Movie Review | Star Trek: Renegades (Lights, Camera, Action!)

Star Trek: Renegades (UK Rating: N/A)

First off, most of the acting is mediocre, sometimes reaching varying levels of bad. It all starts with perhaps the worst actor of the bunch reciting a poem in a very forced way; it sounds like she tries too hard to sound sincere and emotional, and ends up sounding ridiculously over-the-top. The poem also has nothing to do with the main character, but rather seems to try to be this series' slogan, although it doesn't work.

The main character herself is not fleshed out well enough, either. There is something about her mother being killed by two people on a planet somewhere, but it doesn't seem to have any bearing or relation to the rest of the tale, instead meant to make the main character seem 'cool' for not letting traumatic events get the best of her. It honestly sounds more sad than cool. The way some of the actors move and talk also looks scripted, to the point of being very theatrical rather than natural. It is like everyone did their best to come across clearly... but that ends up being part of the problem. The only actors that act in a believable manner are Tim Russ, Walter Koenig, and Robert Picardo. It's possible the new actors just need time to adapt to their roles, and maybe they need more experience acting, but part of the problem is possibly the wooden script more than anything else.

Not only is everyone bland and not well fleshed out, they are barely introduced and have no interesting interplay. The crew doesn't get along, but why? There is no real answer to that. More than that, their mutual animosity never evolves or jeopardises the mission, except for when Jaro Ruk refuses to help Garis, but that turns out to be irrelevant to the plot. There are also too many characters to put into an hour-and-a-half movie. The script's not good, either, as touched upon earlier: once or twice it becomes very fuzzy with regards to what is even going on, because the characters put some things into words in odd ways.

On top of this, the visual effects look quite cartoony, sometimes as if they came from old Wing Commander videogames. That said, the ships look pretty detailed (although maybe a bit too plasticky smooth). As for the action, it has been shot in a very bland way without any impact or speed: one of the ships actually dodges photon torpedoes by slowly slanting left slightly. When that ship then fires torpedoes on another ship, the impact sounds muffled and underwhelming. Indeed, the sound effects aren't exactly good when it comes to quality, not even compared to old Star Trek shows from the '90s.

4/10

Subpar

Whether a long-term fan of the old Star Trek or not, recent entries in the movie reboot series are somewhat removed from being Star Trek, and this fan-made effort is possibly even more so. It just lacks that spirit of boldly going where no-one has gone before, to explore strange new worlds, and seek out new life and civilisations. To let humanity grow, and to explore social and philosophical questions and ideas. This first episode of the planned series has none of the above, and no strong characters or fun. The concept of Renegades (now seemingly without its 'Star Trek' label, if recent news implies, likely due to copyright reasons) is one that many will want to give a chance to, but the weak acting and script, plus mediocre cinematography will lead followers to think the creators need to hire better writers and a better director, and the worst-case scenario is to start from scratch.