Topic: Star Trek Axanar  (Read 29406 times)

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Offline FPF-Tobin Dax

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #40 on: May 13, 2015, 07:11:27 am »
8,548 backers pledged $638,471 to help bring this project to life.

That's from their site. I donated a few days after they reached their target in late august, after I got back from my vacation trip.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/194429923/star-trek-axanar

Try this page. Yours doesn't work.
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Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #41 on: May 13, 2015, 02:34:23 pm »
8,548 backers pledged $638,471 to help bring this project to life.

That's from their site. I donated a few days after they reached their target in late august, after I got back from my vacation trip.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/194429923/star-trek-axanar

Try this page. Yours doesn't work.


Yes it does.  Just clicked the link to double check.
http://www.startrekaxanar.com/donate/
Screenshot of above page attached.
Although the page you mentioned does exist as well (it's linked via another submenu), they are still accepting donations via PayPal, BitCoin, and Axanar Interactive.

So if the link isn't working for you, your computer must be broken.  Or the internet from your location...
 :D

Offline TAnimaL

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #42 on: May 13, 2015, 04:45:32 pm »
I wouldn't count "Star Trek: Renegades" down and out yet - their website has a recent trailer posted http://startrekrenegades.com/home/. Their situation is sorta flipped of "Axanar" - they completed their fundraising and principal photography and are now in post. Supposedly they were going to screen it for CBS to see where it goes from here.

With a handy grain of salt or two, it might go nowhere, but given CBS/Paramount's apparent relaxed approach to these productions, I would at least expect to see Renegades show up a la Phase II, OGAM, Farragut, etc. Personally I likke Axanar better, but I feel both shows demonstrate that there's more to mine in the Prime era than just "reboot"ing accomplishes.

Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #43 on: May 14, 2015, 01:56:13 am »
I wouldn't count "Star Trek: Renegades" down and out yet - their website has a recent trailer posted http://startrekrenegades.com/home/. Their situation is sorta flipped of "Axanar" - they completed their fundraising and principal photography and are now in post. Supposedly they were going to screen it for CBS to see where it goes from here.

With a handy grain of salt or two, it might go nowhere, but given CBS/Paramount's apparent relaxed approach to these productions, I would at least expect to see Renegades show up a la Phase II, OGAM, Farragut, etc. Personally I likke Axanar better, but I feel both shows demonstrate that there's more to mine in the Prime era than just "reboot"ing accomplishes.


Well, while I'm not optimistic r.e. CBS picking up the pilot (IMHO they'd have better luck with NCIS - Starfleet), it's good to see they are about done with Renegades at least.  Hopefully we get some sort of release this year out of them.  I suspect that Axanar will be a 2016 thing...

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #44 on: May 17, 2015, 09:17:13 pm »
And trust me, with the star power and buzz that Axanar has been working with, I'm SURE Paramount is well aware of their existence.  Doesn't mean that Paramount won't change their tune at some point, but I'd be interested if they got 'written permission assuming not-for profit/free'' as insurance.


Paramount would have to be blind not to since they showed the prelude at Comic-Con. I'm hoping that they can turn it into a series. They'd only need five seasons (a half season of prelude and epilogue and four seasons of the war) to do it and these days that's not very long to ask for. Anything longer than that would just be bonus.

Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #45 on: May 22, 2015, 12:07:48 pm »
This comment made me sad...

Quote
Last weekend during a Q&A session at Fan Expo Regina, Jonathan Frakes, who played Commander William T. Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, was asked about the possibility of a new Star Trek television series. Frakes responded by saying that he had pitched a concept to CBS, which owns the rights to the franchise and unfortunately, and they don’t seem to have any interest in a new Trek series.

Frakes continued by saying that CBS feels it diluted the Star Trek brand throughout the 1990s and early 2000s combined with the poor box office performance of 2002’s Star Trek: Nemesis.

With the success of Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness, he said CBS wants to keep the property as focused and concentrated as possible.

Sounds about right, although I do think that the right vehicle could do well on TV.  Enough time has passed that a lot fans are looking for something new, and won't take a good Trek series for granted.  Still bummed that they didn't give Enterprise at least one more season - it was just getting interesting, but at that point people were pretty trekked out.

The Stargate franchise did the same thing - i.e kept making spinoffs/episoded longer than they probably should have.  Universe had some potential, but the concept had pretty much played out at that point.  The rights holders are going back to movie land for now, with a fresh take, as they feel that's the best way to get bang for their buck with that franchise going forward.


Also, supposedly Renegades (what they currently have done)  will be shown at FedCon in Germany this Weekend, with several of the cast members in attendance at FedCon.  It'll be interesting to see if they can get enough groundswell to get CBS to agree to at least let a Renegades television series out into the wild (on SyFy or something).  My guess is that CBS will not greenlight it, but we can always hope.

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #46 on: May 23, 2015, 01:20:23 pm »
OK Adam, watch the prelude again and find your happy place!  :P ;)

That is dour news as to CBS's commitment factor, but Frakes went to them with an idea and an open hand based on his relationship to the franchise. These guys can show up with a finished, polished product along with a itemized budget showing how low cost it can be if they want to keep a leash on it. The only thing really standing in the way is creative vision on where they want this to go. If CBS is filled with youngish people that are the type that believe that absolutely nothing good could have possibly been created before they were born, this project has no chance for long legs and we will have to hope that they can release it for free.

I agree that they kind of burned out the series with too much at once, but folks were complaining about the quality of the storytelling in the movies and shows long before Enterprise put the nail in it. That they can't see that it is a problem with what they are doing with the universe and not fatigue of the universe itself that causes veteran fan disenchantment is baffling since there is plenty of desire for Trek still, hence all the fan flicks. Any long running series will have clunker episodes, but when entire series like DS9 and Voyager can't even get rerun airtime while TNG is played over and over to death shows something about the fan base. People seem to hate the idea of those shows enough that they can't even garner rerun ad revenue, yet they complain about no new trek on TV. Studio execs look at performance like that when gauging the viability of future projects.

Offline TAnimaL

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #47 on: May 23, 2015, 04:58:40 pm »
eh, I'm not so sure of your take on this Corbomite. Nothing personal, it just seems a little backwards. CBS isn't run by teenagers, it's just that teenagers are a huge market now. DS9 & Voyager are not really in reruns so there's no ratings numbers to go by (except for their original runs mostly). While Trekkies sure have different opinions, most of the fans I know (as the coordinator for a ST meetup group of 200) don't hate the idea of some Trek, they just prefer another. And Frakes' opinion is based on meeting with the powers-that-be and what their current plans for ST are - to focus on "one" Trek and the movies. It won't matter if Axanar has 13 eps in the can on a shoestring budget; while that might impress some bean-counters, they just won't change their "focus" on movies, at least until they start bombing.

All this is conjecture of course - I only work in local television - but CBS has lots of executives shoring up their present plan. The sad irony is that the "goal" that most incarnations of ST aimed for was "to appeal to outside the fan-base," and when they finally achieved that in JJ-Trek, they turned their back on that fan-base. I'm still grateful that CBS lets these fan films exist and circulate, and who knows, maybe they'll see the light someday. I appreciate that Simon Pegg might have the best of intentions but I have no real hope the "ST Beyond" will be any better than ST-09. (It's got to be better than "Into Drekness," right? Right? )

I was disappointed a couple of years ago when having a conversation with Frakes - he liked JJ Trek 09. It mad me sad.

Offline Tulwar

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #48 on: May 23, 2015, 07:59:08 pm »
It's sad that the CBS executives have any respect for JJ Trek.  Those films were hoaxes.  JJ Abrams sold us a ST "reboot" and we got some kind of sick self parody.  It does not produce a fan base.  It will not produce a revenue stream.  Producing more along these lines will produce diminishing returns, and the executives know it.  They simply think the old farts, like us, are played out.  This means that there will be no new ST, until a highly motivated trekkie with a really good idea shows the right executive a really good time.  After this next idiotic ST movie, there will be no new ST.  There will be no new television production.

The main reason is that the revenue stream will be uncertain.  Television is in crisis, because it is an outdated technology.  It's important, because the corporations that run this country have been depending on it to distract and misinform the American public since the middle of the 20th Century.  Unfortunately quality programing winds up on the internet and is distributed for very little cost or even free.  The audience for this show is even less likely to watch it on commercial television than any other audience.  Science Fiction is expensive to shoot, so distributing premium product without anybody actually paying for it doesn't make sense.

The only way that a studio is sure to make money on this is to tie it into computer games.  Television executives do not know how to do this.  Disney works along these lines, but I don't know if their model would work in this case.  By now, the formula for successful computer games should be well established, but you never can underestimate the idiocy of the people who have real power in this country.

For all the CBS executives, here is how you make money from Star Trek:

Step 1.)  Get a handful of geeks to put together a new, consistent ST universe.  That is, they pick and choose not simply what they think is cool, but what they think fits comfortably together, and pare the story world down to its core elements.  The political back story and technology has to be laid out so that everybody creating content will know what is consistent.  At this point, the pay off is still far away.

Step 2.)  Research successful computer games, and game companies.  Research old ST games.  Prepare to form separate partnerships with several companies making very different games.  Do not put all your eggs in one basket.  Allow the game makers to make suggestions for the story world.  Keep quality at the top of priorities.  On line games should be affordable, and the gamers should understand that the production of the new series is dependent on the success of the games.  That way, people may buy more than the they really use.

Step 3.)  Find good writers, and make them study Stargate SG-1.  The technobabble in this series always made perfect sense, despite involving up to date theories on quantum physics and cosmology.  ST, even at its best only sounded like BS.  Only now, can you be ready for production.

Step 4.)  Only build sets if the price of CG remains high.  GM and Toyota are not going to foot the bill when your audience isn't watching the commercials, so you just won't have the budget of TNG, DS9, Voyager, or Enterprise.  Promote the games as a the revenue stream for the series.

Unless my pronouncement of the death of commercial television is premature, this is the only way I can see a new ST series paying for itself.  It is radically different from anything done with television before, and depends on the success of a number of elements CBS has no control over.  In short, a producing new ST series is just too complicated.  It takes too much imagination, too great an understanding of the audience, and too great an understanding of an unrelated industry.  Studio executives just want to do the same thing they've done for the last 60 or 70 years, even though that business model is dying.
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Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #49 on: May 24, 2015, 09:48:57 am »
Teenagers have been a huge target market since the 1950s and their ever shifting preferences have vexed advertising and entertainment execs since the beginning (except for maybe Don Kirshner).

I didn't mean that CBS is run by teenagers. I meant that many times when these guys look back for ideas to mine for their reboots, remakes, revisions, they only seem to look as far as that it was popular and (ultimately) profitable, but don't seem to want to put in the effort to find out why. The thing about ST is that it appeals to all ages. It appeals to a certain type of person and that person is likely to be like that for most, if not all, of their lives. This is something demographics doesn't seem to take into account. They seem to think we all still go by the '50s notion of rebellious, over-sexed teens listening to noisy rock 'n roll to responsible adults listening to Frank Sinatra to old farts listening to Lawrence Welk. This doesn't work for SciFi fans. Once a SciFi fan, always a SciFi fan, yet they continue to ignore this fact and act like our money is no good, even though we are the most vociferous and well earning group in entertainment fandom and pretty much always have been.

ST has never really performed that well at the box office (until recently). The only reason it was promoted and propped up for the big screen is the success of Star Wars. Its home is the small screen where it has time to explore its universe and itself. It is not for everyone and their attempts to make it so are ridiculous. Why is it that only the publishing and sports industries seem to understand the value of a lifelong fan? Other industries claim to, but with their constant tinkering and reworking and then their ire at poor fan reaction to that tinkering and reworking, it seems like they are out of touch and that loses customers. Look at what's happening to Game of Thrones. As soon as they started deviating greatly from the source material (even though it would have been pretty much impossible to follow the book storyline as it is written), all the cries of anguish began, and the books aren't even done yet so people don't even know what is going to happen with these events. Now, these changes were necessary due to time and the medium they are translating into, but the fans don't care. They still cry out in anguish.

So, when David Gerrold, the person known for writing the best known episode of the original idea you are trying to rework, reboot, revision, tells you that "This is  Star Trek!", and puts his hat in the ring to consult for the project, you, as an entertainment exec, might want to take notice and ask yourself "why?" instead of assuming that there is an app for that and everything will be fine as long as profits are up for that quarter. Axanar is approaching one million views, and that's for a tiny project that really hasn't been promoted outside of the ST/SciFi community. Not taking notice of that is foolish IMO. There is room for both TV and films stories here and the good thing about Axanar is it draws on all the history that they have presented while not stepping on too many toes to do it. It doesn't conflict with any current timeline or project at all and since the reboot is technically a whole new timeline I don't understand their resistance to a well budgeted TV series that lets them expand and keep their base audience. Hell, they could even claim it was part of the new timeline and get away with it. I've shown Axanar to people who don't even like ST and they were just blown away and said they'd watch it just because of Tony Todd's speech.

That's the end of my rant today. I don't know what will happen tomorrow.  :soap:
« Last Edit: May 24, 2015, 09:59:25 am by Corbomite »

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #50 on: May 24, 2015, 02:04:05 pm »
Whose Lawrence Welk?

 :angel: DOB 1985  :laugh:

Someone who was old when I was born nearly twenty years before you. It helps to prove my point though. I once said to a friend of mine that we were going to be the craziest old people when our time came because we weren't going to be sitting around listening to Lawrence Welk like our parents and grandparents. When they had that one off Led Zeppelin reunion concert awhile back and the tickets sold out in like twenty seconds for a band that hadn't been seen since 1979 I felt vindicated.  8)

Yet the entertainment industry still labors under the assumption that you are just about useless after your 40th birthday.

Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #51 on: May 24, 2015, 04:37:26 pm »
Whose Lawrence Welk?

 :angel: DOB 1985  :laugh:


There are still Lawrence Welk reruns in my area.  Just sayin!

He was slightly before my time too, but conservative values folks love their Lawrence Welk - he represents that bygone era that they look back on with rose colored glasses...

BTW, Renegades (the full pilot - with some incomplete placeholders for some CGI shots) aired as scheduled yesterday at FedCon.  Supposedly donors will be getting their copies sent out in the next few weeks, according to some post I read on the TrekBBS.
http://www.scififantasynetwork.com/star-trek-renegades-pre-premiere-at-fedcon-24/

Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #52 on: May 24, 2015, 05:56:40 pm »
Not gonna lie. Not really feeling the Renegades. Esp the Fed/Rebel ships design

I'm more of an Axanar fan myself, but they have some familiar faces in Renegades, and I'd love to see how the concept/pilot plays out.  Even if they go with a Netflix style release, there will be some happy fans if they can find a way forward.

While I totally get that you have a board room of CBS execs pontificating on what they think today's youth want, in my conversations with some of the younger sci fi fans these days, a LOT of them are watching the older stuff, a lot more than people give them credit for.  Plus, you'd think that with The Big Bang Theory being CBS's #1 comedy (I still love the Tiny Spock episode, that was damn funny!) they'd get that there is a fan base for this sort of stuff, even on network TV.  But yeah, Hollywood hasn't been good at connecting the dots, or executes them poorly when they sorta kinda get a clue...

We all should remember that Hollywood is run by corporations, not artists.  And corporate types look at everything from the lens of risk vs. return/maximizing profits.

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #53 on: May 24, 2015, 06:54:46 pm »
We all should remember that Hollywood is run by corporations, not artists.  And corporate types look at everything from the lens of risk vs. return/maximizing profits.

Which is why I hope that this project impresses them enough to start something. These guys making Axanar seem to acutely understand this.

Offline Tulwar

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #54 on: May 24, 2015, 08:47:23 pm »
I'm pretty sure that "fan-made" is the future of ST.  I don't see a revenue stream for television.  The last two movies seemed to be more like nails in a coffin than anything new.
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Offline Sirgod

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #55 on: May 26, 2015, 11:00:29 am »
I'm looking forward to both to be honest. I loved the work the Renegade team done on " Of God's and Men" If I recall the name right.

Axanar is just pure military fun for me.
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Offline EschelonOfJudgemnt

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #56 on: May 26, 2015, 12:30:02 pm »
I'm looking forward to both to be honest. I loved the work the Renegade team done on " Of God's and Men" If I recall the name right.

Axanar is just pure military fun for me.

I like that they aren't mutually exclusive.  Axanar doesn't appear to mess with the TOS timeline, so it should drop in nicely.  Renegades is post-Voyager, so it won't be messing with the 'previously established timeline' either.  So we can have both co-existing peacefully with each other.  Unlike the JJ Trek, which ignores everything and starts it's own lame timeline.

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #57 on: May 26, 2015, 01:00:32 pm »
They both have their positive qualities, but I'd still rather see Axanar simply because we have never seen that era at all. I've had enough of the TNG+ era for awhile.

Offline TAnimaL

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #58 on: May 26, 2015, 03:54:28 pm »
I hate going off thread, but, seriously, the entertainment industry is a mostly a means for advertising, and there's plenty aimed at the above 40 crowd, it's not all about the teenagers. If not dying, television (as we know it) is morphing rapidly into something else, to be determined, but I don't see tying it to a computer game will be a survival tactic for anyone.

The real elephant in the room is that we, as Star Trek fans, are a miniscule audience, and science fiction fans are only slightly larger. "We" did not make Star Wars a hit, or Avengers, or Alien et. al., the general public did. To the suits, Science Fiction is a type or genre, like rom-coms, horror,  action, superheroes and so forth, to make product in. Amen to that Hollywood (entertainment in general) is run by corporations comment, although I'd rather curse the fact, it's not going to change anytime soon.

I loves me the Axanar, and would love to see Renegades just because it's a "realer" Trek, but... They won't become "real." I want them to, you want them to, but it ain't gonna happen. Maybe if enough of "us" cheer it on, make them a success, then maybe, maybe, when ST12 or 13 or 14 tanks, then they'll say, "let's bring it back to TV/streaming/whatevs for the 'old fans.'"

PS, add another fan-film to the list - just heard about this today
http://www.startrekcaptainpike.com/

Offline Corbomite

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Re: Star Trek Axanar
« Reply #59 on: May 27, 2015, 09:21:07 am »
Mars Direct has been pushing a do-able cost effective Mars mission since 1992. It has no more stable funding now than it did then. NASA was pretty hot for it at first, but as soon as certain programs realized it was going to be done without them and that it might affect their funding, the resistance started. The Moon base program has been defunded as well. Besides, what makes you think it would be any different than the Apollo program? "Hey, we made it to the Moon! Well, that was fun, now let's completely forget about it and stay in low orbit for decades."