There is a change happening at Axanar and it is our desire to minimize the use of CBS Intellectual Property. That means from now on we will be calling our film “Axanar” and not “Star Trek: Axanar”.
In deference to CBS, we have removed the Star Trek branding from our website. and our Facebook page. We are also changing all emails to axanarproductions.com from startrekaxanar.com and we will be doing this sort of change throughout our productions digital assets. We think at this point Axanar has its own brand and we don’t need to use the Star Trek name. We are cognizant that we are using CBS’ intellectual property and we wish to minimize the use of that IP in our film and in our overall production.
While CBS doesn’t embrace fan films like Lucasfilm does (Who recently revived their Star Wars Fan Film Festival), they have allowed independent Star Trek to be produced within certain guidelines for years. We try and adhere strictly to those guidelines, specifically not making a profit, not selling merchandise with CBS IP on it (Like “Star Trek” or the Enterprise of the insignia chevron) and only taking donations to fund production.
At this point, Axanar has achieved a certain level of notoriety and we believe we can be self-sustaining with the wonderful donor base we have now. We want to make sure we do everything we can to make Axanar Productions a long term, sustainable venture, and hopefully work more closely with CBS and Paramount.
Our move to eliminate “Star Trek” branding is simply going an extra mile to respect the entity which allows Axanar to be made and honor the Star Trek franchise we all hold so dear.
Sincerely,
Alec Peters
Executive Producer
With or without S*** T***, AXANAR ROCKS!!!
I don’t get it. Nobody else has had a problem….
Star Trek Continues
Star Trek: Phase II
Star Trek: Renegades
Star Trek: Of Gods and Men
Star Trek: Hidden Frontier
Star Trek: Dark Armada
(and so many more!)
Victims of their own success. NONE of those fan projects has reached a similar level of notoriety or production value.
Yea, I agree… visibility and production success aside, I don’t get the need to drop the Trek moniker unless CBS made a direct request (or threat)…
Of God’s and Men is pretty slick in my opinion, if CBS didn’t have an issue with that then why would they bother with Axanar?
Someone from CBS told them to nix the name. You don’t “separate” yourself from the name of your universe without pressure. Anaxar is a story about a time before Kirk’s Enterprise launch. . and tells a story within the Star Trek universe. A stand alone universe, it is not.
That being said I’m still excited and want the producers to do whatever it takes to get their vision and their passion made. :]
CBS did *NOT* contact us regarding the name, or anything else for that matter, Eddie. This was a preemptive decision due to things to come that we haven’t yet made public. Nothing more, nothing less.
I don’t get it, if CBS is worried about making a profit, do something with the IP, dont go after independent films because they are unwilling to develop the IP. I would of thought the Message would of been clear by now to them.
The owner of intellectual property is not required to do what **you** want them to do with it.
Really, they’re not required to do anything with it. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s theirs. It doesn’t automatically open up the playing field for others to use it.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m a backer of this project, and very eager to see it move forward. If the production staff believes that removing the explicit /Star Trek/ branding makes it less likely that someone at CBS will get twitchy and bring down the hammer, I support the decision to remove two words that don’t really mean very much. It’s the story they’re planning on telling that’s compelling to me.
As Spock would say … humans are illogical
And it’s never occurred to CBS why their ratings stink.
Just like Star Trek: Enterprise, at first.
We are just mushrooms. We are kept in the dark and do not see the big picture. We do not need to, we are fans, consumers, and often overly opinionated. I think we should be entertained with the final product, and not toyed with by deceptive politics during production.
I am a ST fan, but have not heard of the other fan films listed above, so this one has broken out and gotten my attention where the others did not. If there are other details yet to be revealed that made them take this action, I say good for you. The prelude really impressed me and I really want to see this project completed. If it leads to more projects that sounds good to me also. Getting upset with CBS over IP rights is not constructive. Even if you win that argument it will still cost you, you always lose something when you fight.
There is another ST franchise that doesn’t want competition, particularly capable competition. The fact is, Axanar is rescuing the other ST from spinning off into disaster. It’s important to do new ST. New is what ST was all about, the exploration of the unknown and infinite possibilities, the questioning of assumptions and reaffirmation of human values even as technology advances. The first two reboots did none of that, because they didn’t understand what ST really was. You can’t just go through the motions and expect fans to stick with you. Doing nothing new with intellectual depth to it will destroy ST.