Star Trek: Axanar

[gazomg]

God, enough of this!!

If you can't contribute something new AND relevant to this thread, take a breather and stay out!!

Totally Agree,

my initial post was days ago and it was others that dragged it up, and I have every right to reply.

 

[Kruezerman]

Does anybody remember when we used to be explorers?

 

[gazomg]

Does anybody remember when we used to be explorers?

I do hope this is not a dig at "enterprise" the series.

 

[BillJ]

Does anybody remember when we used to be explorers?

 

[gazomg]

forgive my ignorance here, but when axanar is finished will it be online or straight to dvd or what ?

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

forgive my ignorance here, but when axanar is finished will it be online or straight to dvd or what ?

Online streaming only, unless a person has donated to receive a physical Blu-ray disc (either the standard SE or the super-ultra-mega pack) which will never be available at stores. We can't, due to CBS and that whole no profit thing. =)

 

[fireproof78]

The proof is in the final product.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but fan productions are a mixed bag, in my opinion.

If what they produce matches the quality of Prelude I'll be more than satisfied. (Of course the actual production will face different challenges from a mockumentary format like Prelude, but it left me pretty confident in the chops of the team. The latest taste likewise.)

I liked Prelude and found the concept to be interesting. My only struggle (and the reason why I watch films) is there were maybe two characters that I liked and wanted to see succeed or (in contrast) see fail.

VFX only does so much as far as my interest goes, so I am hoping for a trailer where I have a more concrete idea of what everybody's role is in the actual film.

Again, cautious optimism, but I've seen many fan productions over the years, and I think caution on my part is warranted. This is not a slam against the production team, who I think are doing a good job, especially with a lot of naysaying and random attacks.

I am looking forward to the trailers, as well.

 

[nightwind1]

I am so looking forward to this.
The prelude to axanar was better than anything abrams has ever done

I dont think I have looked forward to any film in my entire life so much.

Really? A twenty-minute fan film with not much plot to speak of is better than "Regarding Henry", "Alias", "Lost", "Fringe", "Person of Interest", "Cloverfield", "Super 8"...?

I will make this easier for you so you might eventually grasp it.
Are you sitting down ?
I am looking forward to Axanar, the movie, I liked the prequel ...I loved it, and expect the movie to be as good.

Still with me ?

It was in my opinion better than anything Abrams has done in trek that I saw.
I cannot comment on a list of programmes I have not seen, so you will have to make do with my opinion on what I like.

I do hope that makes it easier for you to comprehend, and I hope I have not hurt your feelings or offended you with me having the audacity of having my own opinion.

NO, you did NOT say it was better than "anything Abrams has done in trek that I saw", you said, specifically, that it was "better than anything Abrams has ever done".

You do understand that your ACTUAL words are right there on screen, right?

 

[Phantom]

What it comes down to is largely target audience. A mainstream popcorn flick is going to be aimed at the broadest mainstream audience. To that end they're going to boil it down to the barest elements to make it as accessible as possible. Going beyond those parameters is going into riskier territory. That isn't to say that a film aimed at as broad an audience as possible can't be entertaining (from which we get into debates about what different people find entertaining), but you're certainly not going to please everyone.

A fan production is more in line with going for a focused audience. The producers know who their audience is and the project is tailored that way. And because they're not concerned about box office sales and killer opening weekends they can focus on making something they know the target audience wants to see.

Something like Axanar could work as a studio backed feature film, but as an original non Trek project. It would never be green lighted as a Trek project because there are too many unknowns in it--it's not familiar enough for a mainstream audience. But as an original idea about space war--that's something that could conceivably work with a mainstream audience given we're talking about something thats a variation of Star Wars, but more smartly done.

A fan production (like an Indie film) has the freedom to indulge in ideas that a major studio wouldn't have the nerve to do. But something like Axanar could give someone the idea to mount a similar project, but as something outside of Trek. Indeed there are decades worth of SF novels that deal with essentially this very idea: space war between major interstellar powers.

In fact I'm pretty sure I heard not long ago that Joe Haldeman's The Forever War was supposedly in development as a feature film. Ender's Game was about space war.

I respectfully disagree with your premise. "Mainstream" does not have to = "big, loud, stupid, and over-sexed". Star Trek did fine on big screen and small for almost 2 decades without compromising what it was at its core.

You state that BH won't "risk" money on a Trek that is respectful to its fanbase and history. While that may be to some extent true, it is not because that is the wrong way to go, but because BH has become so risk-averse and blockbuster-oriented that it has put itself in position of requiring itself to act that way.

Step the budgets back down to the $100 million range, go with a generation or so less sophisticated CG and FX and (most importantly) tell stories with intelligence, that engage the audience beyond the visceral, and do so with passion and integrity.

Audiences will respond to quality if they're given a chance to do so. Star Wars was dismissed as "fluff" and deemed "too risky" and look where Lucas' passion, integrity, and quality took him.

Get the JJs and Bermans and Marketing department bean counters out of the creative chair and put Manny Coto-s and Alex Peters-s in charge.

 

[gazomg]

NO, you did NOT say it was better than "anything Abrams has done in trek that I saw", you said, specifically, that it was "better than anything Abrams has ever done".

You do understand that your ACTUAL words are right there on screen, right?

well considering this is first and foremost a star trek board I think it was pretty obvious what I meant.Why would I be speaking about non trek stuff I never watched. ????

Of course other people have grasped this already , some even mentioning in their posts.
Now that I have informed you and you are aware of my point I am quite sure you wont need to mention it again now will you...unless of course you find more reason to bring it up and then complain about it, which seems the recurring theme at the moment bring up an old post so YOU and OTHERS can moan

 

[gazomg]

forgive my ignorance here, but when axanar is finished will it be online or straight to dvd or what ?

Online streaming only, unless a person has donated to receive a physical Blu-ray disc (either the standard SE or the super-ultra-mega pack) which will never be available at stores. We can't, due to CBS and that whole no profit thing. =)

Cheers Terry

 

[Phantom]

This one is for Terry:

It's a minor quibble, but could you guys cut back on the FB posts a little bit? I'm having to go in 3 times a day and clean out excess posts so that the things I want most to show up on my Timeline don't get overwhelmed. Axanar isn't the only culprit, but it's one of the bigger ones. I really don't want to have to "unfollow", but it's just getting to be too much. A large part of it is when you spread stuff that other people have posted to your pages.

Thank you for being open to suggestions/questions.

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

The proof is in the final product.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but fan productions are a mixed bag, in my opinion.

If what they produce matches the quality of Prelude I'll be more than satisfied. (Of course the actual production will face different challenges from a mockumentary format like Prelude, but it left me pretty confident in the chops of the team. The latest taste likewise.)

I liked Prelude and found the concept to be interesting. My only struggle (and the reason why I watch films) is there were maybe two characters that I liked and wanted to see succeed or (in contrast) see fail.

VFX only does so much as far as my interest goes, so I am hoping for a trailer where I have a more concrete idea of what everybody's role is in the actual film.

Again, cautious optimism, but I've seen many fan productions over the years, and I think caution on my part is warranted. This is not a slam against the production team, who I think are doing a good job, especially with a lot of naysaying and random attacks.

I am looking forward to the trailers, as well.

There are some specific reasons why Prelude was the way that it was, specifically the retrospective documentary and interview style of presentation. Some were creative -- wanted to do something different and fresh to pitch the concept and prove what we could do with the money that we had. Others were practical -- having only the money that we had not being low on the list.

The vast majority of the feedback that we've received from fans, pros, and media has been overwhelmingly positive in the near year since it premiered and was released to donors and YouTube. That said, the coming feature will not only have a much larger budget, but it also has more creative talent behind it, not to mention that it will unfold as a traditional film narrative -- as-you-were-there style -- as any Star Trek film from Paramount has done. Thankfully, and this is only my personal opinion, although it may be shared by many, the feature-length film will be largely practically shot on real sets and that should surely kick things up a notch.

Speaking only for myself, one of my jobs is wrangling the displays on the sets; everything from ordering the monitors and video devices that will play the animations, but perhaps even a few goodies that involve very large touch screens. All of that will be practical effects, too, and we're not using TOS repro graphics. Our in house art department has created a new computer interface system that we believe strongly, after a bazillion hours of development, will bridge the gap between the ENT and TOS designs. They'll be practical though, since we're working from the place that technology is today and not what technology of the future was thought to look like 50 years ago. That said... they'll be very familiar, too.

It's a wild ride, but by the time the film premieres, if we all aren't already on a mental hold from exhaustion, we'll be dropping off the grid for a few weeks to an undisclosed location that doesn't even have soup cans and string for outside communication. =P

 

[Kruezerman]

Mr. McIntosh,

Quick question, have you spoken to Abrams and Co at all? I'm very interested to see if we'll see any influence on either end. I especially love the fact that the JJ-fleet is actually here (though I'm a bit miffed you didn't use the window viewscreens!).

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

This one is for Terry:

It's a minor quibble, but could you guys cut back on the FB posts a little bit? I'm having to go in 3 times a day and clean out excess posts so that the things I want most to show up on my Timeline don't get overwhelmed. Axanar isn't the only culprit, but it's one of the bigger ones. I really don't want to have to "unfollow", but it's just getting to be too much. A large part of it is when you spread stuff that other people have posted to your pages.

Thank you for being open to suggestions/questions.

I'm sorry, but that's been discussed ad nauseam in house and the answer is going to be no. Blame Facebook. Once they revamped their system a good year ago now, where, unless you not only 'like' but specifically tick 'get notification' on their interface, people only see the popular stuff from pages that they like. So, in order to get more exposure, our PR pro folks are adamant that we need to hammer the message a bit with more routine postings.

So, anyone that would like to see less, and that's a very small percentage that have vocalized such a concern to us, would need to use the controls on their own Facebook accounts to slow them down on their end.

I wish that we had a better option, and if Facebook showed our posts to everyone that wanted to see them without complex methods or popularity, like it used to be, then we'd likely only post important things or at least once a day.

BOOOO to Facebook. =(

 

[TerryMcIntosh]

Mr. McIntosh,

Quick question, have you spoken to Abrams and Co at all? I'm very interested to see if we'll see any influence on either end. I especially love the fact that the JJ-fleet is actually here (though I'm a bit miffed you didn't use the window viewscreens!).

Just call me Terry, please. I'm no one important. =)

No, not a peep and would never expect to hear boo from them for a laundry list of reasons.

The JJ'ish design elements only appear in Axanar due to the Kelvin opening scene from the 2009 filming being proper prime canon. When that film came out that rather solved a big problem for us specifically, because Alec and the proto-team were working out ways to bring in something a bit more modern thinking, but were restrained by canon. Once that film came out then a whole new aesthetic for that time period became available to draw from.

So, that's pretty much the story of why JJ's Kelvin influences, and even influences from that film later on that show the more older ships, appear in Axanar.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I respectfully disagree with your premise. "Mainstream" does not have to = "big, loud, stupid, and over-sexed". Star Trek did fine on big screen and small for almost 2 decades without compromising what it was at its core.

Wait, what!?

Um, I hate to break to you, but Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness pretty much are the kind of trek movies that have been coming out for almost 2 decades.

 

[Phantom]

This one is for Terry:

It's a minor quibble, but could you guys cut back on the FB posts a little bit? I'm having to go in 3 times a day and clean out excess posts so that the things I want most to show up on my Timeline don't get overwhelmed. Axanar isn't the only culprit, but it's one of the bigger ones. I really don't want to have to "unfollow", but it's just getting to be too much. A large part of it is when you spread stuff that other people have posted to your pages.

Thank you for being open to suggestions/questions.

I'm sorry, but that's been discussed ad nauseam in house and the answer is going to be no. Blame Facebook. Once they revamped their system a good year ago now, where, unless you not only 'like' but specifically tick 'get notification' on their interface, people only see the popular stuff from pages that they like. So, in order to get more exposure, our PR pro folks are adamant that we need to hammer the message a bit with more routine postings.

So, anyone that would like to see less, and that's a very small percentage that have vocalized such a concern to us, would need to use the controls on their own Facebook accounts to slow them down on their end.

I wish that we had a better option, and if Facebook showed our posts to everyone that wanted to see them without complex methods or popularity, like it used to be, then we'd likely only post important things or at least once a day.

BOOOO to Facebook. =(

Thank you for a prompt and honest answer. FB is getting to be a royal pain in the you-know-what.

 

[Mudd]

The notion that mainstream entertainment is less intelligent, imaginative and sophisticated than Star Trek is preposterous fannish nonsense.

 

[Warped9]

What it comes down to is largely target audience. A mainstream popcorn flick is going to be aimed at the broadest mainstream audience. To that end they're going to boil it down to the barest elements to make it as accessible as possible. Going beyond those parameters is going into riskier territory. That isn't to say that a film aimed at as broad an audience as possible can't be entertaining (from which we get into debates about what different people find entertaining), but you're certainly not going to please everyone.

A fan production is more in line with going for a focused audience. The producers know who their audience is and the project is tailored that way. And because they're not concerned about box office sales and killer opening weekends they can focus on making something they know the target audience wants to see.

Something like Axanar could work as a studio backed feature film, but as an original non Trek project. It would never be green lighted as a Trek project because there are too many unknowns in it--it's not familiar enough for a mainstream audience. But as an original idea about space war--that's something that could conceivably work with a mainstream audience given we're talking about something thats a variation of Star Wars, but more smartly done.

A fan production (like an Indie film) has the freedom to indulge in ideas that a major studio wouldn't have the nerve to do. But something like Axanar could give someone the idea to mount a similar project, but as something outside of Trek. Indeed there are decades worth of SF novels that deal with essentially this very idea: space war between major interstellar powers.

In fact I'm pretty sure I heard not long ago that Joe Haldeman's The Forever War was supposedly in development as a feature film. Ender's Game was about space war.

I respectfully disagree with your premise. "Mainstream" does not have to = "big, loud, stupid, and over-sexed". Star Trek did fine on big screen and small for almost 2 decades without compromising what it was at its core.

You state that BH won't "risk" money on a Trek that is respectful to its fanbase and history. While that may be to some extent true, it is not because that is the wrong way to go, but because BH has become so risk-averse and blockbuster-oriented that it has put itself in position of requiring itself to act that way.

Step the budgets back down to the $100 million range, go with a generation or so less sophisticated CG and FX and (most importantly) tell stories with intelligence, that engage the audience beyond the visceral, and do so with passion and integrity.

Audiences will respond to quality if they're given a chance to do so. Star Wars was dismissed as "fluff" and deemed "too risky" and look where Lucas' passion, integrity, and quality took him.

I don't think we're in that much disagreement. I think we've said rather similar things but in different ways.

A mainstream film can be entertainting and it can even be intelligent, but the latter doesn't seem to really matter to the major studios. If the producers and directors manage to get something worthy in there along with some flash-and-bang then fine, but if not then no biggee as far as the studios concerned.

I still stand by my opinion that the studio would not back a project like Axanar unless it was non Trek simply because there aren't enough familiar Trek elements in it for a mainstream audience.

Or put it another way: would the studio back a Captain Pike movie where the only familiar character to the mainstream audience was a young Spock and he wasn't even a prominant character? I think it highly unlikely.

Fan productions can indulge in ideas that a major studio likely wouldn't consider because the fan productions have only to please themselves (and in extent the fans in the audience having similar tastes).