VIDEO: Is This 1971 Star Trek Tribute the Oldest-Known Fan Film?

star_trek_fanfilm300.jpgJust when you thought Justin Timberlake comedies were the oddest artifcacts hiding in plain sight at YouTube, along comes... this: A 40-year-old Star Trek tribute that might very well be the earliest known (and preserved) example of the fan film.

Devin Faraci suggests as much at Badass Digest, but in any case, it's one of the more amusing fan relics in a Trekkie subculture teeming with such curios. It's the handiwork of one Ray Glasser, who produced the short as his final project for a TV production class in 1971 at Ohio State University. ("I got an A-," Glasser notes at the movie's YouTube page.) Honestly, it had me at the credits ("and KEN RENKER as MR. SPOCK"), but once the action finally kicks in around 1:30, and KEN RENKER actually opens his mouth, and the meta migraine of watching Trek characters vexed by ancient TV equipment on our computers wears off, I'd say it's something of a runaway success. Either way, it's history.

[via Badass Digest]



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