"The Savage Empire"
Starship Exeter
reviewed by Fred Dixon

On Thanksgiving day in 2004, some Star Trek manna fell from heaven when I discovered online the TOS era fanfilm, "Starship Exeter: The Savage Empire." I have been an "Original Series" fan from day one in 1966 and always regretted the early cancellation of the show in 1969. It was then ten long years in the Trek desert only to be rewarded with the leaden Star Trek: The Motion Picture. There were too many changes from the original show. The sets, the uniforms, the sound effects, the props and the music were all gone. The story was a poor recycling of the episode, "The Changeling." Later, I learned that the story had been rewritten dozens of times, and it showed. The Star Trek legacy was in tatters. Things improved somewhat in the movie series (with the notable exception of the execrable Star Trek V: The Final Frontier). New Star Trek series came and went with varying degrees of success. None of them were the original.

In 2002, along came Starship Exeter and brought the feel of the original back. The music was back! The sound effects were back! The uniforms were back! The sets were back! The props were back! Star Trek was back! Over the course of seven years, brothers Jimm and Josh Johnson lovingly and painstakingly recreated the original series some thirty years after the fact. The story was a somewhat standard Star Trek yarn. The U.S.S. Exeter was the only starship in range to effect the rescue of a sister ship that was stuck in orbit around the planet Andoria because of a plague. The Exeter’s mission was to retrieve the antidote from the planet surface and save the stricken Federation vessel. The ship and crew had various Star Trek ties. The U.S.S. Exeter appeared in the second season episode "The Omega Glory." The captain was the nephew of Captain Garrovick of the U.S.S. Farragut and a cousin to a one-time security officer of the Enterprise. The communications officer was an Andorian, a familiar Classic Trek alien species. The Klingon adversary was Chang of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country fame, a colonel at the time of TOS (one of the deft touches was that the origin of his patched eye was explained in this episode).

There were original tie-ins galore, perhaps too many, but welcome at the time. (Such tie-ins to original characters and episode plot points would eventually become a Star Trek fan film cliché.) The actors looked the part. The acting itself was adequate, but more importantly, did not detract the proceedings. The pre-digital special effects were decent. (The effects in the sequel, the still incomplete "The Tressaurian Intersection," are on a par with those of CBS Digital.) Some economy was employed through judicious use of sets, locations and commercial available products. Only a starship corridor was intricately reproduced. A captain’s chair was constructed, but the bridge background was blue-screened. AMT Enterprise and Klingon ship models were employed as special effects miniatures. Playmates phaser, communicators, and tricorder replicas were used. Commercially available original soundtracks provided the music as well as the sound effects. A good deal of the action was filmed first in woods located in Minnesota and then in part in Austin, Texas when additional footage was needed. Both locations were timeless--free of any distinguishing characteristics that could place them in the present day. The Andorian underground city was shot in a cramped set that recalled Eminar VII from the first season episode "A Taste of Armageddon."

Star Trek was finally back and the Brothers Johnson could stake the claim of being the ones to do it. I give "The Savage Empire" an "A" for effort and "B" for execution. The "The Savage Empire" is available for free download at www.starshipexeter.com. (The first three acts of the sequel "The Tressaurian Intersection" are also available. The final act is to be released this summer--hopefully.) Like all Star Trek fan film productions, no profit can be derived from the sale of the episode due to copyright protection. Paramount (now CBS) tolerates these efforts so as not to alienate the fan base and to get free marketing in the process.

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