Anyone Looking Forward to Star Trek: Axanar?

I've been looking at their official website and it seems surprisingly thin on information. I thought the release of their full length film was supposed to be this year but now I here it is 2016. That seems odd as I figured they would want to release it away from the third Abramsverse movie as far as possible.

I've seen the 21 minute segment they've released so far as well as the 4 minute trailer.

Really been looking forward to it as at the very least it looks like we'll see a couple of original series Constitution class starships (Constitution and Enterprise) in combat with Klingon D-7s.

And I'll admit that Richard Hatch as the Klingon Warlord Kharm has impressed me a great deal. He manages a flawless mixture of menace and honorable dignity.

They're building sets now. I'm looking forward to it

Yes.

Very much so.

I too thought it was coming out this year, but I guess not. I'm defiantly looking forward to it. I thought the Prelude to Axanar was good. One of my favorite "bad guys" from TOS was Garth. I was hoping he would be Cumberbatch's character, but we got not-Kahn instead.

I think the guy playing Garth, who is really the person most behind this project though he isn't really what one would call a professional actor (from what I gathered) does seem to have the character really well nailed.

I also love how they've integrated some stuff from FASA's Four Years War Sourcebook such as Garth's first ship in the war being the U.S.S. Xenophon, a Marklin class destroyer.

No. Call me a spoil sport, but much as with the awful looking Star Trek Renegades, it's all conflict and war. For the same reason I couldn't stand the likes of Into Darkness I suspect I won't care for this as it's not what I look for in Trek. To many fan films go down that route, in part to show of their fancy CGI, and I think that's missing the whole spirit of Trek. At least when DS9 did war it was interlaced with stories of moral dilemmas and stories of hope to break up and balance against the serial conflict.

Having said all that, I don't usually spend a great deal of time on fan productions, but the production values and acting so far on Axanar are sufficient for me to have a look anyway in the faint hope that there is something in there worthy of the franchise.

^There is the saying El Chup that while war might be hell it is absolute heaven in space opera.

Not only have I never heard that, it's also a load of meaningless twaddle.

Knock off the insults or take it to the Red Room.

Not there isn't, if so provide proof of it.

What insults?

Wrong thread.

I notice that the "Star Trek: Renegades" project seems to be using much the same funding method as Axanar. They have a number of professional actors on board as well. Anyone familiar with that project?

I was reading on their website from Alec Peters (playing Garth of Izar and pretty much the driving force behind the project). He wrote the screenplay and mentioned his problems writing the climatic battle in the fourth act. He said the other large fleet battle in Star Trek has been mainly the "Sacrifice of Angels" battle in DS9 which he considered pretty weak with nothing but ships zipping around shooting with no regard for shields.

He said he finally got an idea how to do the battle by reading David Weber's Honor Harrington novels.

I'm actually excited about an on air Star Trek project for the first time in a long time. They hope to release Axanar in the first half of 2016 so it will be a long year waiting but based on the clips of the battles in Prelude to Axanar this has given me something to really look forward to.

Now if Star Trek: Renegades can produce something significant beyond their two trailers to air....

Isn't this project going to be web-only?

Probably as Paramount restrictions for fan made productions are that they cannot earn money on it IIRC.

That's what I thought as well. So, unfortunately, it won't "air" anywhere.

True. Though you can put it on a big enough screen to look pretty cool. I can put it on my 60 inch classroom screen.

But Star Trek started on the small screen so I've no major problems with this.

Note, I'm keeping all my comments about Star Trek fan productions here and not starting a new thread regarding each.

To me, Star Trek Continues is a fine effort. "Fairest of Them All" which takes place in the Mirror Universe right after the episode "Mirror, Mirror" is outstanding production wise and in having a good, competently told story. . The actors playing Kirk and Spock in particular seem to have the general look and mannerisms of both the actors and characters down cold.

IIRC, their fourth "episode" comes our in May.

Looks like Axanar is in trouble.

http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...acing-copyright-infringement-lawsuit-20151230

What do you want to bet that CBS sees a threat to their Star Trek series coming in 2017.

Exactly. But they are stupid if they don't see that this is free publicity -- and extremely bad publicity if they shut it down.

This sounds like a corporate lawyers decision.

I was wondering when this was going to happen and am frankly surprised that Paramount and CBS let it go on as long as they have. It's one thing to have shitty fan films that look like they were made in some geek's basement using a VHS camcorder . It's quite another to have multi-million dollar productions with actual actors.

Star Trek Continues is another fan-made series with high-end production values. They're probably next.

I'd imagine there's likely more to it. They're not just issuing a C&D, they're filing an actual civil suit against Alec Peters.

I don't know. See, STC, New Voyages, and the others, they pushed their episodes while also acknowledging the big dogs in the room. Axanar's top level team essentially did the opposite, pushing their fan film as real Trek, better than anything CBS or Paramount could produce. You don't do that when an IP holder is being nice and not holding your ass to the fire for infringement.

There's been plenty of fan productions for years. I thought as long as they don't make a profit, they were cool? Here's an idea, hire those guys and use their idea for the new show. That I'd watch.

It wouldn't surprise me if Dayton got it right and CBS is cracking down due to their upcoming series.

It might also have to do with actors portraying the same character for the fan based films as they did for the Paramount produced ones. Well actor, Gary Graham playing Soval on Enterprise and for Axanar.

Likely. It only makes sense, really. Axanar was using the designs from the new films, while telling their own story with their own production, using CBS/Paramount names, fonts, logos, and other strongly held IP trademarks in the process. What likely happened was CBS came along and said "you can't do that, you'll have to change a few things," to which the production likely thumbed their nose, because again, this is a civil suit, not a C&D, which means they're investing lots of time and money into the legality of this whole production. Someone, somewhere, pulled some shit and CBS is calling them on it.

TL;DR - Other productions said "we're not official Star Trek, and we appreciate CBS not beating us with a stick for using their IP."
Axanar said "our Star Trek is BETTER than CBS and Paramount's efforts, and we'll prove it by making a superior production to their own."

Which is a really dumb thing to do when you put it in writing for all, including CBS' lawyers, to see.