Wired 13.12: To Boldly Go Where No Fan Has Gone Before

"And it will star Walter Koenig, the actor who played navigator Pavel Chekov in the original series and seven of the 10 films."

Finishing up that 5-year mission... as only obsessed geeks can. Taking "fan films" to a whole 'nother level. Or at least a Batman-Predator Sandy Collara "Dead End" level.

Wired 13.12: To Boldly Go Where No Fan Has Gone Before:

"The original Star Trek set out on a five-year mission that network execs cut short in 1969. Now a new confederation of amateur Kirk worshippers and studio renegades is repairing the space-time continuum and finishing the job.

...This spring they will release episode three, titled "To Serve All My Days." Like the first two episodes of New Voyages, it will be downloadable for free at newvoyages.com. You'll also be able to snag bonus features, outtakes, and commentaries. You can burn it all to a disc and put it on the shelf between your Star Trek the Original Series - The Complete Third Season boxed set and your Star Trek: The Motion Picture director's edition DVD.

...They aren't satirizing or remixing Star Trek. They're resurrecting it.

...Each New Voyages episode is produced with the help of a growing network of Star Trek professionals. The makeup supervisor for the new episode, for example, is Kevin Haney, who worked on one of the many Trek TV series spun off from the original (and won an Oscar for makeup in Driving Miss Daisy). The script is by D. C. Fontana, a story editor for the original Star Trek series and author of some of its most beloved episodes. (Who can forget the one where Kirk steers the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone, near Romulan territory? Or the one that introduces Spock's parents?) And it will star Walter Koenig, the actor who played navigator Pavel Chekov in the original series and seven of the 10 films.

The fact that Trek pros are taking part in this fan project is something new in the world of filmmaking, the cinematic equivalent of semi-pro ball...

The pros have become fans of their amateur counterparts. Manny Coto, formerly an executive producer for UPN's Enterprise and now an executive producer of 24, says of the latest New Voyages production, "I'll be downloading it." And earlier this year at a science fiction convention in Pasadena, California, Cawley positioned himself behind the table where William Shatner was signing autographs, hoping to get a picture with the Enterprise's original captain. As he stood there, astonished at how close he was to his childhood - OK, adulthood - hero, a voice behind him yelled, "Hey, Kirk!"

"I turned, and so did Bill," Cawley says. Their two heads rotated together to see a couple of staff writers for UPN's Enterprise. "And with God as my witness," says Cawley, raising his right hand into the air, "they said, 'Not you, Bill. We're talking to him.'""