LET’S START with the pleasant updates, shall we? I finally had a chance to see Star Trek Beyond and enjoyed it immensely. Okay, maybe I didn’t quite like it as much as these folks did, but I see where they’re coming from. It was delightful Star Trek, balancing plenty of action with some Trek-style thematic underpinnings and full of references to the overall franchise (including surprising –yet not unwelcome– love for Enterprise, the last series).

It finished 15th overall in the 2016 domestic box office and made $343 million worldwide, but in today’s rarefied standards, that is evidently a flop. I kind of understand. Given that most modern blockbusters spend the same amount of prints and advertising (P&A) as they do on the production budget –reportedly $185 million in this case– Star Trek Beyond therefore cost $370 million to get from idea to local cinema. But just like Waterworld and many other films that fall short of the mark in theaters, the question is how soon the film is profitable, not if. Still, Paramount executives are probably bummed they can’t start their own space program based off the profits of this film alone — like Disney is currently able to do with Rogue One. In fact, Disney has made so much money on its collective movies alone for the past few years, I wouldn’t be surprised if they suddenly announced they had built a heretofore secret moon base and were currently colonizing the outer solar system. But I digress…

As with so many modern feature films, I feel there were perhaps 20 minutes of enriching backstory in Star Trek Beyond that was cut from the film that would have helped it immeasurably. If this had been a modern TV series, with naught but 10-13 episodes in its exquisitely produced season, I think we would have been all agog. Every character’s storyline could have expanded to satisfying arcs and Krall’s origin could have been a fantastic reveal in the penultimate episode.

Spaceflights of fancy such as these are what makes me all the more excited for the new Star Trek TV series due in May of this year. While it’s apparently experienced some turmoil as original showrunner Byran Fuller is stepping aside and executives discovered that (gasp) sci-fi/fantasy can cost some serious ducats, there’s plenty of tidbits that indicate this could be the kind of serialized, ensemble show both modern audiences –and Deep Space Nine fans– will love. And who doesn’t love the idea of Michelle Yeoh as a Starfleet captain? Make it so.

Ah, but we can’t stay in this pleasant nexus of Star Trek thoughts, can we?

Firmly in the column of unpleasant news, is the Axanar lawsuit, which has moved from the “tediously-long-story-told-by-coworker” stage to the full-blown “insane-drunken-uncle-at-holiday-gathering” stage. AxaMonitor has recently released a synopsis of the legal battle in comic book form in case you want to get caught up.

The short version of it all is that the drunken uncle still refuses to admit he’s not entitled to use other people’s property — even when they tell him not to use their property in the form of a lawsuit in federal court.

Even shorter: the case isn’t settled.

It isn’t settled, despite some embarrassing facts coming to light this past Fall. Remember the pre-trial discovery phase? Well, various people have now been deposed including the original Prelude to Axanar director, Christian Gossett, and Axanar producer Alec Peters. There were already questions about Axanar’s finances and what it was being spent on, but now from the depositions, it appears Mr. Peters spent money raised through crowdfunding on all sorts of personal expenses for himself and friends including:

• Restaurant bills
• Phone bills
• Gas, insurance, and maintenance of his car

Oh, and that whole question of using the funds to lease and renovate a building for use as a commercial studio space? That was confirmed in the depositions as well. And lest one forget what a deposition is: this is evidence. Legal evidence. Testimony given under oath. Testimony given under oath, in part, by Alec Peters.

Axanar’s reaction? We shouldn’t have seen the unpleasant things in the depositions, therefore, there’s no problem. But, should you want to comb through these pesky legal documents, the pie-loving CBS/Paramount vs. Axanar Facebook page has ’em. If there’s a particular tidbit you’re looking for, just ask on the forum.

In addition to all the official documents of the case, we have all the social media and PR pronouncements from the Axanar team, most memorably from Alec Peters (and frankly, many of those are now evidence in the case). These pronouncements have… changed somewhat over the past year of the lawsuit. And of course there’s never an official retraction to these statements. All of Alec Peters and Axanar’s assertions are apparently still valid.

So, if you are to take Alec Peters at his word, working on Axanar has been:

1. A full-time job which is just a hobby, for which he
2. required a completely reasonable salary which is not a salary because he paid it back
3. to produce a professional feature film that is simultaneously a fan film
4. to be shot in a studio which is a commercial studio except when it’s not and is just a warehouse
5. and they were all ready to begin shooting in the beginning of 2016 yet the studio/warehouse still isn’t ready for shooting in 2017
6. and they have been working meticulously to get every detail adhere exactly to Star Trek canon because they’re doing this for the true Star Trek fans,
7. but this is in no way a Star Trek film

Got it?

For “Whom Gods Destroy,” indeed.

Oh, and just like the asylum denizens in that episode, Axanar still has its supporters. More on them and their cognitive dissonance below.

First, let’s talk about what should be top on the mind of anyone who liked Prelude to Axanar and supported any of the crowdfunding campaigns: the Axanar feature film.

The Axanar crew was given $1.4 million to make this fan film. I’ve done multiple crowdfunding campaigns for films and supported colleagues’ crowdfunding campaigns for films and web series and so on — all of them for less than one tenth of the money Axanar received. Not a single one escaped setbacks or unexpected cost overruns, but they were made.

And this is such the important point. Even with the ridiculous game-playing by the Axanar team, I know many, many people would forgive all the ridiculousness and all the delays if there was a Star Trek: Axanar feature to show for it.

Instead, Alec Peters says that the money was spent “as promised.”