Lower Decks

I’ve been meaning to watch the available portions of Star Trek: Aurora for quite some time now. I stumbled upon it at least a year ago and bookmarked it but it wasn’t until today that I watched the first installment. I was blown away. I knew from the still images available on the website that the computer generated animation appeared incredible. I had no idea it would look even better in motion.

Star Trek: Aurora takes place after the end of Star Trek aboard a cargo ship called Aurora, captained by one Kara Carpenter. Serving as first officer/mate is T’Ling. That’s it. The two women go off into the middle of nowhere doing their merchant thing, fully aware of the dangers of being all alone in deep space. It’s an interesting take on the Star Trek universe.

Part 1 consists primarily of a flashback in which we see Captain Carpenter as a child aboard her parent’s cargo ship. The events near the end of the flashback, I’m sure, will play a big part in the rest of the movie. The second and third parts are currently available with Part 4 hopefully arriving this fall. I’m intrigued enough to want to watch the next two parts right now but I’m going to try to space them out over the next few months.

I don’t know anything about computer generated animation but I can’t imagine it is an easy thing to put together. The Production page at the Star Trek: Aurora website offers a primer on 3D animation and it looks difficult. I wonder how long it takes to render just one minute of animation. Then, of course, there are the voices and the background music to consider.

Speaking of music, I thought it was an interesting choice to use vocals during the opening credits. I liked them. Very majestic.