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By CARLOS PEDRAZA | FEBRUARY 16, 2019 | 5 MIN READ
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The situation: CBS All Access has met its 4 million subscriber goal two years early, CBS stockholders are told. Star Trek: Discovery gets a lot of the credit, putting the lie to YouTube conspiracists who claim the show's a failure. |
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1. Ares Studio Patreon a Bait-and-Switch?
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Image/Axanar YouTube channel
Axanar producer Alec Peters on the set of the Ares in the warehouse he's moving out of May 1.
BAIT AND SWITCH Alec Peters released a Patreon video update Friday aimed at rallying supporters who so far have pledged $1,637 a month. The video offers patrons an impressive tour of Axanar's Lawrenceville, Ga., warehouse, including the Ares bridge set. Trouble is, that warehouse is not the one they're paying for.
- Smaller warehouse: Peters had informed his Reel Trek viewers on February 8 he was giving up the 6,000 square foot warehouse featured in Friday's video in favor of a nearby facility about half the size, calling it "the right move … no matter how much money we make."
- Patrons in the dark: That's not the news Peters delivered to patrons in the video a week later, however. His Reel Trek comment has not been officially posted anywhere, appearing only in AxaMonitor's coverage.
The bottom line: Peters is moving ahead assuming he won't earn enough from Patreon to keep his current warehouse, and the smaller one he's moving into May 1 won't offer anywhere near the space he's continuing to tell donors they're supporting.
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PATREON STATUS on February 15: 180 patrons (0 more than previous day) for $1,637 ($7 more than previous day). Growth is flattening.
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2. Revisionist History of Ares Studios
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WHILE TRYING HARD to raise enough money to support some kind of studio space in Georgia, Axanar producer Alec Peters is trying to rewrite history, claiming he never used Star Trek IP to build an independent studio:
- "Total bullshit," he says about the claim in the Axanar Fan Group on Facebook.
- A different tune: That's not what Star Trek fans heard from Peters during his 2014 Kickstarter, his January 2015 blog announcement, his 2015 Annual Report and his 2016 announcement the studio was being taken over by unnamed private investors.
- Hundreds of thousand of fans' dollars were raised by Peters under the banner of producing "the first fully-professional, independent Star Trek film" that went directly into building the studio.
The bottom line: Despite three-quarters of a million of fans' dollars poured into the now-abandoned studio, not a frame of Axanar was ever filmed inside.
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3. Tardigrades Suit: Subpoenas are Coming
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LOOK FOR A FIGHT when the time comes for Tardigrades game developer Anas Abdin's lawyers to ask a federal judge for subpoenas. The targets? CBS and Valve, the owner of the Steam gaming platform.
A joint status letter was filed in court this past week alongside CBS' motion to dismiss the copyright infringement case against Star Trek: Discovery's creators, brought by Abdin, the plaintiff.
- Access to Tardigrades: That status letter lays out both sides' plans for the limited fact-finding ordered by Judge Lorna G. Schofield to see if Abdin can connect knowledge about his game to someone at CBS.
- Steam Greenlight is a game platform owned by Valve where people voted on Abdin's game in 2015. His lawyer needs access to company records to cross-reference member records with…
- CBS employees involved with Discovery who might've been Steam members. The only name Abdin's lawyers found so far didn't pan out so well.
- Goin' fishin': CBS lawyers plan to argue Abdin's asking for too much private information about too many individuals without enough information to justify so much access.
The bottom line: Abdin's case against Discovery depends on finding a connection between the show's creators and Tardigrades. He has only until March 19 to find it.
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Tidbits: Where's My Check? Doomcock > Axanar, CBS All Access Progress
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ETHEREAL: ✅. Headgear: ✅. Astral plane: ✅. These are claimed by Tardigrades copyright plaintiff Anas Abdin as original, creative ideas stolen by Star Trek: Discovery. Sorry, but my fan series, Star Trek: Hidden Frontier featured all three way back in 2006. Waiting for my check, CBS.
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Doomcock rules: Alec Peters' Reel Trek show on YouTube moves to a new time slot on Fridays, 4 p.m. PST. How come? Because, Peter says, the livecast conflicted with the livestream of the unfortunately named Doomcock, an anti-Discovery and CBS conspiracist, and rumor-monger. Why should that make a difference? "Same audience," Peters tellingly replies.
CBS' All Access and Showtime streaming services together hit their 8 million subscriber goal in Q4 2018, two years early, up 60 percent from the previously reported 5 million. With that news, and growing numbers of cord-cutters, CBS adjusts its 2022 subscriber goal upward to 25 million. Engadget has more.
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The secret history of Next Generation combadges was revealed on this week's episode of Discovery as advanced Section 31 technology. Expect to hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the canonistas. From Screen Rant.
Copyright news: Sony is using copyright to take down its own anti-piracy propaganda. TechDirt reports.
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Unrelated but interesting: Umbrella Academy dropped Friday on Netflix, and it's worth checking out. It's based on the Dark Horse Comics books. Wired calls it "your new X-Men." IGN reviews it.
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Find Us on Super Geeks
Join AxaMonitor editor Carlos Pedraza every week on the Super Geeks podcast on Subspace Radio, Mondays at 7 p.m. PST/10 p.m. EST. If you miss it live check the "rewind" section for recorded episodes. Super Geeks is hosted by George Silsby.
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