Prelude to Axanar, one of the last fan films in professional stacked era of Star Trek Fan Films, this fan film came in at a cost of over $100,000.

Prelude to Axanar’s cast and crew was majority professional with all the actors except co-star and co-writer Alec Peters being professionals with a long string of credits to their name.

Tony Todd, Kate Vernon, the late Richard Hatch, J G Hertzler and Gary Graham gave the 21 minute production some serious teeth.

Christian Gossett directed this short fan film as well as sharing writing duties with Alec Peters and Robert Meyer Burnett was the editor and Tobias Richter was the mastermind of the stunning visual effects.

What makes Prelude to Axanar unique is that Prelude to Axanar was shot as a documentary with all the characters talking about their roles in the war between the Klingons and the Federation years after the event.

There were battle scenes in the film but aside from Kate Vernon standing in a dark room with sparks, there were no bridge scenes so it wasn’t exactly a flashback scene.

The effects were stunning and the story that was told was a good one, you really felt like you were watching a documentary about a past conflict.

Tony Todd delivered perhaps the best speech in Star Trek Fan Film history as Admiral Ramirez when the Admiral was speaking to the Federation after replacing Admiral Slater which kind of reminded me of the Klendathu disaster in Starship Troopers when the Sky Marshal was replaced.

Kate Vernon and J G Hertzler made interesting captains but there was a feeling that Kate Vernon was underused.

Gary Graham reprised his role as Ambassador Soval wonderfully well and Richard Hatch was brilliant as Kharn the Undying as he provided the Klingon perspective to the conflict.

The story steadily built up in the film to the point that the Klingons and the Federation were starting to fight at Axanar.

Prelude to Axanar gave birth to the idea of a full length version of Axanar and it’s seven figure fundraising total as fans rushed to provide funding for a film studio and the production itself raised a lot of eyebrows after Renegades picked up over three quarters of a million dollars.

CBS took a good look around and after seeing the costs and professionalism of Continues, New Voyages, Renegades and Axanar, decided that new rules had to come into place.

CBS also didn’t like the way Axanar was getting money and how it was spent and soon a lawsuit went out which eventually ended in a draw with Axanar forced to comply to the then new fan film guidelines but they did get some concessions such as getting unlimited private funds compared to the $50,000 max and the use of their professionals from Prelude to Axanar.

Axanar is currently penciled in to start filming its two 15 minute parts in October 2019 but those who want to know what happened after Prelude to Axanar may find out when Interlude begins filming sometime around November, Interlude is the sequel that is not a sequel to Prelude to Axanar.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.