Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines Announced

[Jev Moldara]

Thing is, Axanar wasn't actually trying to compete with the studios. The idea of it was what caught on and drew such interest. Most fan film makers aren't trying to compete either. They simply have a story to tell and are fueled by love of the franchise.

This is a critical difference between fan films and actual productions. Fan films often have the love behind it, but not the resources to pull it off so well. Studio productions with their corporate mindsets typically have the resources, but as we saw with Voyager and early Enterprise, the love was lacking.

Axanar was the rare jewel that transcended that limitation thanks to crowdfunding.

I think we're going to see more entertainment projects being funded through crowdfunding campaigns in the future, though.

Axanar was crowdfunded.

The Veronica Mars movie was insanely well crowdfunded, raising $5.7 million dollars in a month's time.

Star Citizen (the new MMORPG spaceflight sim) is entirely crowdfunded and has raised a staggering $110 million, making it the most successful crowdfunding campaign.

It would seem that all Paramount is doing (besides protecting IP) is trying to keep the executives in their seats. If the crowdfunding trend keeps going, it could result in a paradigm shift in how movies are made. You'd see studio executives becoming little more than landlords for the projects that want to shoot on their property.

[Darth Justicar]

I am not bothered by totally independent franchises crowdfunding at large levels like that, and I do think all studios and large producers should be on notice where that is concerned.  But I have a hard time seeing it as love to do something outright damaging.

Regardless of Axanar, I do believe Trek is on its last legs as an intellectual property, and has been soundly defeated in the PR and fan relations arena by Star Wars.  But, that doesn't make me any warmer to the chutzpah the Axanar producers showed, to do what they did.

[scifidude79]

The thing is, people bit the hand that fed them, plain and simple.  You had groups making series of episode length films and feature length films that were basically a slap in the face to CBS/Paramount.  "Look, we can make our own Star Trek, we don't need you."  People were also raising tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and, of course, Axanar's over 1 million dollars to produce fan films.  Fan films.  Films that are supposed to be made by fans for fun and for love of the source material.  People who are industry professionals were being brought in and being paid for their services.  One of the longstanding rules of fan films is that they can't make any money.  Period.  However, they bring in all of this fundraising money and pay people to do things for them.  So, people are making money.  Granted, the project itself isn't making money, but someone is.  Plus, you had people "giving away" physical copies of their movies as perks in the fundraisers.  So, basically, people were buying DVDs and Blu-Rays through Kickstarter.  Selling DVDs and Blu-Rays of fan films is illegal.  So, yeah, people bit the hand and they bit it hard.  CBS/Paramount just bit back.

It's really funny how people are getting all mad at CBS/Paramount for this, yet I'd be willing to bet you that if those same people had a copyrighted intellectual property, they'd do anything they could to protect it.  And, realistically, that's what CBS/Paramount is doing protecting their IP.  It could be worse, they could ban fan films altogether.  There are other IP owners who actually do that, by the way.  They will take fan film makers to court.  It hasn't gotten that far with Star Trek yet.  However, if people keep biting the hand, it will.

The thing is, there are a lot of talented and creative people who work on Star Trek fan films.  If these guidelines are really that hard for them to handle, they can switch to doing something else.  Heaven forbid you actually do something original.  If you do, guess what.  It becomes your IP and you can treat it as you like.

[Darth Knox]

Okay, I have no problems with the guidelines, except for the first one:

"The fan production must be less than 15 minutes for a single self-contained story, or no more than 2 segments, episodes or parts, not to exceed 30 minutes total, with no additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes."

i for one do not have a problem with this rule. If someone is that passionate and creative with their ideas that they can make multiple protections telling a story, why not come up with something original rather than using the ST IP? I. This day and age where a major movie was filmed on a iphone and VOD and streaming services are looking for new content all the time, it had never been easier for original content to get out there.

Again, I go back to my own fan film. I have, what I think is an awesome for a film and hopefully i will be able to get made. However, if I had lots more ideas I would either submit spec scripts to Lucasfilm directly and see if I could get officially involved with them or, as Justicar said, if I really was so creative that I had all these ideas, just create my own universe. It worked for Roddenberry. It worked for Lucas. It worked for Tolkien. It worked for CS Lewis. Being inspired for the work of others to write your own fan fiction is one thing, but to do it in such a way that it behind to infringe on the IP is out of order. Copyright laws exist for a reason and it is only because of the gratituousness of companies like Disney and a lucasfilm that fan films are allowed to exist. But of course they have to put limits of what these films can and can't do, especially in this day an age where videos on the Internet can go viral and have 20, 30, 40 million views.

Also, Justicar mentioned something that I may have said myself on another thread. Star Trek as a brand is dying. It hasn't been great or good since the 90s when DS9 ended. It will always have it's fans, but as a franchise it is definitely on it's last legs. To a certain extent that can account for CBS/Paramount's rather strong reaction to Axanar. If we go all the way back to 2008, there was no series or movies. The last couple of movies hadn't been great (even though I don't mind Insurrection. It's fun but not "must see") and the last tv series had ended with a bit of a whimper. No-one apart from really dedicated fans were talking about Star Trek. That's why they decide to reboot it with a new timeline. They felt there was nowhere left to go with the franchise. The 2009 reboot was a good start, but Into Darkness was very decisive amongst fans. The studio didn't do itself any favours either by saying they weren't making that movie for the fans, it was being made for the wider cinema audience. And then came Axanar. I think the amount of money it raised and the anticipation for it proves that Star Trek fans want. A good story and want to be respected. Until the last trailer for Beyond came out I was more psyched to see Axanar than the actual studio movie! And therein lies the rub.

Making movies isn't easy especially using an IP that had millions of generational fans around the world. And you can't keep everybody happy all the time. And yet, I think an examination of why fans were so much more pumped for Axanar rather than Beyond should be conducted. And as I said before, if Axanar is as good as we expect it is, Paramount could work in partnership with those people and even bring them officially on board as part of the Star Trek team on future projects.

Also, I think people are mad at CBS not because of WHAT they were trying to do, but more in HOW they went about doing it.

[Darth Justicar]

I will be honest, I think CBS and Paramount may well regard the Star Trek fanbase as a liability rather than an asset, and when you consider the insular nature of some parts of the fanbase, it's not a stretch to see why.  The three movies were aimed at mass appeal.  The new series, I suspect, will be a final attempt to negotiate, so to speak, with the insular core.  The very manner in which it's being distributed suggests hedging one's bets from a corporate standpoint--they do not trust the Star Trek fanbase to support it.  If that fails they can then point to both the series and the movies and say, "See, guys?  There's not enough left to sustain Star Trek.  We're done."

[scifidude79]

Yes, Paramount more or less ran Star Trek into the ground in the '90s.  Doing 4 series in rapid progression, 2 of which ran at almost the same time, as well as a series of movies really "Trekked" us out.  Unlike some people, I actually like Voyager and Enterprise, but that's just me.  (I know plenty of people who hated Enterprise)  However, that's not to say good Star Trek can't still be made.  James Cawley (Star Trek: New Voyages/Phase II EP/original Kirk), Vic Mignogna (Star Trek Continues EP/Kirk) and Alec Peters (Axanar EP/Garth) are a few people who have proven that they know how to make good Star Trek that fans actually want to see. (there are plenty of others, but those are some of the top names, in my opinion) The problem is, they did it outside the studio, so now CBS/Paramount won't touch them with a 50 meter pole.  There's no way that CBS/Paramount would swallow their pride and come to any of those people with their hat in their hands asking them to fix Star Trek.  (I may be mistaken, but probably not)

Instead, they turned to JJ Abrams, a man who said right off the bat "I've always been more of a Star Wars fan than a Star Trek fan."  That right there tells you how they thought they could "fix" Trek; make it more like Star Wars.  Well, no, that's not it.  It also tells you that nobody left a CBS/Paramount has a freaking clue what made Star Trek great in the first place.  Finally, with Star Trek Beyond, they hired Simon Pegg to write it.  OK, here's a true Sci-Fi nerd and a guy who will care about Star Trek.  Leave him to his own devices and he could probably write an awesome Star Trek film.  However, they immediately tied his hands.  They apparently told him "Less Star Trek and more MCU."  WTH?  So, again make it less like Star Trek and more like a comic book movie?  No, that won't work either.  (I'll still see it, but I have reservations)  So, yeah, CBS/Paramount doesn't know how to fix Star Trek and they won't hire people who do and let them work unencumbered toward that goal.  Without people like Cawley, Mignogna, Peters or even Simon Pegg working without restrictions, they are slowly hammering those nails into the coffin of Star Trek.  The thing that's most irksome is that we the fans can do absolutely nothing about it.  People tried, and now they have a new set of rules to play by.

I've done a lot of Star Trek fan art over the years.  Though, I think I'm about to stop doing fan art.  As much as I love Star Trek, I know when to move on.  If this new set of rules has taught me anything, it's that fan art, fan fiction and fan films maybe aren't the best creative outlet.  Maybe it's time to leave Star Trek alone and do something more original.  Just my opinion, of course.

[Darth Knox]

I am REALLY looking forward to the new series, for no other reason than of the people involved with bringing it to life - Bryan Fuller, who has done some amazing stuff and Nicholas Meyer, responsible for some of the Best Trek films in the franchise.

Voyager had moments and some great episodes, as did Enterprise. But as SFD dude said, we had gotten a bit a Trekked out in the 90s and the franchise hasn't really recovered since.

I do agree with Justicar about how CBS/Paramount views the Trek fans. If the new movie tanks and the new series fails to catch on I think the Trek franchise will be dead and buried for at least 10 years, at which time they will probably attempt another reboot.

I do think the nature of Trek works better as a to series though rather than as a movie.

[Darth Justicar]

I am actually not even sure a reboot would be attempted.  The line of reasoning will be, "It doesn't matter WHAT we do, whether we reboot or whether we try to cater to you--you're just going to spit on us anyway, so why should we take the risk with you?  You don't even WANT to be an open, welcoming fanbase and you resist mass appeal."  (Please note I CANNOT give all of my reasons for this studio perception on the forum so if asked to defend it, yes, my defense will be quite thin.)

Am I saying that's a nice or "right" stance?  No.  I am saying it is good business.  But when you have a niche fanbase that outright resents becoming anything but a niche, and in some cases actively rejects growth, then from a major studio's standpoint that's a problem.  SW and MCU, in contrast, are safe bets because they are meant for a wide audience that is not busy cannibalizing itself and chasing out newcomers with torches and pitchforks.  People that don't get OFFENDED when they see merchandising, or mass appeal.  (Well, sure, sometimes we make fun of the more ridiculous products, but the general concept of mass merchandising is not regarded as a major offense. )

If someday an indie studio somehow acquired the full rights and control through legal means and then ran with it as a niche product, the franchise might stay alive but will never again see the budgets or publicity it had before.  But as long as the old episodes can be rerun to at least a little advertising revenue, and books can still be sold (which are less of a financial risk than a show or movie), I don't know if CBS or Paramount could be talked into divesting. 

In business terms, ST is a weak cash cow bordering on a dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth%E2%80%93share_matrix?wprov=sfsi1

What I therefore expect is for the IP holders to decide to zero-budget ST as far as new development after the failure of the new series (which unfortunately I see as near inevitable *regardless of actual quality*) and ride it off into the sunset.

The reason I am angry at Axanar is for getting SO overly big for their britches that they took actions that were aimed at deliberately carving out their own share of what is left, trying to take it from CBS/Paramount, and hasten this process.

Now don't get me wrong: for all of my criticism of studio AND fanbase, I consider myself a Star Trek fan.  But it was NOT the sole responsibility of CBS/Paramount that I fell to the Dark Side, by a long shot.

[scifidude79]

Star Trek is at home on TV. They were more or less forced down the motion picture route when they tried doing a second TV series and creating a new TV network in the late 70s.  While it hasn't been a bad ride since, one wonders what would have been with a new series instead of TMP.  Star Trek has a deliberately slower and more drawn out style of storytelling that is best suitable for weekly episodes, as opposed to a movie every few years.

I'm also looking forward to the new series more than the movie.   Though, I can't help but think CBS is setting themselves up for failure by releasing it on their streaming service and not a more widely used one, such as Netflix or Amazon Prime.  I think, at this point, they may almost be trying to fail.  I think they literally want to stop doing Trek, but they want it to appear like they tried and failed.  Just my opinion.