Junior Star Trek
Golden Age Film; Short Film (Drama) — Levittown, Long Island
'Back in 1969 ten-year-old Peter ("Stoney") Emshwiller created his own version of a Star Trek episode using his dad's 16mm camera. The, um, fabulous special effects were created by scratching on the film with a knife and coloring each frame with magic markers. The movie won WNET's "Young People's Filmmaking Contest," was shown on national television, and, all these years later, still is a favorite at Star Trek Conventions.'
Junior Star Trek
07min 58sec — 01 January 1969
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/kK9hXWpckdY
Our ReviewWithout regard to what I am about to say, this film is historically important, and as such has value.
Rating: 1. Any film written by a ten-year-old and which has ten-year-olds playing the lead roles is going to have issues. Here, there are also times when the sound makes it impossible to tell what is being said. Also, the roughness of the video or casting the same person dressed the same way to play two parts makes telling who is who very difficult. It is only 8 minutes long, and the story has no motivation. Some aliens grab and attack for no apparent reason and are defeated. I do not adjust my rating for age, budget, etc. So, I have to say the writing is fair to poor. I give the kids a point for acting, and the sets are also basically fair to poor, except the sick bay, which is pretty good. The special effects do the job, so they get some credit for that. Because it was impossible to follow, I can't say I found it well directed or entertaining. It was, however, tightly edited. That gives it about 2.75 of a possible 8 points, which would be a 2, if I could have followed the sound throughout or knew who I was watching. It is the bad sound and impossibility of knowing which characters are Star Fleet and which are aliens that drops this to a 1. - Barb Reader
