CBS & Paramount have every right to protect its ownership of the Star Trek intellectual property. WHat this article so conveniently ignores is that the basis of the lawsuit: multiple copyright infringements committed by the Axanar production and their shameless attempt to merchandise (every which way they could) the film as well. Model starship kits, pewter toy ships, calendars, posters, T-shirts, patches, Soundtrack CDs, Blu-Rays, "Ultimate" Blu-Rays, Coffee (yes, coffee!) books, and more.
This article also conveniently omits any mention of Peters' plan to use the money he raised via crowd sourcing on Kickstarter and IndieGoGo using the STAR TREK name and recognition to fund his own would-be for-profit movie studio…. all before even shooting a single frame of footage for the actual Axanar film.
Now, $1.1 million dollars later, what do the donors have? A twenty-minute sizzle reel that really amounts to a bunch of talking head interviews with some fancy visual effects shots and a poorly written, poorly shot three minute scene on Vulcan. What do Peters and Co. have? A warehouse in Valencia that has taken over a year to retrofit into "Ares Studios" … complete with brand new carpet.
Central to Peters's failure here is how he spent his money while bloating and vituperating about how his vanity project was going to be the "first professional independent" STar Trek film, only to backpedal to calling it a fan film once the lawsuit was filed. As any working professional in Hollywood knows, you don't spend your money and waste your time remodeling your production office. You go in, you rehearse, and you shoot your film and then you GTFO.
Peters, being entirely inexperienced in the world of professional filmmaking but somewhat involved with other fan films wouldn't know any better. Robert Meyer Burnett, whose career to date includes the wonderful "Free Enterprise" and a shitload of special features on home video and some editing work, probably should have known better.
Even more entertaining than any single bit of Axanar that did get filmed was his and Burnett's reactions on social media at the beginning of the year (up to and including throwing every single other fan film to the wolves in their defense) as the reality of the lawsuit finally sank in. These two are overwrought, over reactionary man-children, angry because mean old CBS/Paramount has come to take their toys away.
Whether CBS/Paramound are trying to make an example of Axanar and Peters or whether it's solely Axanar they are "concerned about" -- the truth of the matter is Alec Peters brought this whole mess upon himself. Even if it wasn't outright greed and hubris that did him in, even if it wasn't that he is simply an inexperienced amateur attempting to be a movie producer, his own bad attitude toward anyone criticizing or not drinking his Axanar Kool-Aid and praising his oh so noble efforts have finally begat his downfall.
Axanar is dunzo. The film itself will never be completed and Peters will be lucky to get out of this, even if he winds up penniless because of it.
It's the closest thing to banging my head on the desk that I could find.
