Star Trek: Axanar

After the last JJVerse....I really do get that the fans are pretty sick of constant wars and such. This really is a cool story line, set at a critically formative time for the Federation. The acting is top shelf, the Fx are top shelf... the script is really pretty good!

Changing gears just a bit... I would love to see a Fan Series pick up and run with Pure Exploration. Sure, there would be the occasional misunderstanding to deal with on first contacts... That said, I would love for each new star system to be explored account for more than one episode! It would be pretty cool to get to really get a feel for each "survey", and how it unfolds etc... By the way, you do know that Garth of Izar was one of the most highly regarded explorers in all of starfleet right?

Peace

 

Yeah...I miss those times too.

 

I've been active in Trek fandom since 1973. "Those times" didn't exist.

 

Birds of a feather flock together. Clearly your non-internet friends are a nice bunch of people.

 

So far as I am concerned, we are all friends and enjoying Star Trek together.

That does not, however preclude one from offering useful, constrtuctive criticism of these projects, either from the unwashed masses or those more involved in professional industry.

And even if we are to make the claim that there should be less criticisms, we could equally say that there should be more effort put into acknowledging that not all critical comments are meant to attack or demoralize or denigrate but rather to call attention to the things that could be improved the next time around and that the people making these projects could perhaps show a little more consideration of that, rather than just grouping ALL the criticisms (whether outright hostile attacks or genuine, intelligent commentary) into one big group of "attacks" against them.

There is room for this differentiation. It is possible to offer commentary that is constructive and critical at the same time and still have it come from a place of genuine common interest.

This fine line however seems to be frequently glossed over, ignored, and manipulated by many in the fan film world. It's tiresome. In this very thread we've seen it at play and it's ridiculous.

We're all adults and should be able to discuss these things rationally.

 

D05,

I understood what you were getting at. Personally I don't mind a good fight for the most part. I will say, if Axanar was Only about the fight... I would be less excited.

I would love for them to do another episode with Garth as the explorer. For me, trek was more about "what's going to be new this week"? I will say though, the fact this deals with the critical issues facing the federation due to this Klingon aggression, and how they deal with it makes for an interesting story.

 

I don't mind space battles.

And this...

... is a story that is begging for a few. And it's one I'd like to see.

 

Kelso,

Perhaps Phase II would be the folks to get in touch with. That would be a pretty slick ep. arc. James and crew do pretty good work!

 

If you're only desirous of gushy positive comments, too bad.

 

Maurice and doubleohfive are consistently constructive with their criticism, and I know from personal experience over many years that it is offered in good spirit (even if we don't always agree). While I realise misunderstandings and bruised feelings are a frequent result of online communications, I would suggest that folks take a step back and consider that constructive critique is not a personal attack.

We all know there are legions of mindless bashers prowling the net and taking potshots at the work of fanfilm producers. We'll never get away from that. Hell, some people just don't like fanfilms. Fine, that's a matter of taste. But let's not dismiss the people who do actually have something constructive to say just because we've been burned by others.

Also, for what it's worth, I think Axanar's going to be excellent. But that's just my opinion.

 

There are a couple of people on this and on other boards that just seem to critize all the time without producing something by themselves. They claim they do "constructive criticism" - what ever that may be. I can very well imagine that things like Maurices commentary
"Slickly produced. 'Fraid it doesn't interest me at all, however. I'm bored with space wars and space battles and scenes of starships that lumber around at subsonic speeds at point blank range like 15th century galleons. It's not exciting. YMMV." or " I'm done with the space battles"
is not really helping a lot. It does not read as constructive, rather as a prejudgement because it does not line up with the personal interest of the poster.

I don´t know what is Axanar going to be like, but from what I´ve seen in the trailer, they know pretty well what they are doing and I hope they won´t do just space battles for the sake of space battles. But to pre-judge a production to me is not the way to go.

 

I've worked on a number of these productions, and know quite a few of the people involved. I've seen enough of what's going on with Axanar to know I'll enjoy it, regardless of what others may think.

I also happen to know both posters well enough (Maurice while blunt is never anything but honest and well-meaning) to know that your characterisation of them is mistaken, though I'll grant they aren't always entirely diplomatic. To be fair though, it's very, very easy to misread tone on the internet.

The comment you mention was clearly a statement of personal opinion and couched as such. I don't see any issue with someone saying 'looks good but not my cup of tea', which essentially what Maurice said.

 

I'm fine with a "space battle themed" Axanar. Alec is a big fan of some of the older WWII films regarding the war in the Pacific (at least I think so,) and David Gerrold has indicated that he likes the script, so I think we are going to see a lot more than just space battles.

Star Trek has seen so many space battles, the trick in scripting the battle is to do something we haven't seen before, and I'm very curious to see what Axanar will come up with. We know from Alec's comments that the shuttles will be heaving involved, but that's about all we know.

Personally I love the science aspect of science fiction, so I'd love to see a space battle filmed realistically. I have no idea how ships that are capable of traveling at hundreds of times the speed of light would actually engage in a battle, but it is interesting to speculate. My guess is that the ships would never see each other or be anywhere near each other at any point in the battle, and I guess that makes for boring entertainment, or possibly fascinating drama.

 

I apologize if I came across to harsh, but irony translating from german to english sometimes fails...

I value Maurices opinion a lot, but if he says he doesn´t want to see more space battles, then my advice stands, as there will be a lot of that in Axanar and he might not have a good time watching it.

It´s rather easy to critic projects afterwards, but it is impossible to change those projects for the people who work on it, which makes it an extremely frustrating experience. I am not against critic - I would just advise everyone who really has something to offer to offer that advice to the fan productions that are out there doing their projects right now and actually have some influence when it is still possible. If it is done in time, critic - such as some remarks about the city shots we had in the trailer - is taken seriously and we´re trying to improve those shots within the given timeframe.

Of course there will also be a great story with great characters in Axanar - and I hope it will come across that this drama is the source for the space battles. I myself also don´t like battles without a reason or without some character conflict as it´s ground. Star Trek 2 is still my most loved trek film, also because of the drama between Kirk and Khan and the resulting space battles.

That sort of battle will also be one of the visual sources for some of the battles we will see in Axanar. I sort of like the idea of galleons in space - I suppose Gene did the same when he was thinking about "Hornblower in space".

Of course, from a scientific standpoints it´s pretty much nonsense. Like Duane said, it would be most likely that the ships don´t see each other, firing invisible shots, having no or very unimpressive explosions, having no sound. It might be very boring and not very exciting. It would be for a very interesting experiment to make a movie like that. Unfortunately, it is not Star Trek, so we´re going with the more established way of doing our space battles.

I hope you will all enjoy our mocumentary "Prelude to Axanar", which should be out in a couple of weeks - and will hopefully help us on the way to our main feature.

 

I think Top shelf must mean something else where you come from.

 

If you don't know what constitutes "construtive criticism" how can you possibly know to be opposed to it?

Too, it's a logical fallacy that just because someone hasn't actually produced a fan film, they can therefore not at all possibly be in a position to offer an informed opinion on the way it's made. This retort is trotted out any time someone doesn't like what they're getting in terms of feedback. Alec is a big fan of relying on it as a defense too, and it made it impossible to actually have any kind of critical debate or discussion with him.

Maurice is a successful filmmaker in his own right. I've worked in television for the last 8 years, largely in the writer's rooms of hour-long dramas produced by ABC Studios. We two have professional experience in the industry and deal with the making of films and TV every day. I fail to see how that somehow omits any possibility that we might actually know what we're talking about.

Would my opinion be different if I'd made my own fan film? Probably. But the truth is, I have no interest in making a fan film. As a fan and as a professional, I do like to offer my opinion, informed by the benefit of my experience in a field that not too many seem to have actually taken in these circles. And while I might be blunt about it sometimes or may not present my opinions in the most approachable way possible at times, it does come informed not only by my own professional consideration but also my own personal opinions and experience, making it uniquely my take on whatever project I'm commenting on. The fact that I've not chosen to make a fan film does not invalidate anything I have to say; to adhere to such a philosophy is entirely closed-minded.

My personal opinion is that Axanar has big shoes to fill. It also has going against it because (for me, based on previous experience interacting with him) I don't particularly have the highest opinion of David Gerrold or his opinion on what constitutes good writing, so the only way for me to actually know if the film or the script is any good would be to read it myself or see the film when it's done.

Too, Alec, during his time here was completely and consistently unable to handle anything other than absolute praise for what he was doing, and that's naturally off-putting. There is a whole wide range of useful, constructive reaction that can be offered up for discussion in these film reviews, and like USS Intrepid stated above, those opinions should not get thrown out just because of the usual deluge of the haters and mindless trolling comments.

I continue to be very interested in seeing how the project turns out and as with every film I watch, I approach it with as much of a detached and unbiased opinion as I can when I start to watch. All I've seen so far is tons of clips of space battles and a trailer with several professional actors and Alec. I am eagerly waiting to see how (and if) it all comes together.

 

This

A lot of us that argue here have met in person at on point or another and have gotten along just fine. We are a bunch of strong minded motivated people and thus ego's will clash at times.

 

I think there's a disconnect here that's partially caused by the subject of the movie.

Because Axanar is about a space battle, and this thread's about that movie, it's relatively easy to take the statement that a particular person doesn't want to see space battles as meaning they don't want to see Axanar.

It's a valid criticism of fan films, as space battles are too easy to use as a substitute for real drama; but in context I can see how some might have interpreted it as an attack.

 

Thought this very thing.
Tobias I loved each beautiful shot but I am curious as to why the decision was made to downsize the gigantic JJ era ships to TOS sizes.

 

been active since 1975 myself, and I agree "those times" NEVER existed, and Star trek fans have been nitpicking everything to death, arguing about GR's 'true Star Trek vision' was (and as someone who did once pay his $15.00 entrance fee (at CSUN in 1982 when he came by with the Star Trek Blooper reels on 16mm film); I'd say it was "To make as much money as he can AFTER selling the Star Trek IP and licensing to Paramount"...

But, yeah, basically my take on Star Trek fandom from day one has been:

Ask 100 fans what 'True Star Trek' is, and you'll get 110 different answers.