Just got done watching Star Trek: Renegades. This was a fan funded film which was hoped would help spur interest in a new Trek TV series but looks like it will end up being a web series instead.

I'd give the film a 6-6.5 out of 10.

The special effects were just as good as anything you'd see on TV. The sound effects and score were well done as well. And the story is an interesting premise.

It was nice to see some of the veteran Trek actors reprising roles. They, of course, did well on screen. Some of the new, smaller name actors like the main protagonist Adrienne Wilkinson/Captain Lexxa Singh and Chasty Ballesteros/Ronara among a couple others, did a pretty good job for not being big names. Unfortunately, among one of my complaints, most of the rest of the cast felt a little "unpolished" to put it politely.

My single biggest complaint would have to be the sets. I understand this was a fairly low budget production so I give it a bit of a handicap in regard to a lot of them looking somewhat simple but, that wasn't the real problem. My biggest complaint in this department would have to be the Starfleet ship and building interiors. Why yellow for the paneling? That right there had a big hand in taking me out of the feeling of it being a Star Trek production. Everyone that is a Trek fan is used to the beige and light gray typical of Starfleet facilities. Why try to change that? DS9 got away with it because they were on a Cardassian station but, whenever a Federation vessel or facility was the setting, it was recognizable as that. I just didn't feel like I was in a Starfleet ship or a Starfleet building when that's what the film was supposed to be showing.

Another of my biggest complaints was the inconsistency in the feeling of the film overall, I saw someone who appears to have some insight into the industry refer to it as the "texture" of this film because they picked up on it as well. They faulted the Director (Tim Russ, who having directed Trek productions before should have been able to pull off better execution even with a shoestring budget), the Cinematographer, the Lighting Director, and the Colorist. He felt this inconsistency in texture was quite jarring between a number of scenes. I think that's a pretty solid assessment and agree with it.

One other thing that goes hand in hand with the above two complaints and, is about on par with my complaints of the sets, is the Federation uniforms and insignia. Who honestly thought it was a good idea to change this up? I get someone probably wanted to show off their creativity but this was NOT the place to do it. We know what the original Trek costumes look like. We know what the original cast Trek movie uniforms look like. We know the 4 iterations of TNG/DS9/Voyager uniforms look like. We even know what some of the future uniforms look like thanks to flash forward episodes. There is no need to reinvent the wheel so drastically when this is set only 10 years after Voyager's return. Like the yellow walls, this took me out of the Trek experience. Should have stuck with the tried and true to keep it more recognizable and more relatable.

The makeup for most of the characters was solid TV quality though some was lacking. The Naussican's makeup looked rather bland compared to the Naussicans we've seen in other Trek productions. Contrasted to the Cardassian character's makeup which looked great. There was one scene in which one of the baddie alien's mouth part of his facial prosthetic was quite loose from his actual mouth which I found a little distracting. Small but it jumped out at me.

The writing and dialog was so-so. Some of it was well delivered, mostly by the Trek acting vets. A lot was a bit over the top, wooden, or just felt contrived. Again, being a low budget indie, I can find room to be a bit forgiving but they REALLY need to work on this if they are going to continue production, even as a web series.

Those are just my objective takes and criticisms of the movie as a movie. Overall I'd put it well above half of the shit that SyFy puts out though.

I'm hoping Axanar will be better still if that 20 minute teaser I posted a while back is any indication. It has a lot more veteran actor cast (though not specifically just Trek veterans).

As a Trek fan I'd like to give them all big kudos for going out there and doing what no major production house has seen fit to do in a decade and getting some of the big franchise names to lend a hand in it all with very minimal budget!