Executives from CBS have ‘reached out’ to Tommy Kraft, the talented film maker behind the wonderful Star Trek: Horizon, and asked him to not move forward with his plans for a sequel to his fan film.
Encouraged by the response to his first Star Trek effort, which currently has over 964,000 views on YouTube, Tommy had decided to continue the adventures of Captain Harrison Hawke and the crew of the USS Discovery, starting with a Kickstarter that was due to launch today, Saturday the 23rd of April.
The new film was going to be called Star Trek: Federation Rising.
The question on everyone’s lips when the news the sequel to Horizon was not going to happen, was “does the Axanar lawsuit have anything to do with this?”
It appears the answer is yes and that many of our fears for the future of Star Trek fan films are well founded.
“It was conveyed that the reason CBS was reaching out to me was due to the legal troubles stemming from the Axanar case. Again, CBS did not have to reach out personally,” Tommy said in a statement on Horizon’s facebook page. “The message I received felt more like they were giving me a heads up before we got too involved in another project, rather than a group of angry executives swinging a hammer.”
Tommy went to great pains to emphasise how relatively gentle CBS were in their attempts to encourage Tommy to cancel his new fan film project – which is great, because it means there is still some respect between CBS and most of the creatives behind the fan films that have kept Star Trek alive these last few years since the premature cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Instead of fundraising for a new Trek fan film, Tommy is instead focusing his considerable creative talent on raising funds for an independent, original science fiction film.
I encourage you guys to visit his Kickstarter and donate to this new production.
I am deeply disappointed by what has happened, and for the first time I’m feeling genuine anger at the effect Axanar is having on fan films. I seriously wanted to see another movie with Harrison and Co. in it. I loved those characters, and I really enjoyed Horizon as a film. Still, I am very excited at the prospect of this incredibly talented young man creating his own science fiction property.
As we wait on the fate of the Axanar lawsuit, we can only ponder what all of this means for Star Trek: Continues and Star Trek: Renegades.
Let’s hope for the best.
To read more on what’s happened to the Horizon sequel, you can read a great write up over at 1701News.
If you want to learn more about Tommy’s new film, which is called Project Discovery, and if you’d like to donate to the production, visit his Kickstarter here.
I hope Tommy uses the same actors he brought together for Star Trek: Horizon. He assembled a wonderful cast, and it would be fun to see them all together on screen again.
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