Star Trek

[Buster's Uncle]

The Crossing Trailer 02 14 15

I'm mostly only intrigued because this is Farragut, the Tressarian Intersection crowd, and that was so well-done.  We'll see if this matches up...

[Valka]

I find the Anaxar thread at TrekBBS maddening.  It's about two months beyond the moderators doing their jobs.  It's OT, it's hateful - and they were talking, just yesterday after a few pages of OT about TWOK/STID, about complaints that it was hateful and not getting it.  What it is not, is a useful source of information about the lawsuit which is the only reason I look in once a week and read a day's worth at the end.

I happen to think the general drift of the hating is correct - Anaxar/Peters took a LOT of money from a LOT of people, financial irregularities are what they are, and there was a (good, especially if you like war stories and shipporn posing as Star Trek; it WAS about building new warships from one end to the other) mockumentary and three whole minutes of footage shot otherwise -nothing else after so long- when somebody at Paramount got fed up and sent in the lawyers.  It's all apparently true, including the endless talk about what a jerk Alex Peters has been online - and incredibly boring to read 14 pages a day about from people -few of whom seem to have donated- who seem to take it all personally.  The mods ought to forbid the eternal harsh flaming of a banned member who isn't allowed to defend himself, and enforce some topic discipline - or close the darn thing.  I just want developments in the lawsuit and whether they're dumb enough to do any shooting towards actually making the movie.

It's not internet nerdz at their worst -which is on YouTube- and at least most of it's spelled right, but aspies don't know when to quit, and it needs to be stepped on in January.  Gets right up my nose, it does.

(I'm working up to talking about Anaxar -the project and the lawsuit and the issue involved, not the stupid thread- but I've got a lot of wading to do in that stupid thread first.)

Trying to follow the internal politics and bickering in the Axanar thread is like trying to follow the internal politics and bickering at CFC in the NES/IOT squabble or some of the stuff that went on among the Civ III modders years ago. When forum moderators are personally involved (GSchnitzer is part of the New Voyages/Phase II production team and he's the one who moderates the Fan Film subforum at TrekBBS), it can lead to very biased moderating - especially when there's hundreds of thousands of RL dollars involved. He's doing a tap dance around trying to protect his own company's interests while trying to avoid egregiously insulting the others, and trying to keep things within TrekBBS rules. The problem is that the moderating at TrekBBS is openly biased and there appear to be few limits on what the moderators themselves are allowed to do or say.

That's one reason why my ignore list there has several dozen people on it. I can't depend on the moderators to be neutral when enforcing rules on trolling and flaming. Half the staff would be on that list if it were allowed.

At least the CFC issues don't involve (as far as I know) real money. But the infighting is wearying, and I honestly think that a completely impartial person (ie. not involved in any fan film production) should be appointed at TrekBBS, at least as a co-moderator. There are times when GSchnitzer is far too close to things, especially when it comes to the ill-will between some of the people involved in New Voyages/Phase II and Star Trek Continues.

As for flaming banned members who can't defend themselves... are you a registered member there? If so, check out the Neutral Zone (opt-in group). You'll need a strong stomach, though. Anything goes there except racial/ethnic slurs and egregious sexism (though that's happened enough as well). T'Bonz, one of the admins, isn't averse to being one of the most despicable, obnoxious persons around. Two posts after making a pious speech about how she "hates cyberbullying," she turns around and flames other members, me among them - calls me one of the words that is prohibited on any decent forum (but not there). At least in the Neutral Zone people are allowed to call out the staff, so I did (not nicely, but at least my words weren't gutter-language). I consider her a disgraceful example of how an admin should behave. She's had moderators quit on her because they can't stand her, and she does little to rein in the arrogant, incompetent ones.


I've no idea who among the TrekBBS members contributed financially to Axanar. I just know that I'm not one of them. I never particularly cared if it ever got made (it's a sure thing by now that it won't). If it had, I'd have watched it. I just hope this doesn't spill over to the other fan films that actually did play by the rules.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm not a member there, but I actually have been following the NES/IOT squabble since late last year, actively looking around NES researching to get a sense of what happened - (and concluded I didn't want to offer sanctuary after the Frontier exodus went boobs-up, 'cause those cats fight and they'd find my moderation more oppressive than CFC's; I've no more interest in watching people fight than I want to spend a lot of time actually pulling out the hammer).


T'Bonz is the one who started a thread last year -or the year before- to say there was too much fighting among fan productions, it was going to stop, and requiring various parties to acknowledge.

-I SO don't care to see strangers fight, but she totally stepped on me getting details of Vic Mignogna allegedly stealing a set, and stuff like that.  -And yet THIS (boring, tedious, obsessively-hating, hopelessly burying the newsworthy part) excrement is allowed.

[Buster's Uncle]

I see that Continues, my favorite real ST fan production has started their final fundraiser with an Indigogo campaign.  The clock tells me I'm not getting to the Anaxar remarks tonight, but I will say that Kickstarters, etc., are going to eventually be the end of the quality productions.  It's just too much money involved to get away with forever, barring members of each production group straight-up going out of their own pockets and happening to be rich.  I can think of no other way both legal and moral, not that public fundraisers using corporate IP ever were for anyone to begin with.

Continues is looking to do another handful of episodes, approximately, and might be able to wrap up in time to avoid the end of this era, but I betcha it does happen in the next few years.  Mark my words.

[Valka]

I'm not a member there, but I actually have been following the NES/IOT squabble since late last year, actively looking around NES researching to get a sense of what happened - (and concluded I didn't want to offer sanctuary after the Frontier exodus went boobs-up, 'cause those cats fight and they'd find my moderation more oppressive than CFC's; I've no more interest in watching people fight than I want to spend a lot of time actually pulling out the hammer).

Not everyone involved in NES/IOT is a difficult person. I can think of at least one who would be an asset to any storytelling activities here. But yeah, some are really cantankerous people who likely wouldn't take to how things are run here.

T'Bonz is the one who started a thread last year -or the year before- to say there was too much fighting among fan productions, it was going to stop, and requiring various parties to acknowledge.

T'Bonz is a hypocrite. Yes, she's done some things right, and trying to bring some order to the Axanar thread chaos is a good thing - if it's done consistently and neutrally, and not in a way that means she's openly flaming any TrekBBS member.

But she's done a lot of things wrong. Non-registered/logged-in people don't see that. She swears at people in the feedback forum there if they ask a question that annoys her. I simply cannot respect her or anyone like her.

-I SO don't care to see strangers fight, but she totally stepped on me getting details of Vic Mignogna allegedly stealing a set, and stuff like that.  -And yet THIS (boring, tedious, obsessively-hating, hopelessly burying the newsworthy part) excrement is allowed.
 

From whom did he allegedly steal a set?

There does come a time when a person has to decide if the behind the scenes stuff is going to prevent one from enjoying the actual end result. I had an argument awhile back with someone in A&E over Marion Zimmer Bradley and what her second husband did, and because of that he didn't want to see me praising her for her writing or editing or encouraging new writers. I had to decide if her alleged misdeeds would cancel out decades of enjoyment of her writing, and I concluded that no, they wouldn't.

Ditto Star Trek Continues. Unless Mignogna turns out to have committed violent crimes or anything else illegal that's provable beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law, I'm going to continue to enjoy the fan films.

[vonbach]

I haven't watched Star Trek in such a long time.

[Buster's Uncle]

I see no danger of anyone trying to straighten out that thread, Val.

Vic/Continues went in with --- Farragut or some relatively obscure production like that but not Farragut together on building a set with the idea of sharing, and made off with the set abruptly, the story goes.  He had an -eventful- history with PII/NV -that much seems uncontested- with the Klingon episode Kimabta that he directed not coming out for four years after it was finished over some murky dispute - and was somehow involved with Mind Sifter, although I'm unclear if that was anything to do with why half of it had to be shot twice.  Patty Wright, God bless 'er, has a big mouth, if only they'd let her.  I wasn't interested in the stuff that some members went into hater territory and tried to claim he does underage fans at cons and junk like that, but the big deals about what went into the sausage, I'd like to have seen an attempt at a dispassionate accounting of bare fact, not that anyone at TBBS seems to be capable of dispassionate.

I couldn't explain why I want the fanfilm gossip, though.  I just like Continues.  You're right that the fact that James Tiptree Jr. died in the latter half of a murder/suicide has nothing to do with Crown of Stars being very, VERY good.


That NESer wouldn't be Thlayli, would it?  I like the cut of his jib.

[Valka]

I see no danger of anyone trying to straighten out that thread, Val.

Vic/Continues went in with --- Farragut or some relatively obscure production like that but not Farragut together on building a set with the idea of sharing, and made off with the set abruptly, the story goes.  He had an -eventful- history with PII/NV -that much seems uncontested- with the Klingon episode Kimabta that he directed not coming out for four years after it was finished over some murky dispute - and was somehow involved with Mind Sifter, although I'm unclear if that was anything to do with why half of it had to be shot twice.  Patty Wright, God bless 'er, has a big mouth, if only they'd let her.  I wasn't interested in the stuff that some members went into hater territory and tried to claim he does underage fans at cons and junk like that, but the big deals about what went into the sausage, I'd like to have seen an attempt at a dispassionate accounting of bare fact, not that anyone at TBBS seems to be capable of dispassionate.

I couldn't explain why I want the fanfilm gossip, though.  I just like Continues.  You're right that the fact that James Tiptree Jr. died in the latter half of a murder/suicide has nothing to do with Crown of Stars being very, VERY good.


That NESer wouldn't be Thlayli, would it?  I like the cut of his jib.

I heard some stuff about Farragut and that two or three productions were sharing the same sets or production space, or somesuch. But I honestly don't care much about that; it's interesting from a gossip point of view, but unless I were to consider putting money into one of them or knew some of the people involved, it's not something I've got the mental energy to worry about.

I think it's "Kitumba" you're referring to. I honestly don't know why people think that episode is so wonderful; I actually found it rather silly. It was the first Phase II/NV episode I ever watched and my first impression was "All the male characters need a haircut, and why does Captain Kirk look like Elvis Presley?"

I've since come to enjoy James Cawley's performances as Kirk and I wish he'd go back to it, because that new guy is just awful.

Patty Wright and I had a PM exchange over there, and she demanded to know exactly who I was in connection with Valjiir. I explained that I was just a fan who'd followed the series since the print 'zine days 30 years ago and had been fortunate enough to make contact a few years ago on the forum there. Neither of us was impressed with the costuming in "Mind-Sifter"; some of it is just completely inappropriate.

She's certainly not shy about telling her side of what's what. Her version of Mind-Sifter is on fanfiction.net, and of course there's more Chekov in it than what was ever in the pro anthology or in the fan film.

I'll address the NES issue elsewhere, since it's off-topic in this thread.

[Buster's Uncle]

My first impression of Phase II was "Call Janet Marcus.  It's a boy!"

I did mean Kitumba, and didn't like it.  That's a polite way of say I hated everything about it except Michelle Sprecht's chest.

[Buster's Uncle]

I went back to the TBBS Fan Production board to see if the Farragut episode trailered above was out yet - it was supposed to release yesterday, but no joy.

Meanwhile, T'Bonz has posted in the Anaxar thread to flame Tobias Richter for protesting the ugliness that is that thread - these people got absolutely zero class.

[Buster's Uncle]

...And only emotionally-stunted innernets nerdz would bother to go around saying "I stand with CBS."  Intercourse CBS - there might have been a movie eventually, it might not have sucked, and I'm a Star Trek fan who wants to watch some Star Trek.  It's not sane to go to a lot of trouble to side against another fan who might have come trough eventually - the mockumentary was impressively accomplished.  They done lost sight of everything, getting caught up in being obsessive haterz...

[Buster's Uncle]

So all that said, about the Anaxar lawsuit:

It's about fan ethics in fanfic.  When we produce derivative works, we're playing in someone else's sandbox, and have to stop if they notice and say to stop.  It's really that simple, legally and ethically, and the rest is just details.  We don't bother asking permission, but we have to be aware that it's someone else's universe and we have practically no rights on the face of it.

I'm an Alpha Centauri/Alien Crossfire modder, Firaxis explicitly encouraged modding the game in many of the .txt files, and if current rights holder Electronic Arts decided to kick AC2's guts out, objecting to all the mods and modding this forum hosts (I had some minor IP/media law training for my Broadcasting degree) in my opinion, the case would be a loser because of the encouragement (constituting open-ended permission) on the part of Firaxis - if only we could afford lawyers, which we can't.  EA would be jerks to go there, but we'd have to take a LOT of content -pretty much our main draw to newbs- down.  -And consider giving up or changing our focus entirely.

Anaxar has no such coverage...

A thing we would NOT do, by the way, is throw any other forums under the bus.  I wish the Anaxar people would cut that crap right the heck out.

As I mentioned weeks and weeks ago, I think their public strategy -unless they are just as evil and crazed as the TBBS haterz assume- is to try to stir up and leverage negative fan reaction.  This is Star Trek, fer chissakes; we've got a history, with that stuff.  They certainly don't have a legal leg to stand on.

To be continued...

[Buster's Uncle]

So what I think happened to the Anaxar movie project before the lawyers were sent in is most likely as simple as some geeks wanted to make a Star Trek fanfilm and other fans unexpectedly drove a truckload of money up to their house.  A truckload of money in the driveway, as Krusty the Klown would tell you, makes you do things.  It all blew up out of control.

Sure, a lot of those Anaxar guys were on the periphery of real showbiz, or thought they were, and hoped the fanfilm would serve as their calling card to Bigger Things - and nothing wrong with that, except when the truckload of money pulled up, their ambition outran their good sense, and they got caught up in Big Plans and a little distracted from actually making the movie.  I'm very down on them at that last; it is not proven that it was ever intended as a scam, and it's not cool to just assume it was.  Peters is arguably a crap businessman with a history of ambition outrunning practical execution, and people who gave him money weren't being wise.  -And failing to actually make the movie -which they definitely seemed to be not getting around to when the lawsuit was filed --- well, a difference that makes no difference IS no difference.

As best as I can guess, the lawsuit is about (the Bad Robot clique at Paramount, who want no version of Trek to exist but the JarJar version, despite CBS being the owner and main party to the suit) the sheer amount of money raised, that pesky business of the Anaxar people trying to build a professional studio with said money and -this is probably not trivial, 'cause JarJar was always in it for the merchandising- the 'perks' branded with Trek IP for 'donations' (sold).

Going back to the first full paragraph of the last post, you gotta keep money out of it to have any hope of being left alone publically playing in a sandbox you do not own.  This is Star Trek, and like a lot of fandom things we pioneered, we got a history with that, too.  People were putting together Star Trek fanzines way back in the early 70s, and mimeographing the crude things wasn't free, and the paper wasn't free, and the fan publishers charged for the zines to make their expenses back.

And they were doing nothing but getting away with it - it wasn't actually okay, but pretty much nobody ever got caught.  The innerwebs are a lovely thing -fandom no longer runs on SASEs- but suits and lawyers can use Google, too.

And not only do you have to keep money out of it to be safe at all, you have to not undermine commercial exploitations of the IP on the part of the owner.  If I was rich enough and had magic fabrication skills and made a REALLY good phaser prop -and enjoyed it so much I made a million and gave them away- you can bet that I would get a lawyer letter from CBS and whomever holds the license for phaser toys, for interring with their trade.

In other words, if EA got into creating and selling SMACX mod DLC in a big way, this forum would be in a LOT of trouble real soon....

[Buster's Uncle]

...So, I just hoped the movie would be as good as the fake documentary Prelude to Anaxar (for all that that was about a starship arms race, and little else) and would have liked for it to have been made, and to see it.  Sadness about THAT is the appropriate reaction - and fear for the future of ST fanfilms.  Making films is a little too directly in competition with what the IP owner does for a living in the first place.  As I mentioned yesterday, I think the big public fundraisers are going to ruin it for everyone eventually, probably sooner than later...

[Buster's Uncle]

No reaction?

I thought the line about Krusty the Klown was HI-larious...