Star Wreck
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This article is about the independent movie series. For other uses, see Star Wreck (disambiguation).
Star Wreck is a series of Finnish Star Trek parody movies started by Samuli Torssonen in 1992. The first movie, simply named Star Wreck, was a simple Star Control–like animation with three ships shooting at each other, but later movies featured 3D CGI, animated characters, weird humour and in the latest films, live actors.
Star Wreck relates the adventures of James B. Pirk (named after the Star Trek character James T. Kirk), Captain of the starship C.P.P Potkustartti (English C.P.P. Kickstart). Other characters include Mr. Fukov, Mr. Spook (Finnish: Mr. Spökö), Mr. Dwarf (Wuf), Ensign Shitty and Mr. Info (loosely based, respectively, on Star Trek's Pavel Chekov, Mr. Spock, Worf, Scotty, and Data). The characters speak Finnish, but all movies are subtitled in English.
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning is the first Finnish independently-funded feature-length film featuring high quality special effects and space battles. A parody of both Star Trek and Babylon 5, the film begins with Pirk and several of the Kickstart crew members marooned on present-day Earth after the happenings of the previous movie. Growing tired of the inconveniences and lack of respect he encounters in primitive contemporary society, Pirk decides to "assist" humanity by using Federation technology to make himself dictator of Earth and build a fleet of starships. An exploration mission crosses through a wormhole (called a "maggothole" in the film) into an alternate timeline and encounters the Babel-13 space station commanded by Captain Sherrypie. Habitable planets being in short supply, Pirk immediately decides that the logical course of action is to conquer Babel-13's alternate Earth -- but soon finds that Sherrypie has no intention of allowing this without a fight.
Production of the movie was started in 1999, and after six years of hard work it premiered August 20, 2005 for VIPs only in Kinopalatsi, Tampere, Finland. A DVD was offered, and the first copies were sent to pre-order subscribers on September 5, 2005. Downloadable versions were released on the internet on October 1, 2005. Both releases are available under a Creative Commons license, though the authors asked people to refrain from distributing the DVD content until the official Internet release day it is currently available for viewing on Google Video.
[edit] Popularity
Star Wreck has enjoyed a relatively large niche following among sci-fi fans, but it was only the latest movie that really pushed it into the limelight. Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning was downloaded over 700,000 times during the first week after its release [1] and the current estimates by the hosting service, Magenta sites, are between 3.5 – 4 million downloads, including mirror sites. This has been claimed to make In the Pirkinning the most popular Finnish film of all time, topping the movie theatre viewings for Tuntematon sotilas (approx. 2.8 million viewers); the comparison, however, may not be particularly meaningful. Numerous TV and magazine interviews of the film's authors have been published, both in Finland and abroad.
Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning has also been shown on Finnish national television, YLE TV2 and on the Belgian national television channel Canvas.
[edit] List of movies
- Star Wreck (1992)
- Star Wreck II: The Old Shit (1994)
- Star Wreck III: Wrath of the Romuclans (1995)
- Star Wreck IV: The Kilpailu (1996)
- Star Wreck V: Lost Contact (1997)
- Star Wreck 4½: Weak Performance (2000)
- Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning (2005)
There is also a spin-off animated Star Wreck, created by a different author who has no relation to Torssonen's team, called Star Wreck Asskicker which tells the story of the C.P.P. Asskicker.
[edit] External links
- Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning
- Star Wreck forums (English and Finnish)
- IMDb entry for Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning
- Introductory notes and screenshots of all Star Wreck movies (I, II, III, IV, 4½, V, and VI)
As of October 1, 2005, Star Wreck: In The Pirkinning is available for download from its official website (or directly via BitTorrent here). The movie is licensed under a Creative Commons license, permitting unlimited non-commercial redistribution.
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