The story behind Star Trek Phase II and New Voyages
Crew
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The Star Trek: New Voyages pilot episode was produced by James Cawley, Jack Marshall (series director at the time), Pearl Marshall, Max Rem and Jerry Yuen. Episode 1 was produced by James Cawley, Jack Marshall, Pearl Marshall, Max Rem, Amanda Stryker, James Lowe, Jeff Quinn, John Muenchrath and Rod Roddenberry (Gene Roddenberry’s son). Episode 2 was produced by James Cawley, Jack Marshall, Erik Goodrich, James Lowe, Jeff Quinn, John Muenchrath and Rod Roddenberry.
The pilot and the first two episodes were directed by Jack Marshall. However, after filming of “To Serve All My Days” it was announced (December 29, 2005) that Marshall would leave the series. Marshall had been offered a position with the visual effects team of Battlestar Galactica and moved from Washington DC in February 2006 to Los Angeles California.
(Note to filmmakers — yes, fan films are a great way to augment your career, and Marshall’s story is proof.)
Max Rem continued his participation for another 6 months of post production and then also left the project.
July 2013 saw major announcements for production of the series, with James Cawley leaving the role of Captain Kirk to focus solely on production of the show and original series writer David Gerrold taking on the duties of Executive Showrunner in hopes of producing episodes with greater regularity. Gerrold also personally announced that due to an overwhelming backlog, the show would no longer accept script submissions, nor would any episodes based on existing Star Trek books, comics, stories or other published works be adapted to the series – due to a request by CBS legal in the fall of 2011. Rather, all further episodes will come from original works by previous Star Trek writers or crew associated with the series.
The first episode, “In Harm’s Way,” features Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry Jr., the son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, as a consulting producer. Sam Witwer (“Crashdown” from Battlestar Galactica, Doomsday in Smallville and Galen Marek from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed) is the voice of the Guardian of Forever (credited as “Simon Judas Raye”).
For the second episode, “To Serve All My Days,” written by original series writer D.C. Fontana, original cast member Walter Koenig reprises his role as Pavel Chekov. Mary-Linda Rapelye (Irina Galliulin in the original series episode “The Way to Eden”) appears as an ambassador.
The third episode, “World Enough and Time,” was co-authored by Marc Scott Zicree and Michael Reaves. Zicree, who also directed the episode, contributed the stories for the “First Contact” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and “Far Beyond the Stars” for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Reaves, who co-wrote (with Diane Duane) the “Where No One Has Gone Before” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, originally pitched a story to the unproduced Star Trek: Phase II series in which Sulu ages by thirty years, and that story served as the basis for this New Voyages episode. Majel Barrett Roddenberry provided the computer voice in this episode.
Oh FRAK, we got “axed!” Legal status and controversy
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Like all fan-films, New Voyages existed at the whim of the Star Trek franchise owners CBS (and previously Paramount Pictures), which previously tolerated the distribution of fan-created material as long as no attempt was made to profit from it.[8]
This tolerance was tested in early 2012 when New Voyages announced that they would film “He Walked Among Us,” an unproduced script that Norman Spinrad had sold to the original series. But when CBS claimed ownership of the material, the plans were canceled. CBS had not protested over the series’s use of “Blood and Fire”, which had been written for Star Trek: The Next Generation; “The Child”, and “Kitumba”, which had been similarly developed in the late 1970s for the aborted series Star Trek: Phase II, or Mind-Sifter published by Bantam Books, because they were written before the Star Trek movies directed by JJ Abrams were in production. (“The Child” was produced for “Star Trek: The Next Generation.) CBS wants to keep all material it has previously purchased or licensed in any way as possible work to be drawn on for future licensed films.[9]
New Voyages’ legal status was ultimately decided in 2016 following the release of new Star Trek fan film guidelines.
SIDEBAR:
There was a dude who had the frakin-nerve to raise money for his Trek fan-film while stating on his Crowdfunding page that the Cast and Crew were (I guess slated) to be Professional, rather than composed of well-meaning fans. His crowdfunding campaign (may have appeared ) to be a money-making venture set to rival the Studios. And he even did a proof of concept video with professional, well known Sci-Fi Alumni.
I won’t say his name…or the project name because it shall remain in the history book as a giant cluster-frak that screwed all Trek fan filmmaker’s…but you didn’t hear that here, wink, wink.
That said, even though a fan film maker writes a story and shoots a Trek-based film, in my humble opinion the content is still not entirely the filmmakers. Nope, because how can you own something that is “owned” by someone else — ugh, this sounds weird eh? Especially because people do make film-parodies.
So to be clear, the studio sued the “dude,” and also put into place more-strict guidelines for the future productions involving Star Trek “IP.”
And what happened to all of us Star Trek fan film makers? Well, we’re pissed at that dude because he put an AXE to our productions. Now, are there people out there who think the “AXE dude” was in the right? Let’s answer the question this way – – it appears that the dude in question is still making Trek films and getting public support.
But I wonder, do they live by the credo that says “ohh, the big studios are rip-offs, and they make too much money and deserve to have their stuff stolen, used, and exploited…” If that’s the case, maybe think about your own work. Do you get paid to do your work? Or do you feel that the entire world has the right to exploit your stuff no questions asked?
Back to the Phase II and NV details…
Furthermore, the studios response to the “AXE” controversy forbid the production of all Star Trek fan series and any fan productions that included staff who had worked on or appeared in official Star Trek works. This included much of the staff and cast of New Voyages, including creator James Cawley (who cameos in the 2009 Star Trek film). Production on New Voyages was halted in response, with three episodes in various states of production left unfinished. Following this, the sets for New Voyages were licensed by CBS to serve as the Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour.
Production notes
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The pilot episode, “Come What May”, begins with the late-1960s NBC “In Living Color” sequence. It ends, as did the 1960s episodes, with the animated Desilu Productions logo, with no mention of Paramount. Starting with “Enemy: Starfleet”, the series uses the late-60s CBS color opening (reflecting the series’ current ownership by CBS Television Studios) and ends with the logo of Cawley Entertainment Company, Cawley’s production company.
Inspired by the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lower Decks“, James Cawley and Carlos Pedraza had plans in 2007 to develop a series of stories called First Voyages to show “what it’s like to be a ‘grunt’ on a starship”, and with Peter Kirk (Bobby Rice) as the center of these stories focusing on a group of friends from the academy. Another character would be Xon, which had been developed for Star Trek: Phase II around 1977. A pilot episode, “Pomp and Circumstance” would be a New Voyages episode that would spin off into its own series.Though eight episodes were charted, the series didn’t materialize. But some components were incorporated into New Voyages, such as Peter Kirk and Xon in “Blood and Fire” and a CGI-model of a Klingon “Bird of Prey” which was used in “To Serve All My Days”
See Also: Farragut.
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