“What is your opinion on how CBS treats Star Trek fans who do/want to do fan films, Poor, Bad, Good?”
That’s the question that was asked in AxaMonitor’s FB group yesterday and it has received a lot of responses as you’ll see if you click on the link.
Fan Productions have gotten used to the limitations placed on them when the guidelines were established after there was a lot of concern that it would totally kill off the fan productions.
A few fan productions have been told by CBS to make changes to their productions and they’ve made the changes and both parties happily went on their separate ways.
Fan productions are alive and well, It has largely gone back to the days of amateurs getting to tell their own stories with very little budget but they are getting out there and having a shot, having a great time, learning something new.
There are still some professionals out there and some productions who are breaking guidelines by making a whole series of fan films with the same ship and cast but CBS doesn’t seem to be bothered by it and pretty much every week you will see a new production floating around so it isn’t killed off.
Some fans do wish for the return of the days that saw Renegades, Continues, New Voyages, Farragut etc make full length episodes that were stacked with professionals and had big budgets but it really was getting out of control and that’s why the guidelines were made.
Fan Productions went from being pure homages to straddling the line between homage and being labelled Independent productions and that would concern any good business on the planet.
A lot has been said that Axanar was ‘too good’ but that doesn’t mean CBS was saying it was superior but that it went beyond what was a homage to Star Trek and into the territory of using the IP (Intellectual Property) that CBS had which was Star Trek.
Going around proclaiming that you’re making an Independent Star Trek film is a very bad idea especially if you’re not CBS or Paramount and you don’t have the approval to make it.
Some say Axanar and Discovery were on the same piece of turf and it was confusing people, maybe they were but one was official (Discovery) and one was supposed to be a fan production and not a Independent Star Trek film that it was billing itself as and that was going to confuse people especially if new networks picked up on Axanar and spread the story around.
No matter what it is, you cannot make your own version of somebody’s Intellectual Property especially when using your production to make your own film or television studio which requires people to donate their money for you to do your work because you’re making money from using an IP that doesn’t belong to you.
Axanar is still alive, it is not the feature length movie they had hoped for but it is still being made within the guidelines when it comes to length, they didn’t win the right to make it, they were given the right to make it
Despite the popularity of Prelude to Axanar, the coffers haven’t been flooding with cash for Axanar and multiple reasons can be behind it.
Perhaps Discovery and Picard have satisfied the thirst of enough fans just like when fan productions satisfied the thirst of fans when apart from the movies there was no Star Trek on TV for a decade and something had to fill the void and it was filled.
Until next time, be good to each other.
Mentioning Trekkie Mentions 