765874: Unification

Even if the viewer isn't grounded in Start Trek, this film deserves 10/10 for its ability to invoke sentiment, wonder, and depth, all within 11 minutes, (My 9/10 acknowledges that at its core, it is more a love letter to fans than completely stand-alone.)

Although referred to as "fan fic," this is a remarkable film, co-produced by William Shatner, and with the full backing of Paramount (for a change),

It takes place just after the end of "Star Trek: Generations," delivering a more-satisfactory conclusion to the longevity & breadth of the original series. It's full of cameos, and uses both practical and digitally-rendered prosthetics to re-create James Kirk, acted by the brilliant Star Wars/Star Trek custodian of lore, Sam Witwer, who looks nothing like Shatner in real life, a tribute to his chops as a fan and an actor. It's hard to believe that the only scene in which the actual Shatner appears is at the very beginning, and that's in a clip from "Generations."

I have spent my whole life, literally, with my good friend, Star Trek. After this short film, absolutely *no* 😥 from me, promise.

Stretches back into time, with the help of Gary Mitchell and the Temporal War Soldier Yor from Discovery, who made a quick stop on Viridian III, where Kelvin Spock gave him something.

Trek is Trek whether it is "Those Old Scientists", the Motion Picture era, Next Generation, Kelvin, or Discovery.

There are little vignettes that tell a lot of story, including moving the 1701D Saucer Section, Yeoman Colt visiting the "Memory Wall", and Young Spock looking out over Kelvin Timeline San Francisco (The "Memory Wall" was from a deleted scene from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, which included a better explanation of what Spock found when he went into the innards of V'Ger, there was a whole wall of the red sensors that we saw on "V'Ger's Probe", in the deleted scene both Spock and Kirk go into this area where they are shown the history of V'Ger's travels).

It took numerous watchings for me to piece it all together and I was mostly right. As Kirk walks up to Saavik, she introduces him to a young Vulcan. Who could that be?

The answer is obvious if you have watched the Wrath of Khan and the Search for Spock and The Voyage Home numerous times, it is a subject that has been investigated in comic books and novels and hinted at in shows and films.

It took me a while to place the alien who gives Kirk a gift, we only ever saw a holographic representation of that person.

What amazed me is that this was actually William Shatner, De-aged, with Sam Witwer playing the other two representations of Kirk.

The trivia section confirmed my speculations about certain things, but there are still a couple of things that I don't quite understand.

Mostly, this is a dropped storyline from Star Trek Generations that would have included Spock... but it was more appropriate to have Kelvin timeline Spock be the one to visit Veridian III.

Rest in Peace Leonard.

I don't get all the hype and positive reviews on the YouTube channel. There is no story and the meeting between Kirk and Spock was the briefest part of the video. Meaningless AI using a topic which the "authors" knew would elicit hype and emotion. As with a lot of AI, it looks good at a glance but has several visual flaws which would not be there even with standard CGI. Some people give credit for the lack of dialog. But I think that the lack of dialog was because AI generated video doesn't yet handle mouth movements very well. There are a few expressions which are good but still only meaningless promotion for AI capabilities, which is not so impressive when one considered the intentional avoidance of mouth movements.

With not a single word spoken (With the exception of a recording from The Wrath Of Kahn), this ten minute short conveys a barrel of emotion. Old and new faces, places and themes. As someone who's been with Star Trek since the early 1970s, this really hit hard. Bringing back memories of different parts of the franchise's segments in random, but working orders of introduction. It might seem jarring, but in the end it just plainly works. Then, in the end, a loving display of the special bond that two main characters had for each other for their entire journey through the stars. Well done, OTOY. Thank you.