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By CARLOS PEDRAZA | SEPTEMBER 17, 2019 | 9 MIN. READ
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The situation: Despite his dismantled defamation case, Star Trek Continues star and and anime actor Vic Mignogna is at the center of a growing storm of fan rage as supporters and detractors in the ongoing controversy over his alleged sexual misconduct virulent launch attacks against each other, with accusations of "harassment, misinformation and opportunistic profiteering," according to an analysis by CBR.com.
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1. After Complaints, Atlanta TV Walks Back Axanar Headline as ‘Star Trek film’
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Photo: 11Alive Facebook page
BID FOR LEGITIMACY? Atlanta's WXIA-TV ("11Alive") takes the bait from an Axanar press release to laud the October shoot of fan film Axanar Lite as "an independent Star Trek feature" — a phrase that got producer Alec Peters sued by CBS and Paramount. The WXIA story was illustrated with a photo from an actual Star Trek film.
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Revisionist history. Early Monday, a story on WXIA-TV's "11 Alive" website heralds the coming of a "Star Trek film" to Atlanta in October. By that night, following reader complaints, the headline is about a much more humble "fan-made film."
- "A source confirms": The loftier-sounding original version of the story credits a source confirming "new installments of an independent Star Trek film, Axanar, will go in production in Atlanta."
- ‘Source’ = just a press release. That confidential-sounding source is really just a press release prepared by local public relations consultant Mitch Leff, hired by producer Alec Peters.
- Spam. The information was hardly exclusive to "11Alive," either. It was spammed to all Atlanta-area media using the pitchengine.com service.
- Word for word. Though by-lined with the name Ryan Dennis, the 11Alive report is close to a word-for-word restatement of the release (see for yourself), including its errors and omissions (see "Fact-Checking Axanar Release" below).
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Photo: leffassociates.com
Atlanta PR consultant Mitch Leff appears impressed by Axanar's U.S.S. Ares bridge set.
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Why this matters: Hailing Axanar as "an independent Star Trek feature" is part of what got Alec Peters' first feature film sued in 2015. This latest bid for media legitimacy for the much scaled-down Axanar short films may not be well received by his old nemeses, CBS and Paramount.
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2. Fact-Checking Axanar's Atlanta Press Coverage
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HOW MANY MUDDS? AxaMonitor fact-checks how Atlanta media may perceive what Axanar's PR campaign is telling them.
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Buying the hype? Axanar's self-laudatory press release, widely disseminated by an Atlanta PR consultant, is getting attention from local media, which may not be looking too closely at Axanar's claims.
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"11Alive." This part of the fact check is based on the news story published on WXIA-TV's 11Alive website. Our ratings are based on our scale named after Star Trek rogue Harcourt Fenton Mudd. You can learn more about our rating system.
- Untold story. The 11Alive story proclaims, "For more than 50 years, fans have wondered what really happened, but the story of that battle has never been told. Until now." Our call:
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 TWO MUDDS — Significant omissions or exaggerations ("half true") The 11Alive story fails to mention that it has no corroboration for this claim. The episode, "Whom Gods Destroy," from which Axanar draws inspiration, is from Star Trek's lackluster third season, and isn't even one of its most popular episodes. This claim is fine for self-promotion when the source — Axanar's own press release — is clear, but as an unattributed assertion in a news story it lacks credibility.
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- Prelude is the best. The 11Alive story asserts: "The 2014 Star Trek fan film, Prelude to Axanar, is considered by many the best fan film ever made, winning 46 film festival awards worldwide." Our call:
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TWO MUDDS — Significant omissions or exaggerations ("half true") Prelude is indeed considered a well made fan film but "the best"? It appears on few lists by mainstream media, such as SyFy Wire, or the Wall Street Journal (full disclosure: I've worked on three of those five). Where it does appear on "best of" lists it's rarely at the top. Full narratives, as opposed to Prelude's admittedly innovative mockumentary style, tend to be better received by reviewers. Prelude isn't even the most popular; On YouTube, Star Trek – Horizon has 11.1 million views to Prelude's 4.1 million. So calling Prelude the best — again, from Axanar's own press release rather than attributed to an objective source — is a stretch. Especially because it makes the claim for all fan films, rather than just Star Trek productions. And as for Prelude's awards, we've only documented 45. Sixteen (or 35 percent) came, not from traditional film festivals, but from what are referred in the industry as “award factories.”
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- A million dollars. According to 11Alive's story, "based on the enormous success of Prelude, the team raised more than $1.2 million to make a full length Axanar movie. They released their first scene, The Vulcan Scene, in 2015." Our call:
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TWO MUDDS — Significant omissions or exaggerations ("half true") While it's true that Axanar's crowdfunding campaigns raised $1.2 million for the Axanar feature, almost none of that money was spent on its production. Three quarters was spent building a studio in which not a frame of Axanar was ever shot. The Vulcan Scene, just over two minutes long, was shot in a parking lot. The feature was never — and now never will be — made.
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- 'Too good' not to sue. This is completely an Axanar talking point, rather than anything substantiated by court records — that "[the Vulcan Scene] was so good, it prompted CBS and Paramount to sue to prevent the movie from being made." Our call:
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THREE MUDDS — Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions The claim Axanar was sued solely because of the quality of the Vulcan Scene elides other significant concerns by CBS/Paramount, like the use of their intellectual property to raise money to pay for a commercial studio to be used to generate revenue. While the line between two Mudds and three can be fuzzy, especially since this claim technically correct (based on some verifiable information) it is so taken out of context as to significantly mislead. The judge in the lawsuit ruled Peters had profited from Star Trek's copyright, which justified the lawsuit.
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- CBS settled. The 11Alive story states CBS/Paramount settled 13 months after "Peters retained Winston & Strawn, one of the top IP litigation firms in the U.S." Our call:
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THREE MUDDS — Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions This claim tries to make CBS/Paramount's decision to settle a consequence of 13 months of litigation with Peters' hard-charging law firm. It would be more accurate to state that Axanar settled after a federal judge rejected most of the arguments made by Winston & Strawn, finding instead that (1) Peters had profited from IP he didn't own, (2) he had withheld hundreds of relevant emails from discovery and (3) that Peters had to submit his complete financial records into evidence, not just the partial, less incriminating records Peters wanted. This statement in the 11Alive story was, again, technically and partially correct but only enough to significantly mislead readers about the actual outcome of the year-long lawsuit.
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Short Takes: Successful 'Interlude' and Axanar's '$lipstream'
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'Interlude' reaches crowdfund goal: Axanar's virtually official spokesman, Jonathan Lane, successfully raise the $19,250 he sought via GoFundMe to pay for producing his Axanar-based fan film, Interlude.
- Shoot dates. Full funding means Lane is on track to shoot the short film in November.
- Thousand dollar Thursday. Lane convinced a few big donors to match smaller donations, spurring a giving frenzy that eventually put the project over the top for its goal.
'The Skew.' Flush from his crowdfunding victory, Lane took the anonymous blogger at the Monitoring the Trek Monitors (MTM) blog to task (in a 1,165-word missive) for:
- Skewing coverage of Interlude's GoFundMe in favor of the points of view of those whom Lane likes calling "detractors."
- Minimizing Lane's fundraising acumen by attributing Interlude's successful effort largely to official endorsement by Alec Peters (a multiply successful phenomenon MTM calls "the slipstream").
- MTM defended his coverage in a much more succinct post, criticizing Lane for his selective outrage.
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#copyrightinfringement — Apple selling pirated music? Are iTunes and two prominent music distribution companies illegally selling songs without a proper license? That's the contention in a copyright lawsuit filed last week. AppleInsider.com fills you in.
#NewTechOldStyleUnionBusting — Kickstarter, without which Axanar would likely have never raised $1.2 million for its never-made feature film, is the first major tech firm facing a major union organizing effort. It's response, however, sounds straight out of the 19th century. The company, officially a public benefit corporation, has fired two union organizers. Polygon tells the tale.
#streamingwars — Apple TV+, officially introduced last week, could zoom past other streaming rivals to the No. 2 position, just behind Netflix, because of a stealthy move by the computer and iPhone maker. Learn how from Forbes. Meanwhile, U.K. news site Metro warns Netflix to watch its back or it may get swallowed by Disney+
#ToxicMasculinity — in space? In its review of Brad Pitt's, Ad Astra, the British news site, The Guardian says the new scifi film falls back on stereotypes of heroic men and emotional women in space. The Guardian does give a nod to Star Trek as a "more enlightened strain of space film," however. #Team Burnham!
#AndFinally — Disney's Bedtime Hotline, a way for kids to get good night messages from various Disney characters, has just added Disney-owned Jedi master Yoda to the service. io9 finds it creepy.
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Find Us on Super Geeks
Join AxaMonitor editor Carlos Pedraza every week on the Super Geeks live podcast in the Real Super Geeks Facebook group every Friday at 10 p.m. PDT/1 a.m. EDT. Super Geeks is hosted by George Silsby.
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