The day that thousands of AXANAR supporters feared would never happen finally arrived on Sunday, July 26, 2026 in San Diego and also on YouTube. After a 12-year wait, the first of the two sequels to PRELUDE TO AXANAR premiered: AXANAR: THE GATHERING STORM.
In the three days since then (as I type this), a LOT has happened. First, the new video caught fire on YouTube, running up nearly 120K views as of my screen-capping of the page of Tuesday night—along with 11K likes and 1,576 comments, nearly all of which were lavishing high praise on the release.
There was also the San Diego premiere itself, which took place at the DIGITAL GYM CINEMA in downtown near the convention center (where Comic-Con was wrapping up) at 2pm Pacific Time. About 75 people in total came to the theater to check out multiple showings of Prelude and The Gathering Storm between 2pm and 5pm, followed by a marathon that bookended the above releases sandwiching the Axanar Universe fan films THE ICARUS MANEUVER, DAEDALUS, and INTERLUDE. The largest number of audience members sat for the first showing, filling nearly 40 of the 54 available seats in the small theater. Here’s an image from the last showing of the day, which had about 20 people…
Showrunner ALEC PETERS was feeling great. When I asked him during a post-premiere dinner at the local Spaghetti Factory restaurant how he felt about finally releasing the first of the Axanar sequels after twelve years, he said, “Vindicated. And all of the comments we’ve been reading on the YouTube channel are just so overwhelmingly over-the-top positive that it just makes us realize that we were doing this for all of the right reasons.”
I asked Alec if he thought that CBS/Paramount would try to have The Gathering Storm taken down from YouTube. The run time was 21 minutes (although four of those minutes were credits), and three of the cast members who weren’t in the original Prelude (and therefore weren’t grandfathered in: PATRICIA TALMAN, TONY AMENDOLA, and FARAN TAHIR) had previously played roles in Star Trek TNG/DS9/VOY episodes and the 2009 Star Trek feature film. So a takedown seemed likely. That said, I’m still not sure how forbidding SAG/AFTRA actors from being hired for paid roles benefits either Hollywood studio and might violate union rules.
“The over/under on a takedown is 36 hours,” Alec’s girlfriend CRYSSTAL HUBBARD replied, and Alec added, “If that!!” So I asked what the plan was if that happened, and Alec said, “Then free downloads for everyone!”
Their comments proved to be quite…prophetic…as three days later, Paramount Pictures Corporation and CBS Studios did indeed tell YouTube to take down the video due to copyright issues. And YouTube complied because, in a David and Goliath situation with two Goliaths, you don’t stand next to David no matter how big a sling he’s waving!
And so Alec did, indeed, end up posting a free link to The Gathering Storm on the Axanar website:
https://beta.axanar.com/watch/the-gathering-storm
Once there, you can watch the fan film online or else download a clean, high definition version of the video to have on your computer. Also, as a back-up, I’m featuring a version here on Fan Film Factor, as well, for fans to check out…
Has a new “war” begun between CBS/Paramount and Axanar Productions? I’ll refrain from editorializing or conjecturing. Obviously, things aren’t over yet. Actor footage is in the can to complete the Axanar saga with the release of the final episode of the mock documentary: CRUCIBLE. And although Alec told me that he hopes to have it finished and released before the end of this year, a LOT of visual FX shots still need to be created and rendered. Perhaps we’ll be back in San Diego next summer for the release of the final episode. At this point, I’ve given up making predictions.
Instead, I’ll simply include a collection of photos that I took during the premiere event at the Digital Gym Cinema…
Congratulations are due on producing the first segment.
I personally found the sets to be compelling- a real feature.
Where I’m lost though, is – if there was such a high expectation of a takedown for using professional actors and exceeding the run time, WHY DO IT THAT WAY??? Surely it would have made more sense- if the goal was to make and distribute Axanar to the fans- to do so in accordance with the terms of settlement, or at least not in a way that’s already been ruled copyright infringement?
I understand that Alec intends to take this to arbitration. I don’t know how in heck he’ll win, but here’s hoping that the pleadings and evidence are shared.
In the meantime, I think that anyone hosting a copy of the segment should be very careful- at least on my reading, it creates the same level of liability for redistribution as the original publication
I sure hope despite their action regarding the latest chapter of Axanar, CBS and Paramount take close notice of the positive fan reaction and it helps inform the direction they take their corporate version of the franchise.
Do we know why the takedown was issued? I saw some comments on some other posts that it might have to do with the slave clause. You know, where they say that anybody who acted in a Star Trek production cannot act in a fan film?