Waves on the firmament?
CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar
- Thread starter Richard Baker
- Start date
- Status
Waves on the firmament?
My point was only ever that the policies regarding fan films were detrimental, not that companies like CBS couldn't weather the storm. It's entirely possible for a company that large to make a million dollar mistake and not even feel it.
Yes, it's quite possible that fan loyalty actively undermines fan influence.
The question is whether or not they EVER tried the "diehard formula" in the first place. I doubt the diehard fans were clamoring for that dune buggy sequence in Star Trek Nemesis. Or for Troi to get mind raped a second time. (I didn't want to see that the first time!) Or Picard's younger clone being bald because of REASONS, in spite of the fact that they'd already established he had more hair when he was younger.
Sadly, in the game of capitalism, it's better to be marginally liked by millions than beloved by thousands.
I don't want the franchise broken. I want CBS to be conscious of the effects their actions have on their fans. That may be too much to ask, but that doesn't mean I'll stop sharing my opinions on the matter. If CBS or Paramount don't take my advice to heart, maybe someone else making the next sci-fi series will.
That's what this comes down to. Like it or not. I don't mind what they've done with Star Trek. It ain't perfect, but it never has been. I don't think they'll keep my attention forever, but at the moment, I'm having fun. That's what this is about. At least for me.
Ah, yes, the waves crashing on the firmament.
So, going back a few pages of messages, the comments about how "great" Prelude was ... on the first view, I thought it was pretty good, too. But after watching a couple more times, the only two things it had going for it were the Tony Todd and Richard Hatch, and some really pretty eye-candy. Tony's speech was the best part of the whole thing, and once you analyze it you'll see it wasn't all that great and not original at all. Richard made a credible Klingon, but if you're going to do TOS Trek, why use TNG make-up??? The CGI was stunning but not any better than what other fan-films have done. Also, as I talked about a thousand pages back, I didn't much care for the knife-fight ranges for ship-to-ship combat, and the entire Klingon attacking the colony scene made zero sense from a military point of view.
After watching Prelude four or five times, I began to feel the whole thing was, really, pretty average fair.
Oh, and don't forget, once Tommy Kraft's "Horizons" got more views (And Alec couldn't claim "Prelude to Axanar" was the most watched fanfilm; Alec and his supporters started accusing Mr. Kraft of paying for views/faking clicks because there's no way his film could have really gotten more views than "Prelude to Axanar".
(Oh, and Mr. Kraft did a majority of the live action CGI composite work for "Prelude to Axanar" (for free) and Alec was decrying how it was terrible what Tommy was doing to get views after Alec 'flew him out' to see the premiere of "Prelude to Axanar" at a Convention. After all this, of course Tommy mentioned he wouldn't be doing any work for the Axanar feature if Alec ever got it 'in the can'.)
I've been a fan of Star Trek since 1969 (I was 6) - and if there's ONE THING true about Star Trek fans in general it's that there's no real consensus about what they want beyond: "Good Star Trek"™
If you ask 100 Star Trek fans - "Hey just what is Star Trek", you'll get 110 different answers (and no that's not a typo).
Sorry, but no, the Star Trek franchise if far from dead. There's never been more then 4 years between a TV series (yes I'm including TAS); or Film project. The Berman TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT era lasted 18 years straight; and ended in 2005. that was followed in 2009 by a successful film series (yes, the last one under performed but wasn't an outright flop like the final TNG era entry ST:NEM in 2002) - and now there's yet another TV series (ST: D) and TWO Star Trek feature films in development - one by Quentin Tarantino.
One thing that been consistent across the 50+ years of the Star Trek franchise (and this goes all the way back to when TAS premiered on Saturday mornings in 1973) is that a group of fans who really liked the previous version(s) of Star Trek will proclaim the new version "NOT TREK" and claim it's finally "Killing the franchise" or just plain cry "Star Trek is dead!"
It was the same when TMP first came out (Hey, those aren't Klingons!; "Why do the new Enterprise nacelles look like they came from an old Klingon D7?"; What TWO Turbolifts on the Bridge?!", etc.) and EVERY new incarnation. Once ST: D has had it's run; whenever the NEXT streaming/TV Star Trek project hits, you'll find ST: D now firmly accepted and defended - and the new project will be "NOT TREK!"; "Killing the franchise!", etc.
^^^
THAT'S the only real constant with Star Trek fandom over the past 5+ decades.
It would be nice if someone could define what "real Star Trek" is beyond personal preference.
FIFY: "Sir, it's dead as far as I and the people I think think like me, like what I like, don't like what I don't like."
Die hard fan --> Me <--
I know mannnnnyyyy 'die hard' fans OffLine who, like Me<--die hard fan, enjoy in varying degrees each of the Star Trek movies & now Discovery as they've been presented since 2009. The majority. The overwhelming majority. My observation OnLine is the 'numbers' of people posting comments saying they, as fans, also enjoy in varying degrees each of the Star Trek movies & now Discovery as they've been been presented since 2009 is greater than the number of posters reflecting your taste. Why, or maybe How, would I observe that? What, am I everywhere on the Internet?
Certainly a good question to ask.
When my (<--die hard fan) now favorite Star Trek movie, ST2009, was released I was hammered by (quote)die hard fans(end quote).... online. Repeatedly crushed and beaten down by OnLine people when I even mentioned I 'liked' it. On the other hand my large real time Star Trek community who do 'not' post on line.... to a person really liked -to- loved that movie.
hmmm...
And when Into Darkness arrived it was the same for me -- online dislike -to- hated that movie. My real time community like -to- loved it.
And online it was indicated to me, at me, and around me, by (quote)die hard fans(end quote) that I would have to be a mouth breathing popcorn crunching seat filler who'll just watch anything. A no holds barred insult to me for enjoying something they didn't.
Which, you know, pissed me off on several levels:
-Mouth breather? Disrespecting those who through no fault of their own are intellectually challenged? Or disrespecting those persons with a significant enough breathing problem that they breathe through an open mouth to get enough Oxygen?
-Seat filling? wtf is wrong with that I say. Disrespecting people who actually love MOVIES as such. Love the theater, the big screen. Escapism in the nicest way. During the Great Depression (the 1930s) the poor and poorer would save and scrape the pennies it took to see a movie to give them a couple of hours of wonderful escapism from the despair of their real lives.
-Popcorn crunching? Of Course Popcorn Crunching!
-Are they saying 'I' don't have any taste and/or recognition of Star Trek production values/story/acting/etc. because I like, enjoy, something they don't.
<time travels back to the 60s where I was mocked for liking Star Trek by people who didn't>
So I Went On-line Researching To See Just Why My Real Time Was Different In The Extreme To My OnLine Experience. And I researched the heck out of it. Scouring every site that had a comment section I could find for weeks... counting likes and dislikes. Actually copy/pasting the Like/Dislike quotes to keep track. (If it was the same poster posting a Like/Dislike again it didn't count for my research.)
My observation caused me to conclude the Likes/Dislikes were around 12/1 'like' online too. Quite similar to my Real Time Experience. With the Like people usually posting only once as far as I was able to tell and the Dislike people posting their dislike over and over and over and over and over and over and over (ad nauseam). Giving the illusion the Public At Large couldn't stand the new stuff.
And to a bit lesser degree I continued to research Beyond and now Discovery Real Time & OnLine. My observations are still holding; Likes are way more & and Dislikes are way louder.
So let's return to this:
"Die hard fans are not looking to break or kill the franchise (Sir, it's dead already)."
My observation is that that is inaccurate.
But this would be accurate:
"Sir, it's dead as far as I (<-you) and the people I think think like me, like what I like, don't like what I don't like."
Captains
Series
Movies
Merely a matter of taste couched in opinion that is influenced & shaped by each person's life and experiences.
In fifty years do you have any idea of how many times (and how many prophets have cried) Star Trek is dead? Let's just mention "You can't have Star Trek without Kirk/Spock/Bones!!!!!!!!!" It's dead, Jim. Dead.
Or let's see... "It can't be Star Trek if it's not on a spaceship!!!!!!!!!" It's dead, Jim. Dead. Really dead now!
"A WOMAN CAPTAIN????!!!!!!!!!" It's dead, Jim. Dead. The end. Over.
"A prequel with 'that' ship & 'those' Klingon heads & Temporal Wars???!!!!!!" It's dead, Jim. Deader than a door nail. Dead Dead Dead.
"The Kelvin Timeline????!!!!!" Same song, 62nd verse: It's dead, Jim. It was dead before but now it's sooooo dead.
"Discovery?????" Same ole Star Trek song we've been singing for fifty years; it's dead, Jim. It's dead. Again.
Nope. (says the die hard fan who was watching Star Trek September 8, l966)
Last edited:
#NotMyStarTrek
in regards to TOS, I still say Fry from Futurama hit it on the head...
"79 episodes. About 30 good ones" !
I've been a fan of Star Trek since 1969 (I was 6) - and if there's ONE THING true about Star Trek fans in general it's that there's no real consensus about what they want beyond: "Good Star Trek"™
If you ask 100 Star Trek fans - "Hey just what is Star Trek", you'll get 110 different answers (and no that's not a typo).
Sorry, but no, the Star Trek franchise if far from dead. There's never been more then 4 years between a TV series (yes I'm including TAS); or Film project. The Berman TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT era lasted 18 years straight; and ended in 2005. that was followed in 2009 by a successful film series (yes, the last one under performed but wasn't an outright flop like the final TNG era entry ST:NEM in 2002) - and now there's yet another TV series (ST: D) and TWO Star Trek feature films in development - one by Quentin Tarantino.
One thing that been consistent across the 50+ years of the Star Trek franchise (and this goes all the way back to when TAS premiered on Saturday mornings in 1973) is that a group of fans who really liked the previous version(s) of Star Trek will proclaim the new version "NOT TREK" and claim it's finally "Killing the franchise" or just plain cry "Star Trek is dead!"
It was the same when TMP first came out (Hey, those aren't Klingons!; "Why do the new Enterprise nacelles look like they came from an old Klingon D7?"; What TWO Turbolifts on the Bridge?!", etc.) and EVERY new incarnation. Once ST: D has had it's run; whenever the NEXT streaming/TV Star Trek project hits, you'll find ST: D now firmly accepted and defended - and the new project will be "NOT TREK!"; "Killing the franchise!", etc.
^^^
THAT'S the only real constant with Star Trek fandom over the past 5+ decades.
Man, at the rate we're going, we may reach page 1701 by tomorrow!
If you're going to go with the purest form?
One line: "CHECK THE CIRCUIT!"
Once Jose Tyler opened his mouth, it was all over.
If you're going to go with the purest form?
One line: "CHECK THE CIRCUIT!"
Once Jose Tyler opened his mouth, it was all over.
Just as a sidenote, it’s also worth bearing in mind that when “Star Trek Axanar” was fundraising there was no new official Star Trek on the horizon except for one new movie in the Kelvin series that was years away (Discovery wasn’t announced publicly until November 2015). It had been a decade since Enterprise went off the air and the Kelvin movies were divisive within the fandom to say the least. Diehard fans were thirsting for new Trek. Pretty much any new Trek that looked competent and technologically well-made would generate interest. Crowdfunding in general was a relatively new concept, especially for something like a fan film. It was something of a golden window that would not and could not last, but the big crowdfunding successes like Renegades, STC and the Axanar feature all fell into that window. They were all already seeing diminishing crowdfunding returns by the end of 2015, and when poor STC tried to do their final crowdfunder just after the Axanar lawsuit was filed they (not surprisingly given the climate at that time) really struggled and ultimately needed private support to make their goal. Yes, somewhere between 10K and 15K individuals donated to Axanar over time during that golden window but it is highly unlikely anyone would see those numbers now for a fan film. It wasn’t Axanar per se that this subset of a subset of a niche of fans wanted. Just new familiar Trek that wasn’t a Kelvin movie.
This.
This feels close to the truth. There was a kind of perfect storm for fundraising there -
- No new Trek on the horizon, at least not what the regular folks knew about
- The demographic with the most dissatisfaction with the Kelvin timeline coinciding with the demographic for loving and financially supporting fan films
- Crowdfunding platforms aplenty
- And those platforms paid lip service to not violating IP but they were not checking or caring much about that
- IP holder had been tolerant and hands-off for years
- Decent quality effects were possible on a budget (although not a teeny budget unless you're Tommy Kraft)
- Decent actors were available and willing to work for around what I presume was scale, to be in Trek, even if it wasn't official
And it was already going into diminishing returns. Add in Disco and 2 new Trek films coming up, plus Guidelines, plus the fallout from the Axanar lawsuit, and now you've got a recipe for people being a lot more reticent about donating.
Well that certainly was interesting reading over the last three pages - I gotta not go to sleep.
It's great to see finally, too, that someone has identified the likely cause of Alec's success... right place, right time. I can't fault his ambition - I can fault his attempts at making a profit from Star Trek, his lies about production goals and stages of production. I can fault him for acting like a teenager on social media.
It's great to see finally, too, that someone has identified the likely cause of Alec's success... right place, right time. I can't fault his ambition - I can fault his attempts at making a profit from Star Trek, his lies about production goals and stages of production. I can fault him for acting like a teenager on social media.
Can a firmament wave?
about as much as a can can can would if the can can could.
- Status