Geek, Trek, TV

Star Trek Fan Film Guidelines to end all good Star Trek fan films

I really don’t want to write anymore about Star Trek, but then CBS/Paramount does a stupid thing and I have to.

This week, the owners of Star Trek released fan film guidelines, mostly in response to the lawsuit against the Star Trek Axanar “fan film” (which raised $1 million on Kickstarter). While a reasonable set of guidelines would be something like, oh, “Don’t make any money” or “Don’t sell the film or merchandise related to it”… That is not what the studio did.

The guidelines are the very definition of “draconian.” You can view them here.

In order to do a fan film and not potentially be sued, you cannot use the name “Star Trek” in the title, you cannot fundraise more than $50,000, you cannot use professional actors or production personnel (especially if they have ever worked on any official Star Trek production before), and you cannot make a fan film longer than 30 minutes. Oh, and if you use any Star Trek props and costumes they can’t be hand made – you have to buy licensed ones.

So, basically, people now can’t make Star Trek fan films.

There’s lots of blame to go around for this one. Alec Peters, who took the $1 million from the Axanar Kickstarter to build an actual (for-profit) production studio, is the major A-hole who caused this to happen. But equally dickish is CBS/Paramount, which decided to fight fire with napalm… and destroyed in its wake are fan productions made with genuine love such as my favorite Star Trek Continues.

(Full disclosure: I am friendly with many of the people involved in this production, and so I kind of have a personal axe to grind here.)

The week began with the horrible death of actor Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the nuTrek films, and ended with the release of these horrible guidelines. Not a good week of Trek fans.

Now, obviously CBS/Paramount owns Trek – that is clear. But this is an overreaction at best, and shitting the bed at worse. It’s the 50th Anniversary of the franchise, and THIS is what they do to the fans? The fans who have made you BILLIONS? Really?

Let’s say you didn’t do this. Let’s say you did something crazy, like, Oh, I don’t know… PARTNER with some of these filmmakers? Make a new product line and call it “Star Trek: Elseworlds” and bring in some consultants and talent to help the fan productions look more polished? And then sell the DVDs and blurays and split the profits with the fans?

Oh, wait, that would make sense and get fans excited about Star Trek. Mustn’t do THAT.

So, that’s it. I’m done. No more Star Trek merchandise will be purchased by yours truly, and I will be boycotting all new Star Trek entertainment produced by the studio. Yes, I know, you may be reading this and going, “So? There’s lots more fans out there who will still shell out their money for Trek doodads.” And yes, that is exactly right. But I own what I do, and I have a lot of discretionary income. That money will no longer enter CBS/Paramount’s hands as long as they do crap like this.

And based on some of the reaction on twitter, I’m not the only one who thinks the same.

https://twitter.com/GeekishSwede/status/745988772664311818

 

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