For quite some time now, I’ve been looking forward to a little fan made production called Star Trek: Axanar.
I first stumbled across it about two years ago, and was so impressed with what I read that I donated money to one of its Kickstarter campaigns.
Our first reward, as fans, was the simply outstanding The Four Years War: Prelude to Axanar short film. It served as an introduction to the film (that they were still raising money to make) and it’s characters and was shot in documentary style… and it was amazing! The production values were unexpectedly professional, the performances were exceptional, and the special effects were brilliant. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it right here. As of the 31st of December 2015, the video has had over 1,700,000 views.
It’s taken Axanar Productions (the film company behind Axanar) quite a while to raise the funds to make the film – but they’ve finally done it and have raised over one million dollars. The movie was set to start filming next month… until CBS and Paramount decided to sue Axanar Productions and stop the film from being made.
This is quite unprecedented. CBS and Paramount have a history of tolerating and sometimes out right supporting fan made productions. The creators of Axanar even met with CBS at one point to make sure they weren’t getting themselves into trouble.
No one really knows what has compelled CBS and Paramount to take this step, but some theories include the fact that the fan reaction to Axanar has been far more positive than the fan reaction to Star Trek Beyond, with another theory being that Axanar has taken everything to a brand new level and become so professional that it has CBS worried – particularly with a new professional Star Trek series coming out in a year.
Whatever the reason, Axanar is currently on hold.
TrekMovie and TrekNews have excellent coverage on this issue, though most news outlets – particularly sci fi news outlets – are reporting on it.
To check out the TrekMovie and TrekNews articles, follow the links below.
To learn more about this extraordinary fan production, go to Axanar Production’s official website right here.
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