Region 2 "Newsletter of the Year" Award, 2012
Volume I
Region 2 "Newsletter of the Year" Award, 2nd Place, 2011, 2014
Number 93
Region 2 "Best Electronic Newsletter" Award, 2009
December 2015 (Early April 2016)
CONTENTS
UPCOMING EVENTS
•  Wednesday, April 6: Star Trek Geek Trivia at Battle & Brew
•  Saturday, April 9: Final Treklanta 2016 Staff Meeting
•  Friday-Sunday, April 15-17: Treklanta 2016

NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS
•  Lts. JG Lee & Tiffany Johnson named Members of the Year
•  
Treklanta announces actors, authors, artists and performers
•  Personnel Records
•  Library Computer
•  Recent Chapter Event Photos

SIDEBAR
•  Belated December Birthdays
•  February & March Membership Renewals
•  About the Republic
•  For More Information
•  USS Republic Online
•  Crew Roster

•  News from TrekMovie.com
  —  CBS CEO Les Moonves: "Netflix wanted Star Trek"
  CEO Les Moonves talks All Access, says CBS must wait six months after Beyond before Star Trek can come back to TV
  Fan film Star Trek: Horizon takes the Enterprise era out for an adventure
  New Star Trek Beyond image released
UPCOMING EVENTS
Star Trek Geek Trivia

8:00 p.m. Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Battle & Brew
5920 Roswell Road #A-120
Sandy Springs GA  30328
Treklanta is pleased to sponsor Star Trek Geek Trivia at Battle & Brew in Sandy Springs!  Time to rewatch all your favorite episodes and study up on the science behind warp drive, holodecks and transporters, then come out and participate in Star Trek Geek Trivia for a chance to win passes to Treklanta 2016!

Seating for Star Trek Geek Trivia can be reserved ahead of time via our Open Table online reservation system.  Teams are limited to parties of eight.  If you have more than eight, you will have to split into multiple teams.

Show up with your team before 8:00 and get a pad of paper and a pen.  Think up a clever team name and turn it in before Star Trek Geek Trivia starts.  Some teams choose to make fun of current events in their name, some stick with a classic name every night.  It's up to you!

Battle & Brew Geek Trivia Rules
There are three things that need to be on your answer sheet every time you turn in an answer: 1) your team name (or number), 2) your points wagered, and 3) your answer.  If you are missing any one of these three things, you may not get points for your answer!  If you don't know the answer, draw us a photo or put down something funny.  You CANNOT use your phone or the Internet to come up with the answers.  That is considered cheating and you will be disqualified.  You cannot be on more than one team.

How Trivia Works
We work similarly to other bar trivias, but there are some differences, so please read through this if you are a newcomer to Battle & Brew's Geek Trivia.  There will be three sets of three questions each, a halftime question, then three more sets of three questions each before a final trivia question.  You can wager 1, 3 or 5 points on each set.  You cannot repeat your wager.  So if you wager 5 points on the first question, you can only wager 1 or 3 points on the second question.  You MUST wager points even if you don't know the answer, or else we will mark you down for having used your highest wager left.  This lets us know that you are still playing and haven't punkd out.  Once a new set of three questions is started, your point values reset.

The halftime question usually is a multiple-answer question where there is a set amount of points you can earn.  The points on the second half of trivia are still 1, 3 and 5 (keep your 2, 4 and 6's at home).  For the final trivia question, you will wager between 1 and 15 points.  These points are the only points that can be deducted from your score if you get the answer wrong!  All the team point values will be read aloud before the final question is asked to give everyone a fair idea of how many points they should wager to be able to win.  You must wager at least 1 point on this question.

Prizes
Standard prizes are house cash for First, Second and Third place.  There may be weeks where we have additional prizes for the winners and/or for participants.  So even if you don't win trivia, you may still be able to walk away with a prize!  House cash won cannot be used on the same night it was received.
Final Treklanta 2016 Staff Meeting

7:00 p.m. Saturday, April 9, 2016
Chinatown Buffet
Chamblee Plaza Shopping Center
5438 Peachtree (Industrial) Boulevard
Chamblee GA  30341
LAST CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS!
All members and friends of the USS Republic, all current
Treklanta directors and staff volunteers and most importantly, anyone who's interested in volunteering for Treklanta staff are requested attend our last staff meeting of the year on Saturday, April 9, at 7:00 p.m.

The purpose of this meeting is to finalize staff recruitments, assign departments, fill vacancies and answer any questions our volunteers may have about the convention in general or their duties in particular.  Interested in joining the Republic?  Join us!  Need to renew your membership dues?  Join us!  Want to become involved with the convention?  Join us!  Just want to hang out for a while with a great group of folks who love Star Trek?  Join us!

CHANGE OF LOCATION!

At our last volunteer staff meeting in March, Marlow's Tavern was unable to seat our entire party together.  For that reason, we have decided to not return to Marlow's for our final meeting of the year and instead, we will meet at Chinatown Buffet in the Chamblee Plaza Shopping Center on Peachtree (Industrial) Boulevard in Chamblee, about a mile inside the Perimeter.  Chinatown Buffet management is looking forward to hosting our meeting and can accommodate groups of our size with just a little notice.  For that reason, please visit our Facebook Event Page and click "Join" or "Like" or "Going" (or whatever it's called) to indicate your intention to attend.  Conversely, please do NOT click any of those buttons or "Interested" if you do not plan to attend.  We only need to hear from those who DO plan to attend.  Thanks!

Chinatown Buffet offers a full... well, buffet for only $8.99 per person.  Most beverages are $1.50.  Your hard-working, yet easy-to-please Captain/Chairman has recently dined here and found it to be acceptable.  

Treklanta 2016

3:00 p.m. Friday, April 15, 2016 to
6:30 p.m. Sunday, April 17, 2016
DoubleTree by Hilton Atlanta Northlake Hotel
4156 Lavista Road
Tucker GA  30084
GUESTS OF HONOR
     
FEATURED GUESTS
     
GUEST PERFORMERS
•  PLUS 13 ADDITIONAL GUESTS ANNOUNCED BELOW
•  FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT ALL OUR GUESTS, VISIT THE "GUESTS" PAGE AT WWW.TREKLANTA.ORG
 
BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM HERE
Do it now.  Group rate could expire at any time.

EVENTS & ACTIVITIES
•  Q&As, Autographs & Photo Opps with Celebrity Guests
•  Two tracks of programming devoted to Star Trek and your favorite space opera TV shows and movies
•  Trekkiepalooza! featuring performances by
     Felt Nerdy: Science Fiction Puppet Show
     Eric Daughery and Captain's Log: Star Trek Comedy Show
     The Atlanta Radio Theatre Company: Space opera drama
     Hyperspace: Nerd rock band
     Dirty Harry's Karaoke Cantina
•  Jack Stauffer's Cabaret: "How Come I Never Got the Girl?"
•  17th Annual Miss Klingon Empire Beauty Pageant
•  The Independent Star Trek Fan Film Festival
•  The Independent Star Trek Fan Film Awards Ceremony
•  The Treklanta Masquerade
•  Screening of Firefly fan film: Browncoats: Independence War
•  Open Gaming with Dozens of Games
•  Dealers Room & Fan Tables
•  Authors Alley, Artists Alley & Art Show
•  Con Suite
•  Weekend Memberships & One-Day Badges available at the door
•  Children 6-12 Half-Price; Under 6 Free w/Paid Adult
NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Lts. JG Lee & Tiffany Johnson named Members of the Year
The USS Republic is pleased to announce that its 2015 Member of the Year award has been presented to Lts. JG Lee & Tiffany Johnson.  The award was presented to the couple by Commanding Officer Fleet Captain Eric L. Watts at the Republic's annual Holiday Party on December 20.

The Johnsons joined the USS Republic in August 2013 and quickly established themselves as two of the chapter's most active members, in spite of the distance from their home, originally in Cartersville and then in Blue Ridge, Georgia.  They routinely drive anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to attend Republic events and activities.

Both Lee and Tiffany rose in rank quickly, from Ensign to Lt. JG, by completing both the Officers Training College and Officers Command College courses offered by STARFLEET Academy.  They have actively recruited new members for the Republic and sponsored full-page ads promoting the chapter in the Treklanta program book in 2015 and 2016.

The USS Republic is privileged to have Lee and Tiffany aboard as such active and involved members.  Congratulations to them both for being selected to receive this prestigious award!
Treklanta announces more than a dozen additional actors, authors, artists and performers to line-up
Treklanta is pleased to announce that no less than a dozen additional actors, authors, artists and performers have been added to our guest line-up for our 2016 convention!

Among our Featured Guests, we are pleased to welcome actress, model and entertainer Lynn McArthur, best known for her recent roles as Trixie in Lumber Baron of Jasper County and as Kellie Callahan in Swamp Murders, as well as playing herself on Celebrity Wife Swap with Corey Feldman.  Jeff Carroll is a writer and filmmaker who has written and produced two films, Holla If I Kill You and Gold Digger Killer, and published three books: the novelization of Gold Digger Killer, Thug Angel: Rebirth of a Gargoyle and It Happened on Negro Mountain.  Jevocas "Java" Green is an actor, filmmaker and makeup artist best known for his long-running stint as Dr. Frank N. Furter with Atlanta's own live cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Lips Down On Dixie, and as the titular star of the YouTube web series, Doctor Who: The Forgotten Doctor.  R. Alan Siler is the author of Doctor Who's Greatest Hits: An Unauthorized Guide to the Best Stories From Time and Space and a contributing author to More Doctor Who and Philosophy: Regeneration Time.

We have also added five artists to our second Artists Alley!  Returning from last year is Justin Anderson, whose work is inspired by a juxtaposition of themes that range from movies, pop culture, animal symbolism, quotations and history.  His technique stems from a traditional art background combined with commercial art skills, with a heavily saturated influence from drip painter Jackson Pollack and bold lines from comic books, realism, street art and video games.  Joining us for the first time this year is Maria Miller, a freelance artist who does custom traditional paintings in a wide variety of genres in acrylic paint, but who also does pen and pencil illustrations.  Gillian Parker is a longtime henna artist who only uses natural henna for her art, creating beautiful artwork on your skin.   She mixes traditional and modern designs and can add glitter and rhinestones to your tattoos.  Malik Roberts has been drawing and painting all his life and is now realizing his lifelong dream of making animated cartoons.  He has also begun exhibiting his work in local art shows and is a presidential honor roll student at The Art Institute of Atlanta.  Scott Rorie is known for his realistic portraits and has worked for many different card companies, creating sketch cards for sets like Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Voyager for Rittenhouse Archives; numerous Star Wars sets for Topps; The Walking Dead for Cryptozoic Entertainment; and many others.

In our first-ever Authors Alley, we are pleased to welcome Michael Lackey, whose first novel, The Bad Seed, is a medieval fantasy that follows Zachery Morely as he discovers a mysterious dark figure in his family's garden that tells him of doom and destruction coming to his world.  The Saga of Ukumog is Louis Puster III's dark fantasy series about an undead man with a forgotten past, a woman seeking revenge and a sword with a taste for the souls of dark things.  There are three novels in the series so far: Wracked, Desecrated and Flayed.  A fan of thought-provoking science fiction and history, Winfield H. Strock III's works frame familiar and controversial issues within fantastic environments and from challenging perspectives.  His four published novels include Adventures Above the Aether; its sequel, Aether Legion; Red Sounding; and The Veneer Clause.  From vampires on a submarine to steampunk starships and beyond, Strock hopes to move hearts to action and entertain minds open to a larger universe.

And finally, Treklanta is delighted to announce that Captain's Log will be performing in our second annual Star Trek Comedy Show!  Captain's Log is an improv comedy group that performs the first Friday of each month at the Village Theatre in Atlanta.  The cast includes Syl Turner, Josh Warren, Cory Di Mino, Kevin Goreham, Tom Bastek, Elliot Goff and Erica Anthony.  Most of the crew are big fans of sci-fi, but some have never seen an episode of Star Trek.  It's a sci-fi mishmash hodgepodge of galactic proportions, and we have it at Treklanta!
ALL THIS AND MORE FOR ONLY $40 WHEN YOU PREREGISTER!  NO OTHER CONVENTION GIVES YOU THIS MUCH VALUE FOR THIS LOW A PRICE!   PREREGISTER AND BOOK YOUR HOTEL ROOM RESERVATION TODAY ON OUR WEB SITE AT WWW.TREKLANTA.ORG!
Personnel Records
STARFLEET Academy is a special collection of correspondence courses available to every STARFLEET member.  Over 60 Academy Colleges offer courses spanning all aspects of Star Trek and science fiction; some courses even cover non-sci-fi real world topics.  Each college offers dozens of different courses at varying levels of challenge from super-easy to really hard.  In total, there are nearly 1,000 different courses available.  Take a course today!

Something special going on in your life?  Submit your Personnel Record for publication in the next issue of The Republiqué!
Library Computer
CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE
NASA planned to name the first space shuttle Constitution, to commemorate the nation's bicentennial in 1976.  But that changed between the announcement of the program in 1972 and the unveiling of the craft in 1976.
Star Trek fan Bjo Trimble already had experience in mobilizing Trekkers; she had spearheaded a fan campaign to save the original Star Trek series from cancellation in 1967.  That effort stretched the show's run into a third year.  Trimble organized Star Trek fans in a new campaign to name the first space shuttle Enterprise instead of Constitution.  The White House received somewhere between 10,000 and 40,000 letters urging the name change (although some estimates go as high as 200,000).  President Gerald Ford spoke with NASA chief James Fletcher and said, "You know, I'm a little partial to the name Enterprise."  Ford did not mention the letter-writing campaign, but instead referred to the fact that he served on a Navy ship that serviced the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.  Fletcher resisted the name change, but was overruled by the president.  The shuttle would be named Enterprise.

Bjo Trimble and her husband John are Fan Guests of Honor at this year's Treklanta.  They are legendary in science fiction fandom.  Don't miss this rare opportunity to meet the couple who literally saved
Star Trek.
Recent Chapter Event Photos
CLICK ANY PHOTO TO ENLARGE
USS Republic Holiday Potluck Party & Member of the Year Award Ceremony  ||   December 20, 2015
Members and friends of the USS Republic attend our annual Holiday Potluck Party!  Hosted by (ENS1) Tony Cade at Challenges Games and Comics... thanks, Tony!

Seated: Adm Mike Henigan, Adm Kelly Hilliard, ENS1 Tracey S. Harwell, ENS1 Sue Lin Lange.  Standing: Melissa Cowart, Henry Cowart, Ens Daniel Cowart, Matt Steinberg, Lt JG Lee Johnson, Lt JG Tiffany Johnson, Kathy Wynn, FCapt Eric L. Watts, Ens Vicki Greve, Ens Gaylen Greve, ENS1 Zannetta Tucker, ENS1 Richard Tucker, CDT4 Zarena Tucker, (Ens) Chris Jones.
Members and friends of the USS Republic enjoyed yet another holiday feast, including Captain Eric's traditional roasted turkey.  There were lots of other meats, veggies, starches and desserts spread across two tables, as well as plenty of holiday... ah... beverages.
Captain Eric congratulates the USS Republic's 2015 Members of the Year, Lieutenants JG Tiffany (left) and Lee (right) Johnson, who routinely drove long distances to participate in chapter events, actively recuited new members and sponsored a full-page ad for the Republic in the 2015 Treklanta program book.  For outstanding service to the chapter, Lee and Tiffany received the Republic's highest honor.

BELATED DECEMBER BIRTHDAYS

Saturday, December 12
Adm Kelly S. Hilliard

FEBRUARY & MARCH MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS
These members' dues expired in
February and March.  Please renew now!

Ens Daniel Cowart
ENS2 Tracy O'Quinn
Lt JG Robert Louis Simon
ENS2 Robert Teague
ENS1 Chris White

ABOUT THE REPUBLIC
The USS Republic NCC-1371 was originally commissioned as a chapter of STARFLEET International on May 14, 1988, at the Dixie-Trek convention in Atlanta, Georgia.  As of April 3, 2016, the Republic crew includes 35 members who are active members of STARFLEET in good standing.
The Republic plans and coordinates an active schedule of events for its members, but does not hold meetings on a consistently fixed date each month.
Because the USS Republic is a duly commissioned chapter of STARFLEET International and is bound and governed by its Constitution and By-Laws, membership in STARFLEET is a prerequisite for membership in the Republic.  STARFLEET dues for one person are $20 for a "Standard Membership" or $10 for an "E-Membership" and chapter dues are $10 per person for either membership option.  A combined payment for all dues is collected by the Republic (family discounts are available with certain conditions and restrictions).  Additional information about the two STARFLEET membership options, amounts due for additional family members, payment options and payment instructions is on the "How to Join" page of our award-winning web site.
MEMBERSHIP DUES
PDF STARFLEET NEWSLETTER EMAILED TO YOU
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PRINTED STARFLEET NEWSLETTER MAILED TO YOU
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FOR MORE INFORMATION

USS REPUBLIC ONLINE

CREW ROSTER
AS OF APRIL 3, 2016

ENS1 Nelson M. Barnhouse

CDT4 Zarena Nova Tucker
Ensign "Wolfy"

NEWS from
CBS CEO Les Moonves: "Netflix wanted Star Trek"
By Kayla Iacovino
February 29, 2016
Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference in San Francisco today, CEO of CBS Les Moonves told the crowd that streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu all wanted the new Star Trek series.  And, they were willing to pay big bucks for what Moonves called "CBS's family jewel."
The new Star Trek series coming to CBS's over-the-top streaming service, CBS All Access, in 2017 apparently garnered a lot of attention from big streaming services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu during the show's inception.
"Netflix, Amazon, Hulu... they all offered us a lot of money.  They all wanted it very badly," Moonves said.  "We could have taken the quick bucks from Netflix, but it shows we're investing in a property we really believe in the future of."
"For this relatively minor investment, this is how we're going to get All Access to be where we want it to be: where there are millions and millions and millions of subscribers." added Moonves.   "And by putting that forward, we said to the world, 'CBS is really serious about this.'  [We at CBS have] taken this crown jewel property and put it in a place where [we] know there are so many millions of Star Trek fans that they will pay for this."
The fact that the Big Three were willing to pay top dollar for the show suggests that CBS's move to use Star Trek to bolster their own streaming service may have been a wise choice.  Moonves also indicated that Star Trek may be the first of many original shows created for the All Access platform.
REPRINTED FROM TREKMOVIE.COM
© 2016 SciFanatic Network

CEO Les Moonves talks All Access, says CBS must wait six months after Beyond before Star Trek can come back to TV
By Kayla Iacovino
March 8, 2016
Les Moonves revealed this morning that CBS had to wait six months after the premier of Star Trek Beyond before launching their new Star Trek television series, which will premier on CBS All Access next January.  He also spoke about the future of All Access, including a possible merge with Showtime.
Speaking to a crowd at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference this morning, CBS CEO Les Moonves spoke about the split of Viacom, which resulted in CBS and Paramount fighting over what Moonves calls a "family jewel": Star Trek.
When [CBS and Paramount] split from Viacom ten years ago, January 1, 2006, one of the big sticking points, as you can imagine, was Star Trek.  You know, we both wanted it.
[Paramount] said "It's a movie!" and I said, "No, no, no, it's a TV show."  Actually, we're both right.  So they kept the feature film rights, we kept the television rights; they have [Star Trek Beyond] coming out July 22."
Moonves revealed that part of the deal between the two production companies was a waiting period in between the new movies and a new television series.
Our deal with [Paramount] is that we had to wait six months after their film is launched so there wouldn't be a confusion in the marketplace.
Star Trek is CBS's family jewel
As Moonves has said before, he and CBS consider Star Trek a "family jewel" and are using the franchise to bolster their new streaming service, CBS All Access.  For Trekkies, Moonves's faith in the show is a good thing, since it means CBS will put their full backing behind the series in a way that appeals to its already massive fanbase.
Star Trek is an expensive show.  It's the family jewel, obviously.  The previous Star Trek shows that we sold to Netflix did extraordinarily well; I don't think it's a great surprise that Trekkies would go to the [streaming services] of the world.  So we sort of felt that we had a tiger in the bottle.
We announced Star Trek, and internationally, we basically have covered 60% of the cost of the show already.  To make up that [other] 40%, it's not going to take a whole lot of subscriptions, and it says to the world that we are very serious about this.
When you put something on [All Access], it's got to be something special, something you wouldn't find on the [CBS broadcast network], something that will attract subscribers.  As I said, Star Trek was kind of a no-brainer: there aren't a lot of [properties] out there with that kind of following.
In 2017, when Star Trek starts on All Access, we think that it's going to be extraordinarily successful.
The future of CBS All Access
A lot can change to CBS's All Access streaming service between now and the premier of Star Trek next January.  Today, Moonves hinted at a so-called "skinny bundle" of All Access and the standalone Showtime offering, at a discount to their current pricing.  Showtime launched its standalone streaming service in July at a hefty $10.99/month.
Someone's going to figure out how to do this and how to give people what they want to watch, and it's not for $100 a month.  It will be for $35 or $39 dollars a month where you'll really get the 12 to 15 or 18 channels that you care about.  And not get the karate channel for 25 cents a month.  That doesn't make sense anymore.
Moonves called the idea of skinny bundles "inevitable" and called them a "great idea... that will become more and more a part of our culture."
"No matter what universe you live in, you have to have us....  You can't live without CBS," he said.
Moonves hinted that All Access would be seeing new and different features pre-Trek launch, saying that, while All Access has been successful, "we haven't pulled out all of the stops.  Next year it's going to add substantially to our bottom line."  And, he implied that Star Trek will be the driving force behind All Access's success:
I think when Star Trek starts, which is in January 2017, I think you're going to see a larger marketing push for [All Access] right then because there will be a lot of people who will sign up then.
He said that shortly after Star Trek, subscribers can expect about three or four more originals on All Access.
Ad-free All Access?
One of the biggest consumer complaints about the All Access streaming service is the fact that viewers who pay $5.99/month for the service are obligated to sit through the same advertisements they would see for free over the air on the CBS broadcast network.  Moonves has talked about implementing an ad-free version of the service for some time now, and has floated the idea of a $9.99/month ad-free service.
REPRINTED FROM TREKMOVIE.COM
© 2016 SciFanatic Network

Fan film Star Trek: Horizon takes the Enterprise era out for an adventure
By Bill Watters
March 11, 2016
After a successful Kickstarter in 2014 (they more than doubled their $10,000 target by taking in $22,600), writer/director Tommy Kraft and his team have finally delivered a fan film that's pretty darned good.  Their backer community had been a bit worried with the delays (the original release date had been set for December of 2014), but it would seem the wait was well worth it.
It's no mean feat to manage to create a 102-minute long feature film that's basically entirely green screen on a less-than-shoestring budget (think a fan-level version of what was done with Battlestar: Galactica—Blood & Chrome, right down to the camera motion).  So on a technical level alone they deserve some mad props, and is likely one of the key reasons for its extended delay.
The film is set in the era of Star Trek: Enterprise, with the NX-01 even putting in a brief cameo, but it's the NX-04, the Discovery, and her crew that are the primary focus of the story.  If you're not a fan of the long-running Temporal Cold War story arc of Enterprise, then this might not be the particular film for you, but don't tune out quite yet.
The film opens with a prologue 250,000 years earlier, during the last moments of a war between the Arioui and the Iconians.  Some of the last remaining Iconians manage to Stargate away a planet with a massively powerful weapon and hide it from the Arioui, who, it is implied, would have used it to rule or destroy the rest of the galaxy.  The planet's name is Horizon, and those last Arioui keep it hidden, lest it fall into the wrong hands.
Jumping forward to the present, we meet up with the Discovery in a running battle with a trio of Romulan Warbirds.  The Discovery has a newly discovered Romulan defector, T'Mar (Callie Bussell) on board and the chasing Warbirds want her back—dead or alive.
After an all-too narrow escape, it is found that T'Mar is a wealth of tactical knowledge and reveals that the Romulans are building a weapon of mass destruction.  Thus the stage is set, and the Discovery is set out to find the truth of what the Romulans are up to and to prevent them from gaining an upper hand in the war.
There's a lot of story packed into this film, and from a narrative point of view, it's well-constructed and flows well.  Various elements from Star Trek: Enterprise imbues it with an honest feeling of being part of that universe without being forced.  The outsider's-battle-to-be-accepted trope in the case of T'Mar was decently handled, and gave that almost underlying morality story that so many good Trek tales often possess.  Picking up story elements from other parts of the Trek canon (the Iconians and their mythos having started back in The Next Generation episode "Contagion") also shows that they didn't just pull the storyline out of a hat.
As with many independent productions, the acting is uneven and at times a touch cringey.  There are also some moments of dialogue that could have been better crafted (the amount of stop and talk in the midst of a gun battle in Discovery's engineering was a bit askew).  However, there's other times when the acting is perfectly solid—such as some quiet moments between Lieutenant Amelia Yaris (Jeannine Thompson) and Captain Harrison Hawke (Paul Lang) that were really good.  The Romulan characters were well-cast, between Bussel and Ryan Husk as Admiral Verak.
It's easy to poke at the foibles of a low-budget film; however, it must be reminded that it's a low-budget film.  Yup, the fit on the costumes was rough; some of the makeup work... also rough.  Some of the effects, especially around the person-to-person phaser battles were also by no means perfect.  If you want to compare its effects and production quality to Blood & Chrome, that's fine, but you're comparing a three million dollar budget to twenty thousand.  Give creating a single SFX track-around shot like Horizon has by yourself, and then naysayers can cast stones.
But perfection isn't really what one should look for in these films or episodes.  Does it hold to the tradition of the style of Star Trek in which they set their story?  Does it flow well and make sense, both in and of itself, as well as part of the wider canon?  Do you have a good time watching it?  For those later questions, Horizon does so admirably.  I've watched a number of productions over the past year where I had to fast forward through one scene or another because it felt just plain bad; this isn't one of those projects.  In fact, I really hope that Kraft and his team continue to explore other stories and projects, as there's some real production skill to be found among them.
Rating: 4 Stars out of 5
REPRINTED FROM TREKMOVIE.COM
© 2016 SciFanatic Network

New Star Trek Beyond image released
By TrekMovie.com Staff
March 28, 2016
A new image has surfaced for the upcoming film.
The still, part of USA Today's Summer Movie Preview, features Simon Pegg as Scotty and Sofia Boutella as Jaylah, and is the first official release we've seen since the teaser trailer dropped in December.
In the blurb accompanying the image, director Justin Lin continues to keep most plot details under wraps, simply saying that:
Kirk and Spock is the heart of the ensemble, but we all have love for everybody else.  It was to be able to not only showcase these characters but also to be able to push them and interact and react to certain obstacles.
Star Trek Beyond hits the big screen on July 22.
REPRINTED FROM TREKMOVIE.COM
© 2016 SciFanatic Network
USS Republic NCC-1371
B O L D L Y    G O I N G 
 B O L D L Y    D O I N G™
2902 Aspen Woods Entry
  Atlanta, Georgia  30360-2759
  www.USSRepublic.com
Commanding Officer
  Fleet Captain Eric L. Watts
Executive Officer
  Admiral W. Michael Henigan

The Republiqué Volume I, Number 93, December 2015 (Early April 2016).
Published monthly by and Copyright © 2016 USS Republic NCC-1371.
Fleet Captain Eric L. Watts, Editor.

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