Star Trek: Axanar-Independent Feature Film

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Encuentro, Jul 11, 2015.

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  1. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I'm pleased, as I put a little bit of money into this film.
     
  2. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    "An official statement from Axanar Productions on tonight's statement from Justin Lin and JJ Abrams:

    While we're grateful to receive the public support of JJ Abrams and Justin Lin, as the lawsuit remains pending, we want to make sure we go through all the proper steps to make sure all matters are settled with CBS and Paramount. Our goal from the beginning of this legal matter has been to address the concerns of the plaintiffs in a way that still allows us to tell the story of AXANAR and meets the expectations of the over 10,000 fans who financially supported our project.

    There is still a lot of work to do, but receiving this kind of public support helps immensely."
     
    Deesky likes this.
  3. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

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    Maybe I'm projecting my own cautiousness onto the situation. If I were someone that had been named on the lawsuit, wild horses could not bring me back to the production post-lawsuit.
     
    BeatleJWOL likes this.
  4. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    Why not? If the reason for the law suit is retracted and the studio is okay with the movie going ahead, then I don't see a problem.
     
    Dudley Morris likes this.
  5. will_b_free

    will_b_free Forum Resident

    Location:
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    The sound quality of the phone video is not the best but does it sound to anyone else like JJ is saying "fans will be able to work on their projects"? That doesn't sound like an assurance that Axanar can be made, but it does sound like fans won't get into the kind of trouble Axanar got into.
     
  6. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Alec Peters just posted this photo from the Trek fan event. He had the opportunity to thank Justin Lin personally!
    [​IMG]
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    I think that's very generous of director Lin to go to bat for the fans, and I think that's a very good PR effort to allow them to release it. I would bet there will still be conditions on how and when they can release the film. If it comes out on YouTube 4-5 months after the feature hits theaters, I don't see where it's really a problem.
     
    enro99, Simon A and Encuentro like this.
  8. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    It would be funny if they released the film theatrically and it made crazy money! :D
     
    Encuentro likes this.
  9. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    Maybe this change in IP law means our host can proceed with some badly-needed remasters and won't even need to bother with licensing or any of that silliness.

    (he said, with extreme sarcasm.)
     
  10. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Senior Member

    In case anybody thinks I'm being unfair, 1701news.com has a nice breakdown of the Axanar problem and the way this seems to be headed:
    Be Careful What You Wish For ... | 1701News »
     
    Vidiot likes this.
  11. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    And here's a fairly long, detailed article on the back-and-forth struggles on Axanar, including charges that the people making the film were pocketing some money on the side, and also why several crewmembers on the project quit, including the director:

    How "Star Trek" Created, Lost, And Won Back Its Devoted Fandom »

    This is a very complicated, interesting story, and it deals with the problem that Paramount faces in that a lot of Star Trek fans are kind of dismayed that the recent films have kind of become action films that have a few Star Trek characters in them. I think this is a valid charge. As much as I often dislike writer Damon "Lost" Lindelof, I thought what he had to say about his own Star Trek scripts were very self-effacing and honest.
     
    Simon A likes this.
  12. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Star Trek began as an action series. The new series of films have brought Star Trek back to its roots. Regarding "the problem that Paramount faces," Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness are the #2 and #1 highest grossing films in the franchise and have Rotten Tomatoes ranking of 95% and 87% respectively. The audience rankings on Rotten Tomatoes are 91% and 90% respectively. The films made a ton of money and are adored by critics and movie goers alike. These films aren't just successful. They're wildly successful. There are a sliver of Star Trek fans who congregate in Facebook groups to denounce the new films the way that a sliver of Star Trek fans complained about The Next Generation. It isn't their Star Trek, ironic considering that the newest incarnation of Trek is as close to The Original Series as the franchise has gotten since The Original Series was cancelled. Star Trek The Original Series was a western set in space with plenty of action, fight scenes, etc. The new films have not only returned the franchise to its roots. It's revived a franchise that was dead in the water. The upcoming series is a direct result of the success of these films.
     
  13. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I absolutely agree with that charge, and have made it myself many times.
    TOS may have been the trailblazer for the franchise, but I don't consider it to be the defining exemplar of Trekness. That accolade would mostly go to TNG, which eschewed 'cowboy diplomacy' of the past incarnation. DS9 brought a different, more politically complex shade to the franchise, while Voyager had it's fair share of ethical/moral dilemmas to resolve. I think these three shows define the true core of Trekness, not the movies.
     
  14. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    I disagree. Maybe it's the 22 plus episode seasons, but those series are loaded with filler. TNG has the advantage of being a series that has mostly stand alone episodes. DS9 mixes it up with the stand alone and Dominion War storyline. When it came to watching DS9, I had to do a lot of jumping around. I've actually never gotten around to finishing it off. I stopped somewhere in the final season. It's a show that prided itself on being the first Trek series with with a serialized storyline, but, in my opinion, those episodes were the weakest link. DS9's best episodes were episodes were the stand alone episodes, among them, The Visitor, Far Beyond the Stars and Rejoined. The Dominion War storyline wasn't very compelling, and of course, it was a war story with lots of things that go boom in outer space and drug addicted aliens and shape-shifting goo aliens and ugh. Thankfully, the 20 plus episode seasons are going the way of the dodo. No more having to sit through 3 phone it in episodes to get to a decent one. In any event, good or bad, it's really not a series worth revisiting, with the exception of a handful of episodes. Man, those aliens were cheesy. It seems that every time they wanted to throw a new alien at the audience, they stuck bone ridges in the alien's head and called it a day. DS9 was pretty second rate, deserving of its home on UPN. TNG on the other hand, despite having many of the same cheesy aliens and its own fair share of filler episodes, has a slew of episodes worth revisiting. But none of these series could hold a candle to the Battlestar Galactica reboot or Firefly for quality storytelling and top-notch characters.

    The movies, beginning with The Motion Picture and moving on through to Into Darkness with the occasional odd duck in the form of films such as The Final Frontier, are just better than their series counterparts in every way including the storylines. I'll take a allegory about increased militarization, rush to judgement and preemptive war after a terrorist attack and what that story tells us about who we are in this post-9/11 world over the Dominion War any day of the week and twice on Sunday. But different strokes for different folks.
     
  15. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    Star Trek Nemesis almost made me run screaming from the theater. I'm with the crowd that says the odd-numbered films were generally OK, and the even-numbered films were stupid. I disliked the JarJar Abrams films because he veered so wildly from the long history of Star Trek that came before, and deliberately changed a lot of details just for the sake of p!ssing in the punch bowl. I'm clinging to the hope that the new film is at least an original story that won't take any ridiculous left turns.
     
  16. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    But they didn't veer wildly from the long history of Trek. They brought it right back to its roots. Star Trek: TOS was a space adventure. The new films are space adventures. I think that some fans are so far removed from the original series that they can't see how closely the new films match the tone of the original series. The alternate timeline was created to leave the fate of the main characters open. The new film is definitely going to be an original story with new species and a new world to explore. It's set well into the 5 year mission.
     
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    The early word is pretty good, but I'm a hard guy to please. I'll keep an open mind.
     
    Encuentro likes this.
  18. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    A teaser that was released recently.
     
  19. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

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    Dead link! :(
     
  20. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Sorry about that. The Axanar folks took it down from their Facebook page, but somebody grabbed it and put it up on Youtube. It's since been taken down to due to a copyright infringement claim from Axanar. A representative from Axanar said that they will be releasing a new teaser to the general public in 2-3 weeks.
     
  21. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    One good point someone made about the "Axanar" film/case is this:

    If 20th Century Fox had decided last year to enlist super Trek fans on their staff to make a non-profit, micro-budget "Star Trek" film (let's say for argument even *losing* money making it to make sure no profits are made by anyone) and distribute it for free, would anyone bat an eyelash at Paramount/CBS suing?

    If Warner Bros. enlisted Star Wars nerds on its staff to make a non-profit, micro-budget "Star Wars Episode 7.5", would anyone be surprised if Lucasfilm/Disney sued?

    The vibe I get on Peters and Axanar is that a lot of "fans" don't like him or the film (more its context than the actual content), just about every other "Fan Film" maker doesn't like him or Axanar, and the general feeling is that he is ruining it for all the other fan productions.

    Wil Wheaton had some pretty apt and funny words on Peters and Axanar a little while back. I think the feeling many get that Peters is a total douche and antagonistic certainly hasn't helped things either.

    The guy just pushed this thing too far. Paying himself a salary, using the funds to start a side business with the studio facility, and allowing the general vibe of Axanar buzz to be "Paramount doesn't have their s**t together and don't make good Star Trek films, so we're making a better Star Trek"; Peters was just asking for it.

    This guy could have made the film he had just hired someone else to be the "face" of the whole project and had toned the rhetoric down a bit.

    Now, the only way this "Axanar" film will ever be made is if Paramount and CBS blow it and crumble.

    The "AxaMonitor" website clearly has a side of the whole debate they fall on, but there's a ton of good analysis and digging into facts and data on that website. I would imagine Peters finds that website one of the banes of his Trek existence.
     
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  22. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I thought the studio dropped the suit and said that the film could go ahead...
     
  23. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    DOH! I wrote that while being drunk and insane. Make that: "I'm with the crowd that says the even-numbered Star Trek films were good, and the odd-numbered films were stupid." Leave it to me to completely screw my own point. Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan was a very fine film. I have a lot of hope for the new TV series with Nick Meyer as one of the producers.

    Peters has provided a pretty good defense that answers a lot of these questions, but I don't know enough about the facts to answer thoroughly. (But it is true that several people resigned from the production when they found out they weren't being paid but others were.)

    What I have read is that they were trying to sell T-shirts, posters, caps, and other fan merchandise, and I think Viacom wants to specifically forbid that. In truth, the whole idea was for fans and student filmmakers to shoot a $5000 short in their garage and post it to YouTube, not to shoot a $2 million movie and show it at conventions and festivals. I think they should put a budget limit on it, forbid any merchandising at all, and require that the filmmakers get a release date approved by Paramount first. The alternative is to just raise money and shoot a movie that doesn't use any Star Trek characters, plot lines, or ideas at all and just make a new movie about new characters.
     
    MikeInFla and Encuentro like this.
  24. Encuentro

    Encuentro Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Exactly. They can actually do what they want with it and not have to answer to a studio that owns the IP. There are a number of promising independent science fiction productions that use Kickstarter and Indiegogo, some of which employ actors and actresses from various Star Trek series. They have been inspired by popular science fiction productions, but the stories are original. One of those productions is a film that I've supported called 5th Passenger. No controversy for 5th Passenger. No need to use another studio's IP. And they've managed to raise a decent amount of money for an original independent production. Not Axanar money, but still decent for such a small production.
     
    Deesky likes this.
  25. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    I recognized 'Tuvok' and 'Mike' in that clip! It reminded me a lot of the tv series Extant actually - isolated capsule in space with a mystery 'passenger', etc. Not a mind blowingly new concept, but might be interesting if done well. They've got some good actors by the look of it, so that's a very big plus.

    Any idea when it will be released?
     
    Encuentro likes this.
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