Okay, so after much delay, the full REQUIEM (parts one and two now edited together as a single one hour episode) has been released for free on the Atomic Network site....
I watched.
The production values are pretty amazing for their low budget.... the CGI space battles are gorgeous and the limited practical set design is well done. While the new uniforms are a step in the right direction, they all are ill fitted and significantly detract from the professional look. I kept thinking maybe they should have spent less money on awesome practical Mos Eisely aliens (and they do look fun and great!) and instead had a professional tailor on set full time to tweak the hero uniforms.
The story: Considering the producers had to do a mad scramble to change names and ship FX designs when the Fan Film Guidelines dropped, the story is surprisingly coherent though lacking much weight. By changing character names, it does weaken the impact of different characters appearances, since there is almost little to no individual character story/development, and the show simply relies on fans being happy with seeing old familiar faces.
While Requiem has slightly better production values than the first movie, it is far less ambitious. The first movie Star Trek Renegades had more story movement, more set pieces and better character arcs. While flawed, it played more like a proper movie or pilot episode. Requiem, however by comparison, feels very stagnant. All plot and key events are revealed while characters sit in park, or sit in a bar, or sit on a bridge, etc. There is lots and lots of exposition, long monologues about dark threats to the Fed... er, I mean, Confederation given wonderfully by Walter Koenig, but in the end, it is all stuff that happens off screen. There is one big bad guy, but again, we are told how evil and horrible he is, how he has betrayed the principles of Confederation, but he really never does anything. I know this was originally planned as a 3 part episode, so maybe much of the action and character development was cut for budget reasons? ....but it still results in mostly all talk and little show, making the plight of our heroes very difficult to embrace or care about.
There are two big epic space battles and as I said before, the CGI is beautiful. The editing is awkward and they feel like they go on too long and the bridge reaction shots, with the crew shaking around in their chairs, never quite works.
This is Walter Koenig's show and he gives a grand final performance. The downside of this, most of the characters set up in the first movie are shuffled to the sidelines or background or are killed off.
Overall, an interesting, if somewhat underwhelming, fan film. One can only "what if..." it may have been like if the whole Axanar scandal hadn't ruin everything.