraft’s website, where his other short films can be found, is located here.
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I know it’s a bit nitpicky but why does an ENT-era film have the Nemesis-era Romulan logo?
It’s interesting that this fan film and “Star Trek:Axnar” can use the copyrighted “Star Trek” name and content to raise money, in the case of “Axnar” over $100,000 dollars, and Paramount does nothing to stop them. I know they say it’s just a fan film and no profit is being made, but $100,000?! With that kind of money rolling in, I can’t believe Paramount has no problem with this — Unless they are behind it in some way.
The same reason ENT-era Romulans wore Nemesis-era costumes and prosthesis?
I see your point but the uniforms aren’t exactly the same as the ones in Nemesis. Maybe the uniforms updated in Nemesis were ENT-era throwback style? Haha. Oh, and maybe the makeup differences had something to do with augment genes (kidding).
i think the idea is they can raise money to cover costs such as set building, buying equipment etc but nobody can be paid for their time, for acting and it can’t be sold. no one is allowed to make a profit. but yes 100,000 sure is a lot of money.
I’ve always found this to be weird, too. Especially when you recall the heavy hand Paramount wielded against online fandom back in the ’90s, or think about the various “unauthorized” books about the franchise over the years that have been legally unable to use “Star Trek” in their titles, or include any trademarked names or copyrighted photos of ships, characters or places on their covers (witness Marc Cushman’s first “These are the Voyages” volume, which can identify its subject only as “TOS Season One” and was graced with only the most generic cover art until a public-domain photo of the shooting of “Where No Man Has Gone Before” was provided for the paperback edition).
Yeah, I get that is the way fan films have been able to exist for a long time. However, they were produced out of the pocket of the filmmakers. With this large amount of money being raised on kickstarter by fans, who are offered DVD copies of the finished film among other things, this really doesn’t seem much different than Paramount offering a DVD of a “Star Trek” movie on the market. Who is accountable for this money? How is anyone to know how much money goes toward the production and not to things other than the production. There just seems to be no rules to this. And as far as determining profit goes, there are Major Movie Studios who claim that their Smash Hit Movies have not turned a profit.
This is an excellent observation! How about the time Paramount sent GOONS around to a convention to shut down dealers selling unauthorized “Star Trek” t-shirts — even boxing up the shirts and confiscating them! Yeah, there is something strange about this.
Supposition: Might be because they decided it was a good way to form a filmaking “minor leagues” at no cost to themselves, while keeping interest up in four series that will probably never be revived (i.e., sequels starring original casts). In other words, it loses them no money, helps develop talent at the SFX/key grip type of level, may help generate sales in older series merchandise…and if the thing is any good and develops interest….
And then there is also a comparison to Star Wars fandom. I’m not really up on it, but I would say a case could be made that SW fandom is more robust than ST fandom, wider spread, more enthusiastic–and in part it is because there is constant product (in one universe), and because Lucasfilm allowed/encouraged the fans to be fanatics, whereas I think Paramount could be said to have been happy you paid for the theatre tickets and otherwise thought you were strange (don’t know, because I’m not connected to ST fandom either)–and that they are now trying to reverse that.
It is weird to think about how much they used to come after the fans and now they let so much go that once would have resulted in instant reactionary bullshit. Even when they do need something taken down for some reason these days, they’re civil about it. Likewise, a lot of time they use fan resources for their own stuff. Plus a lot has changed since the late 90s. Back then they didn’t know how to handle the tech and the fans. Now? They’re wiser and realize alienating us will only hurt them.
Most unusual. Yet, very interesting.
Great to see anything Star Trek… Hope they reveal who the “Future guy” is in the film…
hello my jaw has hit the floor after the teaser and I have not been able to pick it up after opening about 6 pages at the same time and finding out that teaser that started this whole thing was dune in a basement with almost no budget wow that’s all I can say still reading
I hope that paramount gets with it and not try to stomp it as what ive seen in basement at almost no budget teaser that’s skill and no director at the box office I can think of can do it all himself as this teaser is dune I just got to say it wow dude!