[Mailbag Mondays] The First Question (of the new year)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d941hp6VKgw]

Mailbag Mondays is a weekly feature of Made of Fail Productions. Send in your questions, comments, and thoughts to made_of_fail@yahoo.com! Kevin will be your host this week.

So I’ve kind of been watching this fan-made trailer all week. It is quite possibly the best one I’ve seen ever. No real spoilers, just epic awesomeness worthy of the Doctor.

How have your holidays been? Mine have been busy.

BluThunder asks:
With the debut of Galilea, one has to ask the inevitable of everyone involved willing to answer: Favorite Star Trek captain? Annnnnd go.

For me personally? Don’t laugh. Janeway.

Here is a woman who spent nearly seven years out of contact with the Federation (four and a half with Starfleet thinking them dead), and she not only managed to hold her crew together with a simple promise of getting them home, something everyone seriously doubted but wouldn’t let themselves lose hope.

This is a woman who agonized over keeping to Starfleet values, traditions, and protocols over the threat of going Delta Quadrant native, and kept to the Prime Directive out of sheer badassitude. She even got a chance to see what would happen if she ever stopped, and did whatever it took no matter what the consequences. (The Equinox, incidentally, is a Nova-class planetary research vessel, which was the inspiration for the USS Galilea.)

Sure, she may not have had the best writing, and she may or may not have turned into a lizardwoman at some point (hilarious in hindsight, her spirit totem in an earlier episode was a salamander), but she rose above all that and became quite possibly the toughest chick in space. After all, Picard needed his whole crew and most of a fleet to take down a single Borg cube. Two Janeways set the entire Collective back for YEARS.

While I wasn’t able to get everyone involved with Star Trek: Galilea on short notice, I was able to poll the majority of the Failcrew staff.

While I was the only vote for Janeway, we had nine votes for Picard, two votes for Sisko, one for Kirk, one for New Kirk, one for Sulu (he was captain in Star Trek VI and a flashback episode of Voyager), and one for Let My Cameron Go John Harriman.

My replacement on the flagship podcast also was a smart-ass and put in a vote for John Sheridan, but since it’s Bruce freakin’ Boxleitner I’ll allow it. This time.

What about the rest of you? Conversation in the comments! Who’s your favorite Star Trek captain, and why?

Cecilia writes:
I’ve been feeling lately, that I may not have the talent/skill to bring my ideas to life–but I have no idea how to bring together people who can. What do you recommend for someone who wants to produce/start something, but doesn’t really know how to get started?

I’ve been feeling rather frustrated lately, at my creative attempts–and the things I want to accomplish are so far off. I have a couple ideas: One that’s partially fleshed out, and a few that are still seedlings

But I can’t see myself being able to do it on my own, and I wasn’t sure if you’d appreciate me bugging you with this–hence the anonymity.

There’s a reason I like Jim Henson, He’s not the best cinematographer, or the best puppeteer–but he had this ability to work with people and bring them together into a family that made him what he was. He FOUND the best cinematographers and he found puppeteers, some of them better then him, I feel–and he made his dreams alive. It’s all him, but it’s through others.

And then I saw you doing the same thing and I thought “Can I do that? Is that how I make my ideas come to life? With a team?” But I’m still not sure if I can or if I should.

Such an excellent question, I felt the need to expand upon my original answer, because I have Things To Say about this one.

It never hurts to try. This is my number one advice to anyone who wants to start out. The only thing that would hurt you by attempting to start a fun project would be if you decided it wasn’t worth it or you weren’t good enough, and didn’t start at all. It’s guaranteed to never happen if you do that.

If you have money, there are actors and writers and artists and directors and sculptors and people with equipment all over the place in every city, looking for work and hiring out their services. If you don’t have money, there are friends, family, and people just starting out in these fields who might be willing to do it for free, or for a chunk of future profits, or for a chance to share creative control.

Please note: Never just EXPECT people to do artwork or writing or acting for free. Tell them straight away you cannot pay them if you actually have no intention of paying them, and do not try to guilt them into doing it for free. Artists, writers, actors, etc. have every right to charge for their work, and you do get what you pay for. That’s why friends and family – and the extended circle of acquaintances therein – are the best bet for this sort of thing.

How do you think I turned Made of Fail into what it is today? Extending it to my friends, and the fans who became friends, and then eventually people were interested in joining up with no other connection other than it looked interesting. I never gave false promises of payment, and always was able to take “No” for an answer when I asked.

You’ll get some “No” answers. Probably a lot of them. You may have to do a lot of it yourself anyway, at least initially. But it’s always worth trying, and you might get more people later on.

Any other thoughts on this? Let’s see what we can get in the comments.

7 thoughts on “[Mailbag Mondays] The First Question (of the new year)

  1. Can I put in a vote for Capt. Mackenzie Calhoun from the Star Trek New Frontier series of novels by the illustrious PAD? I mean, he’s pretty damn badass and even though he tends to bend the rules a little, he doesn’t break them. He has his faults to be sure, but they don’t detract all that much from his general awesomeness.

    His wife, Elizabeth Shelby, would be a close second. She was captain of her own ship for a while before she was promoted to Admiral of a space station. I love how even though she outranks her husband, they are still on very equal footing.

  2. My favorite is probaby New Kirk. He’s just kinda awesome and I love the slight Kirk/Mccoy thing that’s going on there. And I like how he’s kind of a smart ass. And that he’s the cutest captain, that definetly doesn’t hurt either. (Yes, I really am easily swayed by a pretty face.)

    Also, I can’t stand Sisko. I just can’t watch DS9 because of how badly he overacts everything.

  3. My replacement on the flagship podcast also was a smart-ass and put in a vote for John Sheridan, but since it’s Bruce freakin’ Boxleitner I’ll allow it. This time.

    No fair! If we’re going beyond Star Trek for the Star Trek poll, then I’m totally changing my vote to Henry J. Gloval.

  4. Out of all the captains, I’d say my favorite is Kirk, though there should be some love shown to Captain Sulu. I do have to agree with you and your replacement, Kevin, that Bruce Boxleitner is made of awesome and should be in any list of great captains.

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