CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

[Trekkin]

Didn't he comment on Facebook when Peter's had a little rant about taking Mignogna to court? It was something like "Is that also going to be funded by donar money?"

Everyone said then that sort of behavior could bring about the sort of attention that fan films really need.

EDIT: Found some of what I was talking about:

I'm so touched that Alec is making sure to include so much footage from PRELUDE to AXANAR in his ongoing trek for more donor money.

It is a shame the vast majority of the crew of Prelude have all left the production.

I have an honest question Alec: I assume you'll be using personal funds for this lawsuit and not donor money, right?

DOUBLE EDIT: Ninja'd by Jake.

 

[BigJake]

I wouldn't be surprised. He made a fair number of arch comments to that effect.

 

[Smoked Salmon]

^ Came up a few months back, yes. Christian Gossett departed Axanar and grew openly hostile to Peters, like so (just a f'rinstance).

That's very interesting. It's dated July 2015 and refers to a law suit. I've said all along because of my knowledge of litigation practice that it was highly unlikely that the studio just rushed to court without prior warnings. This, together with the studio's August 2015 statement, suggests it was highly likely that there were prior warnings via correspondence. The fact that Peters has seemingly carried on regardless speaks volumes.

 

[Smoked Salmon]

dp

 

[Ion]

Ion: Oh, I don't think he's a grifter at all, and I think he completely believes his own press. I'd go so far as to say I think he even had some of the necessary chops to get there; Prelude wasn't peanuts, and it did a lot for his credibility.

But there comes a point where whatever else is going on just drags him under. Christian Gossett's transition to hostility was a major sign that in retrospect I was reluctant to fully heed; if I'd known about Tony Todd jumping ship back when it happened I'd likewise have been far less optimistic about Axanar surviving, and it's very telling that he lied about it. (In his mind I'll bet it probably even wasn't lying at first, it was just a short-term problem he was going to fix. It just crept into deception amid false self-certainty, day by day.)

Agree on most points; still on the fence about whether or not he's doing it deliberately, but leaning toward not.

I was on the fence about his honesty -- no evidence either way -- until the bit about Todd broke. I'm actually surprised that Hertzler, Graham, and Vernon are still around; given that they're all industry pros, some or possibly all of whom have worked together before, it would not have surprised me if they followed him out the door. Hatch, ironically, doesn't surprise me at all; he's always struck me as the "freedom fighter" type, especially after his long (and ultimately unsuccessful) campaign in the BSG realm years ago.

That the Big Three stay just confuses me even more though. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Ares Studios...

We should also consider the possibility that he hit the ceiling of his capability as a producer and didn't want to admit it, though, which would be understandable. I like Prelude a lot, but organizing a relatively small green screen talky shoot and farming out the FX to Tobias strikes me as vastly simpler than wrangling the whole deal for a real feature film with sets and props and locations.

Then again, I'm not in the industry so what do I know?

Ultimately, it's the post-lawsuit stuff that annoys me. If he'd turtled down and said, "okay, we're going to respect CBS and the donors and stop until we get this sorted out", I'd have a helluva lot more respect for him than I do for the strategy he's adopted.

Only legit thing I can think of is that maybe he's now trying to race against the injunction, though I can't see how that would work; it's going to take a lot longer than a few weeks just to get everyone and everything in the same place to shoot it, let alone to get it through post, I would think.

 

[BigJake]

^ Came up a few months back, yes. Christian Gossett departed Axanar and grew openly hostile to Peters, like so (just a f'rinstance).

That's very interesting. It's dated July 2015 and refers to a law suit. I've said all along because of my knowledge of litigation practice that it was highly unlikely that the studio just rushed to court without prior warnings. This, together with the studio's August 2015 statement, suggests it was highly likely that there were prior warnings via correspondence. The fact that Peters has seemingly carried on regardless speaks volumes.

The lawsuit referenced was Peters supposedly suing Vic Mignogna for defamation*, which apparently went nowhere. It was all quite weird.

(* Note however, than one of the things that bolstered Peters' credibility at that time is that there was obviously someone in the industry conducting what at the time was a largely baseless whisper campaign against Axanar. There was a subReddit devoted to this whose author basically admitted to the shenanigans -- the original accusation is here, though rather interestingly it's now more difficult to find the retraction -- which was part of why I was skeptical of Gossett at the time.)

 

[Smoked Salmon]

Thank you very much for your comments. I think when you try and achieve in life, there are always detractors who hate that you are making them look bad because they do nothing. I also have a large share of haters because I don't tolerate fools and am VERY vocal in calling out stupidity. I would challenge anyone to show PROOF of shady behavior (because they can't).
And the fact that we are the ONLY Star Trek fan film to ever publish financials, and both Kickstarter and Indiegogo said we were the most transparent and accountable productions they had, well, I can simply point to what we do for proof. (Plus I publish a DAILY blog on what we are doing, no one does that).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BxNlBSCQbrC3cERiZk5yTldlOFU/view
So THANK YOU!!
Alec Peters Executive Producer

Wow, the guy is in love with himself.

One wonders why, at 55 years of age, he's still striving for success.

 

[BigJake]

^ Frankly, one of the other things that bolstered Peters for quite a long time was that many of the people trying to accuse him of "shady practices" looked to be flailing to make something stick in the absence of evidence. For the most part that's actually still true; basically the sole smoking gun of him actually lying to anyone is the Tony Todd thing.

Which, the lesson there is (as I tried and failed to convince one of Peters' detractors of, once upon a time): do not attempt to accuse someone of fraud if you can't prove it. Even if they are guilty, each false or unprovable accusation hurts your credibility in the public eye more than theirs.

 

[Smoked Salmon]

^ Frankly, one of the other things that bolstered Peters for quite a long time was that many of the people trying to accuse him of "shady practices" looked to be flailing to make something stick in the absence of evidence. For the most part that's actually still true; basically the sole smoking gun of him actually lying to anyone is the Tony Todd thing.

Which, the lesson there is (as I tried and failed to convince one of Peters' detractors of, once upon a time): do not attempt to accuse someone of fraud if you can't prove it. Even if they are guilty, each false or unprovable accusation hurts your credibility in the public eye more than theirs.

Stating that he's infringed copyright, has made personal money from the project and has engaged in third party business deals is all provable fact.

 

[JoeZhang]

^ Frankly, one of the other things that bolstered Peters for quite a long time was that many of the people trying to accuse him of "shady practices" looked to be flailing to make something stick in the absence of evidence. For the most part that's actually still true; basically the sole smoking gun of him actually lying to anyone is the Tony Todd thing.

Which, the lesson there is (as I tried and failed to convince one of Peters' detractors of, once upon a time): do not attempt to accuse someone of fraud if you can't prove it. Even if they are guilty, each false or unprovable accusation hurts your credibility in the public eye more than theirs.

Oh I don't know (slightly smugly I'd add) shouting down anyone who questions if there is an IP violation and the lawyers might be interested is a credibility killer too...


(Edit: I saw your post in the literature forum so I'm done with this topic now)

 

[BigJake]

Salmon: The first was obvious in its being a fan project and primarily to be dealt with by CBS [as they have now done, but their doing so wasn't an obviously foregone conclusion and is potentially applicable to any fanfilm], the second isn't provably "shady" in itself if you accept the premise of Axanar being nonprofit, the third is only indictable in very specific circumstances.

That's what I mean by "flailing." Peters thrived on a lot of reckless and sometimes desperate overreach by his opponents.

 

[BigJake]

(Edit: I saw your post in the literature forum so I'm done with this topic now)

Mulligan duly granted.

(I won't even mock you for trying to describe a single post as "shouting down," rather weaksauce as that is, except I just did, but now I'm done. )

 

[Ion]

Was just thinking about this in light of the Big Three (Hertzler, Graham, and Vernon) staying with Axanar, and came up with a nice little conspiracy theory (which I freely admit is something I dreamed up and there is no evidence whatsoever for):

It caught a lot of people by surprise that Axanar is suddenly re-casting. What if the Big Three did bow out, and nobody has said anything? After all, if they need a younger Garth, don't they also need a younger everyone else? It would certainly explain the re-casting!

Of course, that could also be due to Todd alone leaving, and there's someone (can't remember who) who said from apparent personal knowledge that this was planned months ago, so this is probably tinfoil hat territory

And when I start dreaming up conspiracy theories, it's time to go to bed. 'night folks.

 

[Smoked Salmon]

Was just thinking about this in light of the Big Three (Hertzler, Graham, and Vernon) staying with Axanar, and came up with a nice little conspiracy theory (which I freely admit is something I dreamed up and there is no evidence whatsoever for):

It caught a lot of people by surprise that Axanar is suddenly re-casting. What if the Big Three did bow out, and nobody has said anything? After all, if they need a younger Garth, don't they also need a younger everyone else? It would certainly explain the re-casting!

Of course, that could also be due to Todd alone leaving, and there's someone (can't remember who) who said from apparent personal knowledge that this was planned months ago, so this is probably tinfoil hat territory

And when I start dreaming up conspiracy theories, it's time to go to bed. 'night folks.

I think they need a younger Garth because Peters is 20 years older than Steve Ihnat was in 1969.

 

[Maurice]

I think they need a younger Garth because Peters is 20 years older than Steve Ihnat was in 1969.

And can't act, apparently.

 

[SPCTRE]

oh snap

 

[KennyB]

Was just thinking about this in light of the Big Three (Hertzler, Graham, and Vernon) staying with Axanar, and came up with a nice little conspiracy theory (which I freely admit is something I dreamed up and there is no evidence whatsoever for):

It caught a lot of people by surprise that Axanar is suddenly re-casting. What if the Big Three did bow out, and nobody has said anything? After all, if they need a younger Garth, don't they also need a younger everyone else? It would certainly explain the re-casting!

Of course, that could also be due to Todd alone leaving, and there's someone (can't remember who) who said from apparent personal knowledge that this was planned months ago, so this is probably tinfoil hat territory

And when I start dreaming up conspiracy theories, it's time to go to bed. 'night folks.

Well Vulcans and Klingons age better....... But if you need to recast one human because of age wouldn't you recast all? Does smack of "spin".

 

[Karzak]

Has Kate Vernon confirmed she's staying on? I haven't seen anything about that yet, (but also admit I haven't gone looking for anything either)...

 

[lurok]

From Casting Axanar on the Axanar site:

First, no one is signed to star in Axanar yet. Deal memos will be going out this month as we move towards a February shoot. Richard Hatch of course is committed to the project and very excited. Gary Graham is in, as well (and already starred in the Vulcan scene). JG Hertzler, always a huge fan of Axanar, says he can’t wait, and has been talking about how he plans to make Sam Travis look younger (since Axanar takes place about fifteen years prior to Prelude to Axanar). Kate Vernon is also coming back.

 

[KennyB]

Memos? That sounds far from being "locked in" with them filming next month.