Welcome to the first MTM Wrap edition for 2025.
It is a short one this week as the new year is often a quiet time in fan films, actually it is quiet everywhere as people get some holiday time in or just take it easy for a while before getting back into the swing of things.
We launched Trekzone and MTM’s Best of 2024 List on December 31 and we are really pleased with the response, lots of reads and lots of very happy people, the latter is why we do it all for, if people are happy then we are happy.
We had a guest in the comments section, Mr. Lane from Fan Film Factor who seems to only pop up at awards time and he had a lot of thoughts regarding Best Costume which you can read for yourself if you like.
We’re very happy with our selections and we wouldn’t change a single one, everybody earned their selection, how much time you put into a fan film or how much money you put into it doesn’t matter, what a fan film does to a person does matter and we watched them and the moments come when you see something and go ‘that’s it, that’s what we’re looking for’.
Now we have some very big news for you, The 2025 Trekzone Fan Film Awards are going ahead this year, after unintentionally ticking people off in 2023 and 2024, the desire for another round wasn’t very appetising but Trekzone and MTM’s Best of 2024 List went so well that we decided to go around again.
Hopefully we won’t tick anybody off this year, if we do, we’ll just run right through it and start preparing Trekzone and MTM’s Best of 2025 List.
There was one new release in the last week and that is ‘Larson and the Dreadnaught’ by Chris Lea, if you are a big fan of Chris’ work then this new fan film will be just as enjoyable as his other work.
That’s the news and views of this week, a big week for us and the start of an interesting year ahead for MTM, Trekzone and fan films.
Until next time, be good to each other.
Mentioning Trekkie Mentions 
Was a great way to end the year, with the usual suspect paying the usual visit, remaining incapable of accepting other people having fun without him before driving on by after getting a matter-of-fact reply.
Folks that tell us how it should be aren’t welcome.
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Not sure that I “only pop up at awards time,” but in fairness, Matt Miller has repeatedly been hypercritical of both the Showrunner Awards and the Directors Choice Awards over the years (ostensibly for charging an entry fee), so I figured the invitation was open for me to comment on your awards show, as well. If that’s not the case and Matt is okay with him not mentioning me either in text, word, or song, I’m certainly fine with living on opposite sides of the planet and not interacting at all.
Let me know.
I will admit to being somewhat amused by how much my single comment a couple of days ago has triggered both of you. Thank goodness I didn’t get nearly as frazzled at all of Matt’s criticisms of me over the years or else I’d have no time left in my life left for friends and family…let alone blogging and book-writing!
That said, the irony (I suppose you could call it that) is that I wasn’t actually criticizing your awards or selections but was simply asking a question about how you came to your decision in a single category because it left a bunch of folks (including myself) scratching our heads. And let’s face it, that happens from time to time in all awards shows. A film or television series or actor or director or whatever will win or not win in a category, and many in the industry and the public just say, “WTF was up with that decision?”
But you’ve answered it here and satisfactorily, Chuck. You are not making your selections based on determinations of technical merit, skill, effort, or any objectively measurable criteria. It’s the subjective feelings that a fan film (or a specific aspect of a fan film) gives to the two judges: “…we watched them and the moments come when you see something and go ‘that’s it, that’s what we’re looking for’.” It’s the feels, the gut reaction–and as I said, that’s fine. Indeed, it’s something that the fan film community has kinda known (or at least suspected) about the Trekzone Awards for the last three years. It’s two people telling the community what they liked the most. Nothing wrong with that.
Speaking of which, I will admit to having just won a bet that Matt and you would chose to “un-quit” from having your annual Trekzone fan film awards and decide on another go in 2025 after all. And best of luck to you both. Hopefully, this next year, the two of you will be able to move past your obsession with me and others in the community and just enjoy and celebrate Star Trek fan films. If not, well, then I eagerly await yours your Matt’s next snarky comment(s) about me Up to you, of course. I’m stepping out of the boxing ring now.
– “Mr. Lane” a.k.a. “Jonathan: a.k.a. “The Fan Film Blogger Dude.”
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Matt can as be critical of those awards all he likes, Trekzone is Trekzone and you can say what you want about what we do, I don’t read or watch FFF so I can’t be bothered, concerned, annoyed etc. about what you say if I don’t know what you say, I have an opinion on them but I won’t be expressing it here as I was not asked.
‘He had a lot of thoughts regarding Best Costume’ does not say ‘he criticized the way we decided Best Costume’ and then I went on tell the people how we picked in the event they wanted to know based on your questions.
It’s not guts or feels that decide things Mr. Lane, some people know what they know but they don’t know how to put those words down on website, a person has in their mind a criteria on what they are looking for and can’t explain it but they go looking for what they know and then when they find it they choose it, some people can write a ton of words and be all technical and finessing to express themselves, some just need a few (see the ball, get the ball, kick the ball) and it is good that people see that we’re not all the same. it would be boring to do the same things.
Yes, we are back for 2025, whoever you were betting with were always going to lose the bet because despite ‘the desire for another round wasn’t very appetising’, it was going to go ahead MTM alone under the Trekzone Fan Film Awards name or MTM and Trekzone together and I’m very pleased that Matt wants to do the visual aspect of it this year, there are fan films that have our back and we’ve got theirs and leaving would be letting them down.
We enjoy fan films, and we celebrate them but if somebody is not of great character, we will ignore them, simple as that and we have plenty of people who are happy with the way we do things, an increase of 116% in 2024 numbers over 2023 shows that is true.
That’s all that is to it, Mr. Lane, see you at the next awards.
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I’d like to chime in just for the fun of it. Like Jonathan mentioned above, I too came to the same late realisation what the trekzone awards are about. It’s a list of Matts / RKS personal favourite fan films of the year, nothing more and nothing less. And just like Jonathan I too think there’s nothing wrong with that. Just the communication to the outside world about what the show is, might be a bit misleading which lead to a lot of head scratching from a lot of people last year, me included. But I made my peace with it.
Why I’m actually commenting now has more to do how RKS and Matt frame things here. To say they do not include people who are “not of great character” is something that should not just be left uncommented. Getting thrown out of all further considerations because we criticised the last award show for its shortcomings on a single facebook post which ended after some discussions with being labelled as sore losers by Matt oh this very website. Something I actually predicted in my first comment on facebook. Anyways, this was months ago, so case closed on my end.
It’s true it was a bit frustrating to see RKS and Matt act like they showcase the best of trek fan films on their sites, while blatantly ignoring lots of great projects just because they have a personal grudge with the makers. Not because we and others crave the attention, I assume most people by now have realised how small of a reach MTM and trekzone actually have. No, the frustrating part is that any visitor coming across their sites who does not know about all these petty and unnecessary rivalries might get a very distorted impression of what the trek fan film community has to offer. And frankly, that is a shame.
Now, to give anyone who is reading this a little insight on “character” since it has been brought up. After my colleague and co-director on Loreley, Benjamin, thanked Jonathan on his posting about his list of fan films of 2024 for being included in there – unlike the one posted by MTM – and mentioning that we were disappointed by such treatment, Matt took it upon himself to write Benjamin a lengthy private message after months of completely blocking and ignoring us. That was a week or so ago. In that little tirade he came across like an absolute lunatic saying that we are somehow under the influence of Jonathan, and that he is using us against trekzone. Mind you, we barely have any contact with Jonathan, we never worked with him and other than a few comments on facebook postings we are complete strangers. I’d say we had more contact with Matt than with Jonathan. Furthermore, Matt made sure to let us know that it was him who “discovered” certain fan film groups, that he would feature a lot more international productions than Jonathan ever did. He also claimed Jonathan never interviewed the Euderion Crew from Germany. Which is particularly curious, as in the exact posting about the year in fan films 2024 Jonathan had also linked to the video call interview with the Euderions which was even longer than the one Matt did. So all in all a very confusing message out of left field from Matt at a point where we thought we never hear from him again.
We are not sure, what to do with all this. All we know is that it is tragic and disappointing to have someone like Matt who seems to see nothing but backstabbers and personal enemies around him, when in reality everyone is just trying to make cool films and bring joy to other star trek fans. There’s no big conspiracy, there are no “sides” and certainly no enemies.
I post all this here, since I know Matt does read these comments and since he completely blocked me on facebook so I cannot even visit trekzone there anymore (mind you I still can of course…), I hope that he reads this and understands that there is no one out there to get him or to sabotage him. He does this all on his own by excluding more and more people and trying to divide the fan film community by making fun of other people or bad mouthing them again and again.
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Thank you for stopping by.
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It’s always interesting to hear one side of a story
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Don’t worry about them, worry about those who like doing what we do.
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