Monday, May 2nd, 2016
So last week, Joe Gerargi who had a Facebook page called "Star Trek Constellation", claimed he was shutting down because of the call Tommy Kraft got from CBS asking him to not proceed with his sequel to Horizon. Immediately the opinion blogger who shall not be named (Let's just call him Voldemort), wrote a long article blaming Axanar. I know that shocks you that a guy with a vendetta against me would find something I had nothing to do with and blame me. But hey, we are all used to it. And someone had to tell me about this blog because I certainly don't read it.
But what Voldemort failed to mention (his M.O., he only used the facts that support his agenda) is that Star Trek Constellation wasn't a fan film. It was a Facebook page with 358 Likes when I found it. A Facebook page started about 16 months earlier, that was full of nothing but Star Trek memes. No website, no proof that any work had been done on it. Oh, there was one or two posts claiming they were working on a script, but that was it. Nothing.
Constellation's first Facebook post
No website at www.startrekconstellation.com
One of the rare posts that was actually about the project.
And so Voldemort, goes on his blog and writes this long article blaming Axanar. Why? Well, first the aforementioned vendetta against me (Rob Burnett swears the guy has a crush on me) and second, he is trying to drive traffic to his website so he can make ad money off of it. So the fact that there is no truth and no journalism, just sensationalism and disinformation is meaningless to Voldemort. He wants eyeballs. What better way than to creates story where non exists?
The fact is his article is a lie. Star Trek: Constellation wasn't a fan film. It was an idea for a fan film. They claim they had a script (which was about Matt Decker and would have been interesting I think). But frankly, those of us who have been doing fan films for a few years have seen this over and over. Someone wants to make a fan film, starts to get their friends together and write something, and then quickly realizes how much work that is, that it costs money, and so they quit. We saw that with Star Trek Begins (about Robert April) and Star Trek Futures (a JJ verse fan film). Both had actually made far more progress than Constellation, and could actually lay claim to being fan films. Star Trek Begins actually shot something while Star Trek Futures had some great concept art, a bible and pre-production work done. Star Trek: Constellation had none of that. And if, after 16 months you have maybe 3 posts on Facebook and nothing to show, yeah, you aren't a fan film, you are an idea, a project.
Now, that is not to minimize anyone's efforts. We want everyone to make Star Trek fan films and no one supports other projects more than us. I think mining the back stories of minor characters in TOS is a great idea! :-) And certainly, if these guys had asked our help we would have loved to help. But to decide not to make your fan film because Tommy Kraft was asked to stop and NO ONE ELSE has been? Well, that is your call. So for Voldemort to blame Axanar is absurd.
And why has no one else gotten a call from CBS despite Tommy claiming that Bill Burke said that "Other productions are receiving calls as well"? Well, since the opinion blogs are too busy bashing Axanar to do any real journalism, we will take a look at that later this week. Alec Peters Executive Producer