“Broken Allegiance” takes place between the original Star Wars movie (now called A New Hope) and the following film, The Empire Strikes Back.

Ordered by the Emperor to find the pilot responsible for the destruction of the Death Star, Darth Vader (portrayed by Chris Brennan and given voice by Ben Fletcher) trains two apprentices, Ruan (Paul Hooper) and Calis (Niobe Dean).

However, after a year immersed in the Dark Side, the apprentices steal a transport and try to escape from the planet Coruscant and Vader, as well as gain their freedom from the tyranny of the Empire.

Due to some fancy flying, the pair elude several Tie fighters but is then confronted by the Superstar Destroyer Executor.

Meanwhile, Vader contacts Admiral Derodd Okins (Randall Berger) and tells him he wants the apprentices captured by the time he arrives on the huge starship.

By then, the stolen transport has taken a pounding from attacks by the Executor, which catches the vessel in a tractor beam.

In a desperate move to prevent capture, the apprentices fire two proton torpedoes that destroy the tractor beam generator. As a result, the transport is free to jump into hyperspace.

Moments later, Vader walks onto the ship’s bridge and asks the admiral where the apprentices are being held.

The admiral responds: “The fugitives managed to escape to light speed after destroying our trac–.”

“Failure is not an option,” the villain states before using the Force to crush Okins’ throat as he collapses to the floor.

Vader then turns to Captain Galen Hannard (Ian Lingard), who fortunately for him, has good news.

“We’ve done a heading extrapolation of their hyperdrive trail,” he says. “For the damage they’ve sustained, they couldn’t have jumped more than once. Should I plot an intercept course?”

“Not at this time,” Darth Vader replies. “Contact the bounty hunters guild. I want Korbain Thor” (Hadrian Jonathan).

Moments later, Vader and the captain speak to a holographic image of the bounty hunter, and the Sith Lord explains the situation to the villain.

“Two apprentices,” Thor says in a raspy voice. “My costs will be significant.”

“Credits are of no concern to me, bounty hunter,” the Sith Lord responds. “Bring them back alive if they come willingly. If they resist, terminate them!”

Meanwhile, aboard the stolen and damaged vessel, Ruan tells Calis that they’re within range of a suitable planet and that their sublight engines should take them there.

Calis states that she knows “Vader is out there somewhere, planning to hunt us down. You know he won’t stop until we’re dead.”

“I can feel the tremors in the Force: Vader’s anger over our escape,” Ruan replies. “But perhaps his obsession over Skywalker will be enough to distract him.”

“Skywalker,” the female repeats before stating: “He’s just a boy. He means nothing.”

“He managed to destroy the Death Star,” Ruan responds. “Vader was lucky to escape execution at the hands of the Emperor’s men, so now it’s personal.”

“You know,” she states, “the only good thing to come out of all of this was meeting you.”

As the mood of the two fugitives becomes amorous, a sound from the control panel goes off, indicating that another ship has entered the area, the vessel used by Korbain Thor.

“There is no escape,” the bounty hunter tells the fugitives before he fires on the transport, forcing them to enter the escape pod and head toward the planet below—with Thor right behind them.

Once on the surface, the apprentices treat each other’s wounds before the bounty hunter can find them. Ruan says they need to get away. “In your condition, I’d rather not face anyone,” he tells Calis.

Before the fugitives can reach a nearby settlement, Thor catches up with them and states: “You think you can run forever? Vader doesn’t take betrayal lightly. He wants you dead.”

“What makes you think you can take us out?” Calis asks. In response, Thor removes his helm to reveal several scars from severe injuries he’s accumulated over the years.

The trio then engages in battle with their light sabers until Thor injures the female fugitive, That causes her partner to unleash lightning-like blasts that bring the bounty hunter down. The men continue to fight until it looks as if Thor is about to deliver a death blow to Ruan.

But before he can kill the apprentice, Caris comes up from behind and executes a fatal thrust to his side..

“No bounty for you,” Calis says as Thor collapses to the ground.

However, the duo have little time to enjoy their victory as they see a Superstar Destroyer in the sky above.

“Now we’re in trouble?” she asks.

“Maybe not,” he responds.

Spoiler Alert: If you’d rather watch the fan film’s ending yourself, skip down to the link at the end of this article. If not, just continue reading.

When a landing party arrives at the scene, it appears that Thor has captured Calis, but he said he had to kill the male apprentice. “I trust you’ve brought my money,” he states in a raspy voice.

But before the payment is made, Lieutenant Detaan (Paul Bugeja) asks Thor to take off his helmet and show him his face.

When the helmet is removed, it’s clearly Ruan, but Detaan has never seen the face of Thor or the fugitive.

“Finally, to see the legendary Korbain Thor face to face,” the lieutenant says.

Then the female apprentice is handed over to the officers and Storm Troopers.

“I hear Vader has special plans for you,” the officer gloats.

“And we have plans for you,” she says before slipping out of her handcuffs. In a quick battle, the fugitives take out the rest of the landing party, but Ruan says it’s time to put the officer to good use.

The communication officer (David Newell) on the Executor receives a message from Detaan, who states that the fugitives have been caught, and the bounty hunter has been paid.

Before long, both the Imperial shuttle and Thor’s spacecraft leave the planet’s surface. When the shuttle arrives on the Executor, Darth Vader finds only the bound lieutenant aboard.

Of course, the apprentices are now using Thor’s ship, and they finally get away from Vader and the Empire.

“I think we’re gonna be OK,” Caris says.

“All of us,” Ruan says as he puts his hand on his female companion’s midsection, indicating that her “condition” is that she’s pregnant with his child.

The couple then enjoy an intimate kiss before jumping to hyperspace and freedom.

And with that, I don my Clint Eastwood hat and get reviewing.

The Good: This production has held up very well since its debut a decade ago. It has everything from space battles to clever plot twists, so you know I enjoyed watching it. Like many other Star Wars projects, it fleshes out events that take place between two of the movies, and in that way adds to the legend of George Lucas’s epic adventure.

The Bad: You know, they say that the second thing to go when a person gets older is his or her memory, and I can’t remember what the first thing is. I watched the entire episode and never once in the first time around did I guess from the obvious clues that Calis was preggers. I guess I’m just enjoying myself too much to play detective.

The Ugly: Sometimes it takes a while for me to locate classic independent productions from many times and many places on my own. If you know of a terrific fan film you’d like me to review, put it in the comment section and I’ll look it over!

If you want to watch this video, just click on the link below:

Our first giveaway is going to be an easy one:

I want you to send us an email of a screenshot from your favorite scene from your favorite fan film.

The SUBJECT of your email should read FAN FILM FOLLIES SCREENSHOT GIVEAWAY.

In the BODY of the email tell us why you chose that particular film and that particular scene as your favorite. You can be as lengthy or as brief in your description as you’d like.

Email your entry to giveaway@fanfilmfollies.com.

All entries will be posted on the pages of the Fan Film Follies website.

All entries must be received no later than Thursday, May 31st at 12am Easter Standard Time.

The winner will be randomly chosen from all the entries. That means I’ll be putting each of the entries into a hat and pulling the winner. The drawing will be filmed and posted on the site in form of a YouTube video.

The winners will be announced Saturday, June 2nd at 12am Eastern Standard Time.

The grand prize for this contest are two DC Comics Trade Paperbacks along with a few other additional goodies.

• The Dark Knight Returns Trade Paperback
• Batman: A Death in the Family Trade Paperback

I look forward to your entries and the best of luck.

* Please note this contest is only eligible for residents of the United States. I’ll try to come up with a special contest for our foreign friends.

Back In 2009, when I began this site, I wrote a similar article just like this one explaining the origins of the Fan Film Follies. I found it fitting to recollect the evolution of the Follies for its ten year anniversary. A lot of what is written may be a rehash of that original article so please forgive as nostalgia gets the better of me. I promise I’ll have something new to add.

HBO SHORT TAKES

Star Wars finally premiered on cable in 1983. This is back when HBO would run short films between their feature films. One of those shorts they played around when Star Wars hit the premium channel was called “Hardware Wars”. I’m overly confident you all know the film in which I mean. Little did I know at the time, but this would be my very first fan film experience.

COOL COLLECTING

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My recollection is somewhat sketchy to the exact details on how I started the Fan Film Follies. When I first jumped on the internet I had a computer with a monochrome monitor. There wasn’t much to do online beyond joining a chat. I could access websites, but without the ability to view pictures. The whole experience was pretty lackluster.

When the wife and I bought our first Hewlett Packard desktop computer it was like entering a whole new world. Sure it took about five minutes to bring up an image rich website through AOL dialup, but back about twenty years ago we weren’t spoiled by broadband so the wait wasn’t as annoying as it would be today. I could watch video with this new computer by either downloading a 20mb file that took about an hour and a half or stream it online in a box that was about 6 inches by 6 inches. That was a bit distracting as the video would continuously buffer. It’s crazy how much our ability to access the same kinds of content has changed in such a short amount of time. How I love technologically.

I enjoy my comic books, video games, science fiction and animation. Everything that society deems “nerdy”. So when I had friends over we would talk current events as well as talk about current comic book storylines, current movies, current Star Trek episodes, current video games and the list continues. We’d also jump on the computer and watch video. There was one film short that I’ve never forgotten to this day. One night, after a few beers, my buddy and I watched “Godzilla Vs Disco Lando” by Evin Maher. We laughed our stupid asses off. With the exception of Hardware Wars several years before Godzilla Vs Disco Lando was my first foray into the micro genre that is fan film.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There were other fan films we would watch. Many I can’t recall. Some you’ve certainly heard of like Troops, Hidden Frontier and Dark Redemption.

Around this time I was in my early thirties. I was outgrowing the whole going out and pissing away a big chunk of my paycheck at some bar. It was also a time where I wanted to do something more substantial with my time. I’ve always loved writing. I’d been writing off and on since I was a teenager. The internet was a perfect outlet to share my words and ideas with others. I found a site online called Cool Collecting run by one Timothy Priebe. Cool Collecting covered everything fanboy related. Tim was open to new writers for the site so I was happy to join his crew.

But what would I write about? I decided to spotlight these entirely cool fan made productions I’d been watching for some time now into regular featured articles. And from there Fan Film Follies was born. I don’t really remember why I called the column Fan Film Follies. I guess it wasn’t rocket science. All three words started with the letter “F” and had a pretty good flow. On March 24th, 2002, the first edition of the Fan Film Follies appeared online.

The column was extremely challenging to write. It was no easy task tracking down relevant content. Today there are fan films all over the internet. Back then they were very few and very far between.

When writing for Cool Collecting I learned what a webisode is, that there was a whole community of filmmakers that utilized Legos for their props and discovered the wonderful world of Flash and Shockwave. I was also able to correspond with all these amazing, talented people who created these virtual gems. It was all a great experience.

I wrote for Cool Collecting until they closed their doors in September 2004. Tim wanted to focus on his career. Cool Collecting was always a catalyst for him to practice his web design and coding skills so it just came time for him to move on.

FANBOY THEATRE

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When Cool Collecting shut their doors I decided to leave fan films behind focusing on my own creative ambitions. I’d already been working with a group of people on a variety of independent comic book ideas. I don’t normally plug my comic or film work in these pages unless it’s directly related to fan films. This article will be the exception. If you’re interested in checking out some of what I’ve done I have a few stories online at Drunk Duck and you can also link over to my official site at Making Comics Studios.

After my Cool Collecting days every once in a great while I’d check out new fan films that would hit the internet. Late 2005 I stumbled on a site called Fanboy Theatre run by one Fanboy William McKenzie. As I read through his website that old fan film itch began to scratch. There was someone else on the internet covering the same content I was covering. A Kindred spirit if you will. It got me excited about fan films again. I contacted Will to see if he was interested in my Fan Film Follies column for his website.

On October 31st, 2005, Fan Film Follies began again at Fanboy Theatre. That lasted about two months. In the early part of 2006 Will had gone missing off the cyber plain. I mean for a good four or five months. It was later that spring when I finally received an email from Will apologizing for his sudden disappearance. He had some personal things he needed to deal with. I wanted a more stable home for my articles so we parted company amicably. Will and I would hook up on another fan film project a few years down the way.

COMIC BOOK BIN

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By the time Fanboy Will resurfaced I’d already combed the internet for another site to host my column. A quick Google search linked me to the Comic Book Bin that was actively looking for new writers. I was invited into the fold of the Bin by founder Hervé St-Louis. My column started at the Bin July 1st, 2006 lasting until I left in the summer of 2009.

My time with the Bin was an interesting one. It was the first site that allowed me to post my own articles so that was a huge breath of fresh air. I’d taught myself coding thanks to the book HTML for Dummies. That was fun to use what I learned in a practical manner.

There wasn’t just one reason why I left the Bin. The major factor was that Fan Film Follies grew as much as it could grow there. I was getting bored. And I didn’t feel the site was embracing new formatting and technologies that was becoming available. I hate staying stagnant.

The Bin also started posting some strange and – at times – leftist articles which I really didn’t feel were significant or necessary for a site that’s supposed to be about comic books.

Here’s a quick examples:

http://www.comicbookbin.com/Jaywalking_in_Montreal001.html

One article in particular that was posted caused my final decision to pack up my toys and go home. I hadn’t read this article in two years and as I read it today it still drips of ignorance. That’s my opinion. Click on the link and form your own.

http://www.comicbookbin.com/mrcharlie122.html

Even know I didn’t agree with some other things that went on behind the scenes I always wished the Bin well and I see they’re still going strong.

FAN FILM PODCAST

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I was also interested in exploring a format called the Podcast that had been popping up all over the internet for the past few years. What an incredible outlet to discuss fan films and interview the people who make them.

I’d been keeping in touch with Fanboy William McKenzie from Fanboy Theatre since his return from the unknown back in 2006. It was only natural that we would team up as co-hosts for such an online show.

February 16th, 2008 premiered our first episode of the Fan Film Podcast through the free service MyPodcast.com. Earlier this year MyPodcast.com shut their doors. We currently moved all the episodes over to TalkShoe as well as hosting them on the Fan Film Follies server.

Everyone we interviewed to date has been exceptional, truly a fantastic community and a fantastic group of people.

You may or may not have noticed our last episode of the Fan Film Podcast was posted on May 19th of last year. There are plans for the podcast to return this summer so stay tuned.

FAN FILM FOLLIES – THE WEBSITE

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It had been on my mind for a long time and it was really the natural progression of things. In September of 2009 I opened the Fan Film Follies website. It’s been a liberating experience to run a site where you have the wheel. This allows for the site to move with the times. Along the way I’ve had like minded people join and contribute to the site. I’d like to give a big thank you to our current and past contributors who have made this site extra special: Jeff Smith, Lee James Sands, Dr. John Walliss, Randy Hall, and Larry Longstreth.

So here we all are in 2012. I’ll more than likely be running this site to my grave so get ready for the future of what fan films are going to offer. It will be very interesting to see where the next ten years will take us. With the technology and sophistication of a new generation of filmmakers fan films are going to close the gap even further in relation to your typical Hollywood Blockbuster.

I can’t end this brainless rant without thanking all the talent behind the productions we cover here on the Fan Film Follies. Some of the films may be a little bit rough around the edges, but I applaud anyone who can take limited resources in the creation of a work of art. And of course I have to thank all our readers because without you this website wouldn’t exist.

Happy 10th Anniversary Fan Film Follies!

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, along comes an independent production with such an intriguing title that you just can’t resist watching it.

That’s the case with Nazi Robots, which was written and directed by James Pichon, a member of the Class of March 2011 at the D.A.V.E. (Digital Animation & Visual Effects) School in Orlando, Florida.

The story begins in New York City, where Grandpa (Michael Ray Davis), an elderly comic book shop owner, is letting his grandson (Luke and Reese Simon) read a comic from his collection.

“Hey, Kiddo,” the old man says as he walks down the steps to his home..”How you liking that vintage Captain America comic?”

“It’s pretty awesome, Grandpa,” the boy replies. “I’m reading about this stuff in class now, so it makes it even cooler.”

“You know, I was a lot like Captain America back in my day,” Grandpa says as he sits near the boy. “Heck, I even saved the city from a Nazi menace once.”

“Wait a minute, Grandpa,” his grandson says. “I learned about this stuff in class, and I don’t remember there being any battles here.”

“There was at least one battle on American soil,” Grandpa states. “and it was right here in the ‘Big Apple,’ and it was on this very street.”

“Grandpa, every summer I visit you,” the boy says. “I get to help you run the comics shop, and every summer you tell me some tall tale. I’m older now. I can tell the difference between what’s a story and what’s real.”

“Just because it’s a story doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” Grandpa notes.

“OK, then. Let’s hear it,” the boy says. ”Whatever.”

“Well, I was about your age,” Grandpa says. “I don’t remember that part. What I remember was that it was summer. I was on this very stoop reading comics just like you are now.

“I remember hearing what seemed to be a far-off noise, and it was quickly gettin’ closer,” the older man notes. “It was a rhythmic, metallic pounding: Boom! Boom! Boom!

“There I stood in the middle of the street, waitin’ for whatever it was,” he says. “That’s when I saw it wasn’t an ‘it,’ it was a ‘thing.’”

Dozens of seven-foot-tall robots adorned with Nazi symbols converged in the middle of the street, then marched toward the boy.

“Their eyes glowed a fierce blue,” as if some sort of atomic reactors were inside their steel skulls, Grandpa states, “and had guns mounted on their steel arms. Who knew what other kind of weapons they had under their armored shells?”

“At first, I didn’t know what I was gonna do,” he continues, “if I was gonna do anything at all. Then it hit me: I was a patriot. I had to do something.”

Suddenly, the lead robot pointed its right arm at the youth and said in German (voiced by Benjy von Cramon but translated for us viewers), “Hold still before the power of the Reich, young vermin.”

“I tried to hide behind a car,” Grandpa says, “but it was vaporized” by a burst of energy from the lead robot.

“Your attempt to avoid us is feeble and pointless,” the lead robot growled. “We are only the first wave of this assault. You and your nation of weak people and impotent government shall fall before our army!”

“It was like a wave of metallic thunder when those monsters raised their arms ready to fire,” Grandpa says. “There was no mercy, and if they were willing to level a city block to get rid of one kid, I could only imagine what they had in store for the city. Heck, the country for that matter.”

The boy then saw a garbage can lid on the street. He picked it up and hurled it like Captain America does his shield, and the object struck the lead robot, causing each robot to hit another one while falling like a row of dominoes.

“I had done it,” Grandpa states. “Me, a kid. I had saved the city, the nation.

“But it wasn’t over,” he says. “I could hear more of them comin’, this time from the other end of the street, and it sounded like there were a hundred times as many.

“What I saw was worse than what I had imagined,” he continues. “This time it was a very large ‘it’” that was as big as a building.

“This thing, with so much steel and weapons,” Grandpa says. “I don’t even know how it was able to move. So there I stood, David before Goliath.”

“It appears luck has favored you once, American swine-dog. You shall not be as fortunate a second time,” it said as it pointed the weapon in its right arm at the boy. “Prepare to meet your demise, little one.”

Spoiler Alert: If you’d rather watch the fan film’s ending yourself, skip down to the link at the end of this article. If not, just continue reading.

“I dropped to my knees,” Grandpa states. “About to abandon all hope, I looked up one last time into the eyes of the behemoth. If I was goin’ down, I was goin’ down facin’ my enemy.

“That’s when I spotted something, a small gyroscope-like thing with a pulsating light at its center” in its mouth, he continues. “That was it. His Achilles heel. Goliath’s weak spot.

“I remembered my sling shot. I reached into my back pocket and grabbed it,” Grandpa says excitedly. “From my other pocket, I pulled out my lucky marble. No time to lose. I took aim and fired.

“A dead-on bullseye!” he declares. “I held my arms over my eyes it was so bright. I thought for sure the thing was gonna explode and take me with it. I stood there frozen and watched as the giant shuddered and then slumped before it convulsed one more time.

“Its head flailed back, and beams of light shot from its eyes and mouth as it came crashing down toward me.”

The last part of the robot to land on the street was its head, and the blue glow in its eyes faded to black.

“So that’s it,” the old man says. “Yeah, that was the day I saved the city. No, the country. All on my own. It was a heck of a day, let me tell you.”

“It was a cool story, Grandpa,” the boy says.”I’ll give you that. But what about the evidence? A battle here, on this street, against giant Nazi robots? And it doesn’t make the news or the history books?”

“Covered up, the whole thing,” the old man replies. “Just like Roswell.”

“And you didn’t save anything?” the boy asks. “You didn’t keep any cool trophies to show off?”

Grandpa then says he’s going inside to get a soda and asks his grandson if he wants one, too.

“Yeah, thanks,” the boy replies. “You should be writing comic books instead of selling them.”

Before Grandpa gets up, he states that he did save something from his childhood experience. “Where do you think I got the sign for my comic shop?”

As the old man leaves, the boy looks over at the comic book store sign, which is entitled Atomic Robot Comics, and is surprised when he sees that the top of the sign is the head of a Nazi robot exactly as Grandpa described it!

Time for me to put on my Clint Eastwood hat and get reviewing:

The Good: Some independent productions are just plain fun to watch, and that was the case with Nazi Robots. This fan film seamlessly merges live action with computer-generated images so it’s often tough to tell where one format ends and another begins.

It was also amusing to have Grandpa narrate the tale to his grandson, who reflects today’s cynical youth until he’s finally confronted with hard evidence.

The Bad: I’ve gotta admit that the Nazi robots had a very intimidating design while still being faithful to items associated with the World War II era. We viewers got “the best of both worlds” in that department.

The Ugly: I wish I had a grandfather who ran a comic book shop! I’d be delighted to spend every summer with him and get to read all kinds of comics, no matter how tall his tales might be!

If you’d like to learn more about the D.A.V.E. School in Orlando, Florida, click on this link. If you want to see Nazi Robots for yourself, click on the Web browser below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Zapruder Pictures production. Written and directed by Guillermo Fernández de Oliveira and Javier Esteban Loring. Starring Javier Esteban and Ignacio Sáez. Filmed in Madrid, Spain.

WEBSITE: http://www.maxpaynevalhalla.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can watch and listen to all the interviews available so far over at the Trekspeak Page.

What would you get if you combined a heaping helping of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with a healthy dose of the First Contact Next Generation movie and a pinch of The Wrath of Khan and The Undiscovered Country?

If you go by the screen name of BrunoSerious, you’d have come up with a “mashup” called Star Trek: “The Borg,” which pits Captain Kirk and his crew against the deadliest enemies from TNG while using a Go!Animation visual style.

The story begins with a Klingon Bird of Prey approaching a vessel that has entered the Empire territory. After a few moments examining the enemy starship, the captain orders his officers to fire on it, which has no effect.

Suddenly, a mechanical voice tells the crew that “We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.”

At that point, the scene shifts to a space station in orbit around the Earth, and Kirk is transported aboard and greeted by Mister Scott.

“Those departure orders,” the chief engineer says. “Starfleet cannot be serious.”

“Why aren’t the Enterprise transporters operating?” Kirk asks.

“A wee problem,” Scott replies. “Just temporary.”

The captain then asks Scotty to take him over to the starship in a shuttle.

Once both are aboard the small vessel, Kirk confides in his chief engineer that “an alien object of unbelievable destructive power is less than three days away from this planet. The only starship in interception range is the Enterprise.”

With that, Mister Scott gives the captain a tour around the newly refurbished starship, and Kirk is grateful to see the upgraded Enterprise before the captain and his crew must take it into battle.

As Kirk and company prepare to depart, Lieutenant Uhura tells the captain that the “transporter system is fully repaired and functioning normally.”

James T. then calls Mister Scott and asks if he found the engine room.

“Right where I left it,” the chief engineer replies.

Once the starship has left Earth orbit, the Enterprise takes off using impulse power and later makes the jump to warp speed.

When the Starfleet flagship encounters the huge cube, Uhura states that messages of peace and friendship are being broadcast on all frequencies.

However, Spock notes that the cube is scanning the Enterprise, which is followed by a message similar to the one heard by the crew of the Klingon Bird of Prey.

“We are the Borg,” the mechanical voice states. “Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”

The storyline then jumps 80 years in the future, when Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise E, gets a message from an admiral who just received what he calls “a disturbing message from Deep Space Five.”

“They were tracking a Borg ship when it disappeared,” he continues. “Their sensors also managed to detect chronometric particles emanating from the ship.”

Picard hurries to the Bridge, where he orders Data to set a course for Earth at maximum warp.

When the Enterprise E reaches Sector 001, Lieutenant Geordi La Forge tells the captain that he’s been able to reconfigure the ship’s warp field to match the chronometric readings of the Borg vessel.

“Recreate the warp field,” the captain replies just before Data tells him some disastrous information.

“There are nine billion life forms on the planet, all of them Borg,” the android reports.

“We must go back,” Picard says. “Repair whatever damage they’ve done.”

While the Enterprise E leaps through a “time tunnel” to the past, the crew of the original Enterprise is fighting a losing battle against the Borg.

“We’re just hanging on, Sir,” Scotty tells Kirk. “Main energizers out.”

“Try auxiliary power,” the captain shouts, then turns to his first officer for a damage report.

“They knew exactly where to hit us,” Spock states evenly.

“Who knew where to hit us, and why?” Kirk grumbles.

“One thing is certain,” the half-human, half-Vulcan officer states. “We cannot escape on auxiliary power.”

Before any defensive moves can be made, the starship is rocked by yet another powerful beam of green energy..

“Scotty,” Kirk calls out. “What’s left?”

“Just the batteries, Sir,” the chief engineer replies. “I can have auxiliary power in a few minutes.”

“We don’t have a few minutes!” Kirk shouts.

“We’re not gonna make it, are we?” Sulu asks grimly.

Suddenly, the viewscreen is filled with the image of the Borg Queen.

“What is the meaning of this attack?” the captain asks.

“Human, flawed, organic,” she responds. “Is it becoming clear? Watch your future’s end.”

Spoiler Alert: If you’d rather watch the fan film’s ending yourself, skip down to the links at the end of this article. If not, just continue reading.

“If I were human,” Spock states, “I believe my response would be ‘Go to hell.’”

“I swear to you we’re not finished yet,” Kirk says angrily.

Suddenly, another starship arrives, and it’s the future Enterprise under Picard’s command.

“Fascinating,” the first officer says.

Once Uhura opens hailing frequencies, the ship’s captain identifies himself as “Jean-Luc Picard of the starship Enterprise. I’m from … what you would consider the future.”

“Captain of the Enterprise,” Kirk responds with a smile.

“Target all your weapons on the following coordinates,” Picard orders, “and prepare to fire on my command.”

“Who am I to argue with the captain of the Enterprise?” Kirk asks in a wistful manner before walking over to Sulu’s station, where he whispers “Lock phasers on target.”

The helm officer replies quietly, “Phasers … locked.”

Picard gives the order to fire, and the combination of weapons blasts from both Enterprises is enough to destroy the enemy vessel.

“As much as to the crew of the Enterprise,” Kirk says to Picard and his officers, “I owe you my thanks.”

“Thank you,” Picard replies. “Data, lay in a course for the 24th Century. I suspect our future is waiting there for us.”

As the Enterprise E passes the original Enterprise, McCoy says: “My God, that’s a big ship.”

“Not so big as her captain, I think,” Mister Scott adds.

“I think it’s about time we got underway ourselves,” Kirk notes.

“Course heading, Captain?” Chekov asks.

“Second star to the right, and straight on till morning,” the captain says cheerfully.

And with that, both starships take different routes to the future.

Now it’s time to put on my Clint Eastwood hat and get reviewing.

The Good: This animated episode was fun to watch. It wasn’t long before I started remembering where I’d heard various lines before, and it became a fun game to figure out where the “puzzle pieces” came from.

And of course, there’s the fan in me who enjoyed seeing the crews of two Enterprises meet and defeat a deadly enemy together.

The Bad: The most difficult thing about this fan film is the fact that it’s split into five different parts, and I couldn’t find a link to go from one segment to the next easily. If anyone knows of such a format regarding this independent production, let me know, and I’ll post it here.

The Ugly: I know some of you out there are probably having a fit because this film didn’t follow the usually tight continuity of Trek. After all, Kirk and his crew now know about Picard and his future Enterprise, and who knows what kind of chaos that could cause in the timestream?

My best recommendation is to just sit back and enjoy this unique project. Watch it with some fellow Trek fans and see who can guess first where each plot point and spoken line is from.

If you’d like to watch “The Borg,” turn your Web browser to this link, this second link, a third link, the fourth link and the final connection. And if you want to see more of BrunoSerious’s work, go here.

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A Pokémon game storyline, for the first time from the point of view of the supporting cast. Youngster, Lass, Beauty and PokéManiac are a bunch of trainers full of hope but lacking in talent, who decide to become the next Pokémon League Champs along with their pets Rattata, Krabby, Ditto and Cubone. Follow them as they leave their hometown and set for the travel of their lives. They can’t catch’em all… but they can kick your ass!

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