CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[Woulfe]

Whoa. This thread exploded. It doubled in size in 12 hours. So am I to surmise that Axanar is further deluding themselves and their followers that they are still "moving forward" and will "begin production in February?"

Any word yet on whether this will affect other productions?

THAT is the $346,512 question isn't it ?

At this point we don't know, and won't know until the dust settles down on this whole ordeal, CBS / Para might look at each production on a case by case deal to see if they got all the ducks in a row, i's dotted t's crossed & the whole nine yards.

HOWEVER, the Axanar team is spouting off at the mouth "X, Y, Z, is doing the same thing as we are" and if they keep that attitude going into court, if it comes to that, the other fan films might have to fold up shop.

 

[CmdrCon]

its still happening! yassssssssss

 

[Iamnotspock]

its still happening! yassssssssss

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

 

[Woulfe]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

 

[Amaris]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Didn't he also say "Only Nixen could go to China"?

 

[USS Intrepid]

I haven't seen any hatred at all.

A lot of the "I bet there was never going to be a movie! This was all a con! Has anyone even gotten one of these so-called 'patches?'" nonsense is pretty vindictive. I mean, jeeze, aren't the facts bad enough? We have to go and turn this into a grand criminal conspiracy instead of some people overreaching in response to unexpected success? It happens all the time. How many lottery winners have gone broke because they don't know how to handle all that money dropping on them at once? Hell, how many Kickstarters blew up and ended up in trouble because they over-promised on what they could do with the additional money or were over-extended by the large number of perks to send out?

You know why the movie hasn't come out yet?

One: Movies are hard. Always harder than you expect.

Two: Scope creep. They got a lot more money than they expected, so they decided to do more with it. If they stuck to the original plan and hadn't decided to keep going bigger and bigger, there probably never would've been a problem. Or, if there was, it would've been people wondering why they didn't plow the extra money they got into production, or where the "extra" money went if it was all soaked up by expenses they hadn't anticipated so the backers only got what was promised to be in a $100,000 fan film for $500,000.

Don't go talking sense now. People have already invested in pitchforks.

 

[Amaris]

I haven't seen any hatred at all.

A lot of the "I bet there was never going to be a movie! This was all a con! Has anyone even gotten one of these so-called 'patches?'" nonsense is pretty vindictive. I mean, jeeze, aren't the facts bad enough? We have to go and turn this into a grand criminal conspiracy instead of some people overreaching in response to unexpected success? It happens all the time. How many lottery winners have gone broke because they don't know how to handle all that money dropping on them at once? Hell, how many Kickstarters blew up and ended up in trouble because they over-promised on what they could do with the additional money or were over-extended by the large number of perks to send out?

You know why the movie hasn't come out yet?

One: Movies are hard. Always harder than you expect.

Two: Scope creep. They got a lot more money than they expected, so they decided to do more with it. If they stuck to the original plan and hadn't decided to keep going bigger and bigger, there probably never would've been a problem. Or, if there was, it would've been people wondering why they didn't plow the extra money they got into production, or where the "extra" money went if it was all soaked up by expenses they hadn't anticipated so the backers only got what was promised to be in a $100,000 fan film for $500,000.

Don't go talking sense now. People have already invested in pitchforks.

My pitchforks bring all the Trek to the yard, and Axanar's like "it's better than yours", Axanar's like "it's better than yours".

 

[Woulfe]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

I really had no idea that was him under that Klingon make-up

Granted once he spoke I would of recognized his voice right away, I have a good ear for that sort of thing really.

 

[Amaris]

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

I really had no idea that was him under that Klingon make-up

Granted once he spoke I would of recognized his voice right away, I have a good ear for that sort of thing really.

I didn't know until I read about it, and saw his name with the picture. It still took me a minute.

What I'm trying to say is I'm not good at this.

 

[Woulfe]

I haven't seen any hatred at all.

A lot of the "I bet there was never going to be a movie! This was all a con! Has anyone even gotten one of these so-called 'patches?'" nonsense is pretty vindictive. I mean, jeeze, aren't the facts bad enough? We have to go and turn this into a grand criminal conspiracy instead of some people overreaching in response to unexpected success? It happens all the time. How many lottery winners have gone broke because they don't know how to handle all that money dropping on them at once? Hell, how many Kickstarters blew up and ended up in trouble because they over-promised on what they could do with the additional money or were over-extended by the large number of perks to send out?

You know why the movie hasn't come out yet?

One: Movies are hard. Always harder than you expect.

Two: Scope creep. They got a lot more money than they expected, so they decided to do more with it. If they stuck to the original plan and hadn't decided to keep going bigger and bigger, there probably never would've been a problem. Or, if there was, it would've been people wondering why they didn't plow the extra money they got into production, or where the "extra" money went if it was all soaked up by expenses they hadn't anticipated so the backers only got what was promised to be in a $100,000 fan film for $500,000.

Don't go talking sense now. People have already invested in pitchforks.

Nope, more like ringside seats for the main event.

;-)

 

[nx1701g]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

The one from Battlestar or the one from Survivor that got charged with tax evasion?

 

[Maurice]

And, just as I predicted yesterday, Burnett has deleted all his reactionary, incendiary Tweets from yesterday.

Email those screenshots to CBS legal. I have their email address.

I can't vouch for anything else, but I'll testify in court that Nick. J. Cook is a classy guy.

A class by himself to be sure.

Yep.
I wonder if this could blow up big enough for Kickstarter to rethink some of their own regulations about such projects?

Kickstarter permits campaigns that violate their own stated rules all the time. Someone could make a case that they are deliberately turning a blind eye to the legalities in order to make a profit.

^Donation rewards are allowed.

Marketing and selling unrelated tie-in merchandise is a whole other world of hell no.

A good lawyer could argue that's just a shell-game. It's still "selling" people something, just calling it a "perk". You still shell out money and get something = a sale.

terrible news for trek fans

Nope. Terrible news for a small segment of fans who even know this as-yet non-existent film even was around.

I think I'll make a bunch of red baseball caps that read "Make Star Trek Great Again!" and sell them at Axanar rallies.

You'll need about 2 per rally, that's how big they'll be.

As far as copyright goes, the way I always understood it: Roddenberry never "owned" Star Trek, Desilu did. Then it went to Paramount, who offered to sell it to Roddenberry in the early-70's then to Viacom and CBS.

Mmmmm. I dunno. Roddenberry as show creator certainly had a stake.

This is a real kick in the teeth to fans. I for one was awaiting Axanar with baited breath...

Baited with what, chum? (It s "bated" btw).

The delusional rantings of Axanar fans are ridiculous, but not surprising. For months, Alec Peters has been saying that Axanar is more than just a film, it's a movement. (One of the Axanar podcast episodes is actually titled "Axanar Is A Movement")

It appears instead of Axanar Cofee he's selling Axanar Kool-Aid. Just watch out for the cyanide, kids.

A spade? How handy for digging your own grave!

....guys.....guys plz...... alex petere is trying to bring us new star trek HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE... not like JJ Abrahems films. Alex is trying to bring Star Trek back to us all. We must not hate him for this... try to understand... your hatred is misguised.

This is the transcript of a message from Alec to me moments ago

ALEC:

Robert,

Your post in the Axanar Fan Group was totally unacceptable. Please be careful what you post.

Alec

ME: Its covered by parody laws - Trust me on this... I have a better legal defence then Axanar does right now

You win the internet today!

 

[Woulfe]

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

The one from Battlestar or the one from Survivor that got charged with tax evasion?

The actor...
Less the other one is an actor as well...
That would just confuse things a lot then...

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

Well they have just banned/blocked me after I requested a full and open account of what happened. i made mention, with links, to what Alec had been saying regarding CBS and stating that his rants will not help matters

Terry (from the FB group) said that Alec is the head person and can do what he likes - he is Star Trek and CBS are in the wrong and he will sue them.

#

At least one article claims that not only have papers been served on Alec and the Axanar crew, but that an injunction has been filed also to stop all work

 

[Amaris]

Don't go talking sense now. People have already invested in pitchforks.

Nope, more like ringside seats for the main event.

;-)

This. Most of us were very sympathetic to Axanar's plight, but watching Alec and several others behave as poorly as they have is interesting drama unfolding, and people can't say no to drama.

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Richard Hatch?

The one from Battlestar or the one from Survivor that got charged with tax evasion?

I didn't know there was more than one.

 

[Maurice]

its still happening! yassssssssss

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Didn't he also say "Only Nixen could go to China"?

No, he said "Nixon".

 

[HMS Ark Royal]

This is the transcript of a message from Alec to me moments ago

ALEC:

Robert,

Your post in the Axanar Fan Group was totally unacceptable. Please be careful what you post.

Alec

ME: Its covered by parody laws - Trust me on this... I have a better legal defence then Axanar does right now

You win the internet today!

Thank you

As a wise man once said - Don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Didn't he also say "Only Nixen could go to China"?

No, he said "Nixon".

Sorry - I have trouble spelling words at times

 

[Harvey]

...Two: Scope creep. They got a lot more money than they expected, so they decided to do more with it. If they stuck to the original plan and hadn't decided to keep going bigger and bigger, there probably never would've been a problem....

This.

IIRC, Axanar was originally going to film in Oklahoma, and then later, that was changed to Fort Ti. After they got all that money, they suddenly were going to build sets and set up a studio in California.

As the Mythbusters used to say, "There's yer problem right there."

"Scope creep" has been a problem with AXANAR from the beginning, but they've also been unable to stay even remotely on budget.

With PRELUDE TO AXANAR, Alec originally claimed that the project could be completed for $20,000. When he ended up raising much more than that, the budget was raised to $40,000. Then it was raised to $80,000. Eventually, they managed to spend all of the money raised in that first Kickstarter ($101,000), plus $22,000 more raised through their donor store and other fundraising efforts, and they still came up short -- ultimately charging those overages to their second Kickstarter campaign.

PRELUDE TO AXANAR seems to have gotten a lot of people excited, but one look at the financials for it compared to the promises made on Kickstarter should have raised all kinds of red flags when it came to the feature project.

 

[USS Intrepid]

I can't vouch for anything else, but I'll testify in court that Nick. J. Cook is a classy guy.

A class by himself to be sure.

Yeah okay, this is true.