I think the smartest thing for anyone to do in the current climate is to just wait until you have a completely finished work and then drop it on line in its entirety - no matter what happens, its immortalized on the internet, and its too late to get a C&D. If these guys were truly that far into their production, this may be the best way of handling it. IMO. it is what STC is doing as well.
The problem they have is even if they get away with releasing the film they only raised enough money through crowdfunding to make act one of three (the first 30 minutes of a 90 minute feature). If they do release something then fund restrictions alone mean that they have to tell the whole story in under 30 minutes. The other option is for them to release part one and then leave the story unfinished. At this point I have given up on this film being released, however I do think that if they can not finish the film they need to be honest about that with the backers. Ongoing silence is not acceptable.
Did they actually shoot all of their actors' footage and it's only a question of finishing the fx and post-production, or they only shot enough for the few clips they've already released (man, I still can't get over Ray Wise's over-enthusiastic gushing for this production)
I have no idea.......they promised to release a new scene back in December I believe and then went completely dark. No answers on their Facebook page to repeated questions. Ray Wise and Eric Roberts both had me hoping this would be a legitimate thing..........It showed promise.
There's a couple of YouTube videos with what looks like finished footage, so it appears they at least got as far as completed/partially completed shooting, some FX completed, some editing and music...
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/star-trek-captain-pike#/ They are also still selling perks on their website for some reason. http://www.startrekcaptainpike.com/donate-2/
It says: Shipping of this perk package will not occur until the feature film has been completed and released in early 2016.
That is NOT going to happen. van Citters made that clear when he said he wasn't going to sit there and approve films.