gregar69

Yesterday was THE day. The day I finally got to go see Star Trek Beyond. And... I liked it. A lot. The story was predictable. A crazy bad man decides to kill a bunch of people (not unlike the first two films). But, it was the characters that made up for that. It FELT like Star Trek. They all seemed so right... so familiar. The Spock-Bones dynamic was in full force. Everyone, save perhaps Chekov, had something to contribute. And there were some moments that had me full of emotion -- particularly the tribute to Leonard Nimoy/Ambassador Spock. That moment, when an image took Spock back...far back in time... I almost burst in to tears. It was a tribute to Leonard, true... But, it also served as a link back... a tribute to the whole cast. I knew then that they had finally gotten it RIGHT. Irregardless of the abundance of special effects or predictable story... it was like a visit with some old friends. Or, perhaps more accurately, it was a visit with some new friends that make you feel so comfortable, so welcome... that you feel they're your old friends in spirit.  

Over my 45 years, I have written... occasionally. While I sometimes feel that I have wasted a lot of years in 'trying' to write, I have recently discovered that I suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I spend a huge amount of time on the 'easy' aspects of writing... things like creating characters and designing ships and building universes for them to live in. But, when it comes time to put the fingers to the keyboard... I fail. But this time has been a bit different. Yes, I have spent the usual amount of time on the characters and situations, but I have actually WRITTEN a few pages that I am more or less happy with. That's a triumph for me. I'm writing again. Slowly but surely. I WILL finish this story because it is based in the Star Trek universe which has been a part of my life since I was about six years old. More then any other fiction out there, Star Trek has shaped my views of the world and gotten me through some truly rough periods in my life. I started thinking recently about what it would be like to write a Trek-based story about the crew of a freighter... That's the basis for Star Trek Beyond Antares. The 'beyond' in the title is related to adventures beyond the Enterprise, beyond the format of the original show... Beyond. One aspect of the process that I have spent time on is finding the class of ship for the Terra Nova. I like the Miranda-class from Star Trek II, but since my story is set during the time frame of the original series, I went looking for a TOS version of the Miranda and found it! David Metlesits has done an outstanding job in building a 3D model of the ship and is gracious enough to allow others to modify it to fit their needs. So, deciding to try my hand at some 3D art, I downloaded a trial of 3ds Max and set about working on how to change the name and registry number of his Miranda class U.S.S. Madrid. Yeah, I can't figure it out. Banging my head against the wall and getting headaches from trying over and over to follow Dave's instructions... I feel stupid. Really really stupid. I just can't seem to do it. And, I was naive enough to think about BUYING a license for 3ds Max... NOT! I don't have a spare truckload of money laying around for that. I have 23 days left in the trial and really just want to to figure out that one simple little task -- changing the registry number and name -- and get back to the task at hand... writing Star Trek!