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Paramount and CBS File Lawsuit Against Crowdfunded, Indie Star Trek Movie (hollywoodreporter.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Back in August, an Indiegogo campaign raised $566,023 to produce Axanar, a Star Trek movie in development by an independent group of fans, who also happen to be film professionals. Now, unfortunately but predictably, Paramount and CBS have filed a lawsuit in California federal court claiming their intellectual property is being infringed upon. They are "demanding an injunction as well as damages for direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement." The guy running the crowdfunded film is a lawyer, and he said, "We've certainly been prepared for this and we certainly will defend this lawsuit. There are a lot of issues surrounding a fan film. These fan films have been around for 30 years, and others have raised a lot of money." He said CBS/Paramount weren't willing to provide guidelines on what types of fan productions would be tolerated (unlike Lucasfilm with Star Wars), because they worry about setting precedent.
Only if you think Star Wars, Doctor Who, Farscape and Firefly are obscure.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Whoosh, I guess. I did get all his references and turned them back to things in the Star Trek canon.
In case anyone doesn't know the Farscape, "obscure" and "I have no idea what you're talking about" references...
In the 200th episode of Stargate SG-1, Vala (played by Claudia Black, who also played Aeryn Sun in Farscape) keeps coming up with story lines obviously ripped-off from other TV shows. Martin Lloyd says, "Here's some advice: if you're gonna rip something off, pick something a bit more obscure." Vala then imagines/describes a scene with SG-1 characters as Farscape characters:
After the cutaway, Martin Lloyd says, "I have no idea what you're talking about." Vala, clenches her fist and says, "Yes!"
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
If materials science advanced to the point where a starship could get close to the speed of light without the crew becoming a sticky goo on the side of the corridors, remain in geostationary orbit, remain pressurized at one atmosphere even when orbiting a large star, I'd be rather worried if it couldn't handle the pressure increase going deep into the ocean.
Professor Farnsworth explained it best:
Leela: Depth at 45 hundred feet, 48 hundred, 50 hundred! 5000 feet!
Farnsworth: Dear Lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure.
Fry: How many atmospheres can this ship withstand?
Farnsworth: Well it's a spaceship, so I'd say anywhere between zero and one.
That defense works if they're making something like Galaxy Quest.
If they are calling the film Star Trek, though, they've already shot down the defense that it's not Star Trek.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com