PARTLY TRUE Release Date. According to director Robert Meyer Burnett, at least Part 1 of the planned four-part Axanar film would have been released on the actual date of Star Trek’s 50th, on September 8.²⁾ Once it became clear Axanar’s Indiegogo campaign would not raise the additional $1.3 million needed to shoot the entire film at once, Peters decided to split the production into four episodes, with sufficient funding in hand to produce the first two.

MOSTLY FALSE Biggest Story. Peters’ claim that “the biggest story” surrounding the 50th anniversary is the Axanar lawsuit is an opinion not borne out by examination. A search on Google News with the keywords “Star Trek 50th anniversary” and even “Star Trek” fails to reveal a single Axanar-related headline in the first several pages of results. Only one article in the search, a GQ piece on the August 2016 Star Trek Las Vegas 50 convention, mentions Axanar and its lawsuit — buried deep in the article.³⁾

The io9 article Peters did cite to criticize his lawsuit opponents, “CBS and Paramount Royally Screwed Up Star Trek's 50th Anniversary,” failed to mention Axanar at all.

PARTLY TRUE Just Some Fan. Peters’ characterization of himself and his project as “just some fan producing a fan film” is at odds with how he formerly portrayed Axanar until he was sued. Peters explicitly eschewed the term fan film for Axanar, instead describing it as “the groundbreaking … first fully professional, independent Star Trek film.”⁵⁾

TRUE Top Law Firm. Peters did successfully hire a prominent IP firm, Winston & Strawn, to represent Axanar pro bono. Axanar is still liable, however, for fees and costs outside the hourly rates of the lawyers working on its case.

MOSTLY FALSE Crying Uncle. The notion that CBS and Paramount expected Peters to fold immediately after they filed suit in December 2015 is mostly supposition based on some lack of specificity in the original legal complaint, swiftly rectified by the plaintiffs in an amended filing. The fact is that Peters simply cannot know what the plaintiffs might have thought about how he would react to the suit. Peters’ assertion that he unexpectedly rose up to find powerful allies to fight back is simply a narrative used to attract public support.

MOSTLY FALSE Valid copyright. The attempt to question the validity of CBS and Paramount’s copyrights first occurred in Axanar’s failed motions to dismiss the lawsuit against it. The legal strategy here was to find one or both studios lacked standing to bring suit. Judge R. Gary Klausner instead said, “It is undisputed” the studio had standing for its copyright suit.⁷⁾

MOSTLY FALSE True Owners. The notion that CBS and Paramount are merely temporary owners stretches credulity given that their ownership is no less than that of any other intellectual property. Instead, Peters’ claim appeared to be more of an attempt to bolster his supporters’ hopes. Is J.K. Rowling a “temporary owner” of Harry Potter? Is Marvel of Spider-Man? Is Disney of Darth Vader? Yes, all those properties will eventually pass into the public domain, but what truth this idea may claim rests upon a historical perspective of more than one century. The claim offers Peters’ supporters no realistic hope that Axanar could ever be produced.