December 31 2020
The year is coming to an end tonight and this may be the last year that will go by without Axanar being released.
Axanar has been racked with issues this year, as many of you know 2019 ended with a stack of filming completed and things appeared very rosy for the combination of Paul Jenkins and Alec Peters.
Then COVID-19 came along and slammed the brakes on Axanar and pretty much everything else on the planet but that was only the start of the troubles for Axanar.
Observers started noticing as the early months of the year went on that the likes of Gary Graham were no longer mentioned on Axanar’s shows and they wondered if he was still going to play Soval.
Interlude released its trailer on May 20 2020 with a release date of June 25, technical issues have since pushed it back to early 2021 but it definitely exists and it will definitely be released.
Interlude is billed as an Axanar fan film but it is really a continuation of Prelude to Axanar as the action picks up right where Prelude to Axanar ended and it will explain why Prelude to Axanar hero Admiral Ramirez won’t be appearing in Axanar (Tony Todd left the production years ago and his character is written in as being seriously injured in battle).
Ted Brunetti made an appearance on Axanar Confidential #64 in June, he would become better known a couple of months later.
Geoff Feigen (Director of Photography) was suddenly being praised and talked up a lot on Axanar Confidential and other Axanar videos which got the rumour mill running as people wondered if he had replaced Paul Jenkins.
Ares Studios were selling dog pins in July and it received attention because Ax looked like the dog featured on the logo of the El Paso Chihuahuas as the tweet above shows, the changes included the change from a snarl to a smile, the lettering on the tag, the menacing look around the eyes was removed as was the red outline.
Gary Graham said goodbye to Axanar in late July, he apparently decided to jump ship in late 2019 but had finally gotten around to announcing it months later, his departure did not seem to bother anybody on the production.
It was announced in early August that Paul Jenkins was no longer working on Axanar and there is now a court battle going on over who owns what regarding film shot and written script which could set Axanar’s production back to 0%.
Reshoots were almost immediately talked about as Alec Peters and Jonathan Lane (who recommended reshoots) were not happy with the footage that was shot in 2019, this was despite all the crowing about how good it was at the time.
August also saw Axanar’s YouTube channel being pulled by YouTube though it was restored after a couple of days, some blamed ‘haters’ though it was reportedly spam that had done the channel in.
Ted Brunetti made a second appearance on Axanar Confidential with his appearance being on episode #75 this time as the new director of Axanar.
October brought Robert Meyer Burnett, Christian Gossett and Paul Jenkins together for LORDS of Their Realm which is also known as Battle for Axanar, funding for this started well with over $10,000 in donations before stalling out.
A secret Axanar group was exposed, it was called Trollhunters and some of the posts that were posted publicly were not very nice reading, meanwhile relations with Jonathan Lane improved after the group was exposed with several ‘haters’ retiring the ‘Slow-lane’ nickname leaving Jonathan Lane just Jonathan Lane again.
October 30 came around and so did a new Axanar trailer featuring a lot of material from the defunct motion picture, old cast and crew interviews, footage from Prelude to Axanar and footage shot in 2019 that may be abandoned.
It was announced that the role of Lt. Corax would be recast as apparently the footage of the character was lost due to a camera failure, another reason is that the actress (Carrie Anne Hunt) is associated with Paul Jenkins and she chose to leave the production too.
The pilot of the USS Ares is expected to be the new Lt. Corax and somebody new will be made the pilot.
Anybody can now read a digitized version of the settlement agreement between Alec Peters, Axanar Productions and CBS and Paramount Pictures (now ViacomCBS) after the digital version was put together in November after the settlement became publicly available.
Axanar Productions and Ares Studios showed they can still rake in the money with Axanar raising $30,745 of its $35,000 goal before the fundraising counter broke, they may of passed the goal as there was some adding and subtracting going on over how much they needed.
Ares Studios sells USS Ares schematics and each one hit their target on Kickstarter though some question if it is legal as Alec Peters owns Ares Studios and he is held to the settlement agreement though ViacomCBS don’t seem to be bothered if it is broken or not.
The war of words between Robert Meyer Burnett and Alec Peters has continued on with the subject of a lawsuit again being raised, this has been going on for over a year but no action has been taken in California.
The last month of the year was quiet but that is expected as everybody packs up in December and ready to go again in January.
That’s the year in a nutshell, hopefully nothing was forgotten in this review of all the action.
Until next time, be good to each other.
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