Has the ANTI-AXANAR “vendetta” finally gotten RIDICULOUS?

Actually, I think the AXANAR detractors have been pretty ridiculous for quite some time now.  In fact, one Axanar supporter told me recently, “Y’know, if Alec Peters goes to take a leak in a restaurant, someone from one of the hater groups is gonna follow him in to see if there’s any piss left on the toilet seat.  Then Carlos Pedraza will write a blog about how Alec has no respect for janitors!”

What a great image to begin a blog with, huh?  Well, it seems that the Axanar detractors are stooping nearly that low (if they haven’t already surpassed it) in their latest efforts to try to embarrass and sabotage their favorite target of ridicule, Alec Peters.

While I usually ignore the day-to-day antics of the Axanar detractors, every so often something pops up that just leaves me scratching my head.  And let me tell ya, my scalp was itching like crazy when I saw a recent Facebook IM conversation that recently went on between Axamonitor blogger Carlos Pedraza and the assistant of Tony Cade.

But before I show it to you, there’s a quick bit of background you need to know first…like who the heck is Tony Cade???

On February 17, Alec Peters posted on the Axanar website that he would be appearing at the The Atlanta Science Fiction and Fantasy Expo on March 3-4 at the North DeKalb Mall in Decatur, Georgia…about 20 minutes from downtown Atlanta.  It’s a relatively small event, hosted by Tony Cade of Challenge Comics & Games, whose store is in the mall.

Tony is an Axanar donor and fan, and he invited Alec and his girlfriend Crysstal Hubbard to appear at the event.  Alec would be hosting two panels, one focusing on Axanar specifically and another about fan films in general.  Crysstal would also be hosting a panel on cosplay with new Axanar Director of Fulfillment Natalie Armstrong.

So far, so good, right?  Nothing particularly controversial.  No selling of Kharn Roast coffee.  No new lawsuits.  I doubt they even sell sushi at this mall!  So why would any Axanar detractor even care about this event…aside from the simple fact that Alec Peters would be there talking about fan films and Axanar?

Why indeed…

And now, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to share the IM conversation that took place between Carlos Pedraza and Tony Cade’s assistant…

Okay, the first thing I’m sure you noticed is Carlos introducing himself as “a freelance journalist considering covering your upcoming event.”  Personally, I would have gone with “I’m a small-time blogger working for myself who wants to cover your event because I’m obsessed with analyzing and reporting on every bead of sweat that drops off of one of your guests and trying to find any way I can to make him look bad.”  But that wasn’t really the creepy part.

At first blush, it also looked like Carlos was trying in some plausibly deniable way to create a hint of doubt or suspicion about Alec in the minds of the organizers.

“Why would you be concerned with Alec Peters and these other gentlemen?” they might say.

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Carlos would respond.

“Know what?” they’d ask.

And then Carlos would happily start dishing all of the dirt he had on Alec (and heaven knows there’s ample on Axamonitor.com to choose from!)…a great way to sabotage Alec’s relationship with the organizers before the event.

That said, I actually didn’t believe that Carlos was being quite so nefarious…although I suspect he’d have been perfectly happy if the conversation had gone in the direction that I just described.  However, Carlos seemed to give up pretty quickly, and the questions themselves were particularly odd and curious.  This got me wondering what might really be going on.

So I went to the Axamonitor Facebook group page (something I loathe doing).  It didn’t take me long to find a post from one of the detractors linking to this page and specifically mocking this one sentence fragment…

“Highly regarded for creating the fan film that many say was the inspiration for Star Trek Discovery,”

Yep, apparently “many people” think that Prelude to Axanar inspired Star Trek: Discovery.  Many people don’t.  Who cares?  It’s just a small gathering in a mall 20 minutes outside Atlanta.  Is this really “newsworthy”?  Does this really merit Carlos Pedraza falsely posing as a freelance journalist (when you’re writing your own blog, Carlos, it’s not really “freelance work”—it’s a hobby, dude) and fibbing to an event organizer that he’s interested in writing an article about their expo when he’s really only interested in writing yet another hit piece about Alec Peters and Axanar?

And write a hit piece he did!  In what was a tour de force of supercilious acrimony (good SAT words, kids!), Carlos threw everything including the kitchen sink into a 2,400-word blog about Alec’s weekend appearance.  To give you some perspective, this blog you’re reading right now is about half that length.  (When you write a blog that’s twice as long as Lane’s, it might be time to seek professional help!)

Much of the source material for Carlos’ blog was obtained through videos taken during both of Alec’s panels by local Axanar detractor Brian Hartsfield.  As it happened, Brian had been asked multiple times not to record the panels, but he did so anyway.  Alec wasn’t going to make a big deal of it, even though he knew the video would be going straight to Carlos Pedraza.  How did he know this?  Last April, Brian had falsely posed as an Axanar volunteer and ended up feeding Carlos incorrect information about the new location of Axanar‘s Georgia studios, which Carlos then proceeded to post without first verifying the information.

Hurting from that embarrassment, Carlos now refuses to call OWC Studios a “studio” and insists instead on calling it a “warehouse.”  He also insists on calling the upcoming two Axanar fan films that are permitted by the legal settlement with CBS “Axanar Lite” instead of using a less derogatory term.  My mind boggles at the immature pettiness—certainly nowhere near what one might objectively call “professional journalism” (or even “freelance journalism”).  But I digress…

As it turns out, no, Alec didn’t write his own bio.  Tony and members of his staff wrote the blurb, wanting to create as much excitement about their guests as possible.  And so they mentioned Star Trek: Discovery.  Big deal, right?

Was this minor appearance in front of a few dozen people really worth a 2,400-word blog…most of it just rehashing the same old “dirty laundry” and accusations that the detractors have been talking about, some for as many as two years?  Did Carlos really need to send in a “spy” (you’ve got a better term?—“roving reporter” perhaps?) to record the entirety of both panels so that Axamonitor could parse through every sentence and call out the “controversial” statements?  (Actually nothing from the panel sounded all that controversial…despite Carlos’ 2,400-word attempt to make it sound that way.)

In the end, as I’ve said before, Axanar either gets made or it doesn’t.  The lawsuit is over, the sets are now in Atlanta, and Alec fully intends to comply with all the requirements of the legal settlement with CBS and Paramount when the two 15-minute fan films are made.  So what else do the detractors need to accomplish other than something that really just looks like straight-up stalking?

At this point, I suppose my only message directly to Carlos, Brian, and the rest of the detractors can best be summed up by this truly insightful and memorable moment in cinema history…

67 thoughts on “Has the ANTI-AXANAR “vendetta” finally gotten RIDICULOUS?”

  1. Axanar Lite is a terribly derogatory term for Axanar but STD is a fun, happy term for Discovery. If one is ok (as Axanarians {?} seem to think) then the other is as well.
    It’s 4am….one point is my
    Limit at 4am.

    1. Well, I can’t speak for the rest of the fan world at large, but you’ll notice that I personally do not use STD or Disco on this blog in any of my review editorials. I always refer to the show by it’s proper name Star Trek: Discovery or simply Discovery. And I don’t even call myself a professional or freelance journalist! I just feel that a blogger who wishes to be taken seriously should show some respect, even if being critical (in fact, especially if being critical so as not to sound petty).

      So yeah, the rest of the detractors can be as derogatory as their little minds feel is necessary. But don’t you think Carlos, the self-proclaimed journalist, should be held to a higher standard? Maybe it’s just me.

    2. STD is not a fun happy term for those who use it, it is meant to be derogatory. People who hate the show seldom use good terms for it. That said STD is actually accurate, as it is Star Trek Discovery. The point you should take from this is “Reporters” don’t use derogatory terms unless directly quoting someone. Bloggers on the other hand do whatever the heck they want. So perhaps Carlose should stop misrepresenting hisself as a Reporter. I have yet to see his work in any main stream news venue as a paid freelance reporter. You do have to be paid to be freelance you know, and not by yourself.

      1. Carlos calling the upcoming project “Axanar Lite” would be like a news program calling Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary.” It’s kind of a dead giveaway that it’s not real, objective news but rather just a hit piece and hack job.

  3. Arghhh…it would be so nice if the vermine could find something better to occupy themselves with. If they did not contribute to Axanar, they have no reason to say 0, zip, nada, nothing. They must be infected with the same virus let loose that has turned lamestream media into a circus of “find or make up the next scandal”, and “let me tell you all about what you are doing, and why you are wrong”. Too bad the world is so small, maybe they could sail away to find the great valley of Anti-Axanar and burn effigy’s in the moonlight.

    1. Some detractors did contribute. But hey, I donated to the “Captain Pike” fan film. You don’t see me blogging incessantly about that project going down in flames. I also donated to Starship Farragut’s final episode “Homecoming”…back in 2015! Still not out. Again, am I writing regular nasty blogs about John Broughton and his team? Hardly. Sometimes fan films take extra time. Sometimes they don’t materialize. I give them my money with hope and optimism…but not with naiveté. I know it’s always a risk, but that’s my risk to take.

      1. Exactly so, Jonathan. I too, contributed to Pike, as well as Pac201, and have never had a cross word for either. Several times to Axanar, and never said a cross word. I held CBS to a higher ethical standard than they were willing to meet, so, yes, I have ignored them, and NuTrek, but that is my choice. The vendetta idea is one that matches certain groups whose only enjoyment is making sure everyone else KNOWS their pain, they are the Syboks of the web, in reverse. Screaming “feel my pain” at whatever they think has screwed them, even if they had no connection. It’s a social thing, and I hope people will see how utterly useless it is.

  4. Seriously , these people must be from the same gene-pool as the “extreme-shippers nutjobs” that William Shatner so joyfully plays wack-a-mole with on Twitter all year long.

    A suggested alternate end for your blog entry…in a Star Trek note:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaB_G1WNT70

  5. Carlos just needs to pull his panties out of his butt and grow up and quit being such a BQ.

  6. Geeze, more of the same. Btw, I didn’t know there was a bio on me on the show site. Close enough, but I mainly just set up and man a table to provide the most accurate information available to me.

  7. How do the detractors fair now a days? Still many of them left, or just one or two die-hards still kicking the can?

    1. Maybe about 50-80 or so who are actively detracting. Kinda like a fungal infection–it can be covering just a small area and still be annoyingly itchy! 🙂

      1. The membership number at AxaMonitor is down to 826…
        If you go by the normal standard that only about 10% (or less, some say as low as 7%) of a message board or Facebook Group is actually active after joining, that would be in line with Jonathan’s guesstimate of 50-80, and then of that, even less are regulars, so I would say the core of the pack is about 25 people.
        It’s entirely possible a good chunk of the remainder may not even remember joining it…

  8. Instead of focusing on the negative all the time, I think this fan site and the team at Axanar need to just ignore what the other side is saying (I don’t like the term “haters”), and just focus on getting their short film done. That’s what people want to see. All this other stuff just makes people on both sides of the debate look immature.

    1. Axanar is progressing (as my recent blog from last week covered). As for me personally, I’m not working on the actual project. I just blog about stuff. So my writing about Carlos doesn’t really slow down anything.

      And I’m just curious, what did you mean about “focusing on the negative all the time”? This blog and the one about Starbase Studios were my only two negative blogs dealing with fan films…out of dozens and dozens I’ve written just in the two months of 2018 alone. Don’t just take my word for it; scroll down my home page, and you’ll see that the vast majority of my blogs are very positive. The negative is the RARE exception, Woodbibe.

  9. Hey, remember when Alec and co. made fun of James Cawley for building his own Star Trek set with his own money, and how “real” fan film productions need to be in Hollywood? Pepperidge Farm remembers.

    Hope you all enjoy Atlanta.

    1. Nope, I don’t remember that, Number One.

      I do recall that Alec was hoping to provide TOS-era sets for West Coast fans to shoot on, as at the time, all of the TOS sets were located east of the Rockies (still are, actually). And having sets so close to L.A./Hollywood would allow fan filmmakers easy local access to industry talent (actors, production people, etc.) and that would allow for an ever-increasing quality of fan productions…not just Axanar (Alec wanted to provide a rising tide to lift all boats). That was back in 2014-2015. Man, things were so different back then!

    2. Why would Alec make fun of Cawley’s studio when, for one, Alec used to be part of New Voyages, and for two, he had a hand in getting the current location?
      Pepperidge Farm must be getting senile.

    3. No, that never happened. Another lie. Since in November 2015, less than two months before teh lawsuit, we were filming on Cawley’s sets and I have been a producer on multiple STNV films.

      Your type of lying is typical of the bullsh*t from Carlos and his minions.

  10. The funniest thing in the back and forth repartee(yep another SAT word kids), is Carlos claiming he didn’t use anything Brian sent him. Yet at the end of his blog/hit piece he lists Brian as the main source of his information.

    Now I won’t call him(Carlos) a “bold faced liar”, I will leave that to others and simply say
    “Foisted by his own Picard”.

    1. I’ll be more than happy to say that IMHO he’s a bold faced liar – and also add that, again IMHO, he’s more than a bit on the needy side as well.

    2. I think you better check that condo for mold, asbestos, rat feces, and other disgusting things, Alec. It’s obviously gotten to Carlos.

    4. I really want to ask if it’s rather roomy and otherwise empty in that particular location… but I won’t.

  13. Dear Jonathan,

    Feel free not to post this. It’s just my opinion anyway. I know that I am probably saying things that you already know, but this is what I see from a purely fan perspective. (BTW, thanks for the excellent, informative blog.)

    I do feel bad that Alec Peters is still getting hounded. However, the Axanar Kickstarter campaign raised nearly $640,000 and the Indiegogo campaign raised over $570,000. This money was raised in the wake of the excellent Prelude to Axanar, which was so well produced and so nearly professional in quality (on a fan-film budget), that expectations were incredibly high.

    There were many missteps with Axanar and many legitimate reasons as to why they happened. But very, very late perks, the Industry Studio fiasco, a lawsuit that stymied the project with legal hassles and production delays, the cross country move of all the production sets, etc. liquidated most of the money raised and leaves fans with only a promise of two 15 minute episodes–a far cry from the feature film or 4 full episodes we expected. Rumors of extortion or funny bookkeeping only fueled the fire. You have to realize that this was a lot of fan-raised money to blow through and there was a lot of heartache about what could have been.

    I don’t specifically blame Alec for taking a defensive posture through all of this, I probably would have done the same. However, a more conciliatory stance with his detractors and the more rabid fans might have worked better in the long run (easy for me to say, of course, as I don’t have people banging down my door and impugning my character 24-7). Moreover, when you donate to a Kickstarter or Indiegogo for a fan film, you have to know that the people running it are not studio executives, have their own day jobs, and that crowdfunded projects are never a 100%, sure thing. Still, there is a whole lot of disappointment for the biggest, most-highly-funded, fan film that never was.

    Being in charge and the face of the project, Alec has become the fall guy. With great power comes great responsibility.

    I am sure that Alec would have made different decisions if he were to do it all over again. However, it seems clear that he was sincerely trying to do something incredible and make it last beyond just 3-4 hours of a Trek fan film, but, sadly, it crashed and burned in many unexpected ways. I do see why people are disappointed and angry, but I do think that what Alec was trying to was from the heart. There has to be a statute of limitations, especially given his good intentions and the fact that crowdfunding never comes with iron-clad guarantees. Personally, I feel that CBS/Paramount really crushed Axanar with the lawsuit. The other problems may have shrunk the sheer scope of Alec’s vision, but without the delays we would have had a solid fan-film–smaller, perhaps, but professional and polished. (And way better than season 1 of Star Trek Discovery….)

    J

    1. All excellent points, Jonathan L (good name!). When all is said and done, the Axanar project has been through the ringer. If the final two Axanar fan films do ever get made (and I expect that they will), I will see it as a triumph of overcoming huge odds and just about everything that the universe could throw against a fan show-runner.

      Alec and Axanar were flying high in late 2015, going into filming in January/February of 2016. Then the lawsuit hit, and frankly, I can’t imagine any other fan production being able to go toe-to-toe with Loeb & Loeb (CBS’s lawyers) for a full year and survive to reach a settlement. Was building a studio too ambitious of a decision? Yeah, probably. But man, what a studio! Had the lawsuit never happened, Ares Studios would have been a magnificent achievement in the world of fan films…a crown jewel that might have even, at some point, been able to license a Star Trek Film Academy the same way James Cawley ultimately did.

      But alas, CBS and Paramount chose the path of going to court. From that moment onward, there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of moments that could and likely would have destroyed most other fan productions and fan filmmakers. And there are still obstacles, hills to climb, rivers to ford, and traps to avoid for Alec and this project. People seems to think that making a fan film of the quality Alec envisions is a simple task. If so let them try to make one themselves…after a year-long lawsuit.

  14. Although I am glad you answered back to Pedraza’s blog, I cant help but wonder if this just dirives him farther.

    1. Nothing stops Carlos. He’s a force of nature…like a tornado that hits the same town over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

  15. Honestly? I think its time for both sides to stop. I have no love for Alec Peters, and I believe what he did was wrong, but I left the “hater groups” because I was getting tired of the fight. Its time for everybody to just let it go. I mean no ill will towards anyone, but NO ONE still involved in this trite little war is looking good at this point.

    1. For the most part, I ignore them, Ryan. Look back and you’ll see my last blog dealing with Carlos was published five months ago. In that time, I also had one audio interview with a former Axanar detractor who, like yourself, left the hater groups. But that’s 3 blogs out of 92 I’ve written in that time. (Holy moley, I’ve written 92 blogs in five months???? I really need to get a life!) 🙂

      1. Well, I applaud your trying to get away from the narrative, but my point stands. Its become a vicious cycle:

        Alec does something. Sometimes its something normal. Sometimes a little less than.
        The anti-Axanar group responds.
        Alec and his cronies respond.
        The anti-Axanar group responds.
        It escalates.
        IT MAKES ALL STAR TREK FANS LOOK BAD!

        I am tired of looking bad because I like a franchise that preaches belonging and acceptance of ideas and seeing all of this. I’m not pointing the blame at anyone. No one is innocent. Not even me. I perpetuated hate for awhile. But I came to this conclusion long ago:

        Alec will produce something. Or he won’t.
        It’ll be good. Or it won’t.
        I’ll watch it. Or I won’t.

        No one likes criticism. I get it. But, maybe. Just maybe. If Alec shuts up, puts his head down and works until he has something to show for it, maybe the haters will stop commenting. Maybe the escalation will stop. Maybe the vicious cycle will end.

        Because its time for it to end.

  16. If only more in that circle had such wisdom.
    Even Michael Hinman, who pretty much started the Anti-Axanar community, knew when it was time to move on. His reward was practically being ostracized by his former associates.

      1. Better to leave and find something better than being a part of something turned bad.

        Star Trek fandom has certainly become its own worst enemy. It’s become a twisted religion.

        1. I’m guessing you don’t grasp the irony that it’s when people like you gripe and complain that the Star Trek fan experience is ruined for the rest of us.

          1. And I’m guessing that you don’t grasp the concept of guilty by association when you are defending Alec, either.

          2. Alec isn’t guilty of anything, Red. He settled with CBS and Paramount in court. No guilty verdict (or rather, liability, as one cannot be found guilty in a civil trial0.

            He didn’t “destroy” fan films (there’s still lots of new ones coming out nearly two years after the guidelines).

            He didn’t steal or embezzle money (sorry, but theft or embezzlement requires coming out of the situation with more money than when you started, not less).

            The only thing you could say that Alec is truly guilty of is being human and making a bad judgment call on trying to build a studio instead of renting one. But lots of fans (thousands, in fact!) supported him 100% on that decision…so in that way, yeah, we’re all guilty of being human…by association and directly.

            Are you guilty of being human, Red? 🙂

  17. Going back to your post and not referring to any of the resulting comments, I am amazed and saddened by the whole issue, and I sit here deploring the fact that supposedly mature adults (as an aside; mainly if not totally male) can spend so much time and negative energy on trying to savagely take down other people over issues that really are of relatively minor importance if any bothered to stand back and take a wider perspective.

    I lack first-hand knowledge to comment on Alec’s alleged mistakes, but if he has made some, he’s only human (yes, a trite comment, but relevant in essence), and as you say, Jonathan, the videos will be made no matter how ridiculously far some people might go in their negative actions and writings.

    It’s OK to disagree, it’s OK to have an opinion that some issue may be wrong, it’s OK to try to do something about perceived wrong situations, but hey, how about doing so in an adult manner – maturity is a quality missing in so much of the entire anti-Axanar “debacle” (I hold no opinion, for or against, other than loving the material that has been produced so far).

    And Jonathan, while I understand and sympathise with your attitude and reaction to the events that have prompted this blog article, I can’t help but wonder if the very people you are exposing and taking to task don’t feed off the recognition you (and others) give them. If they were ignored, I’m not saying they would go away but they may whither somewhat! Or am I being naive? (It has been said that Trump feeds off the recognition he gets from all the adverse reactions generated and that if everyone completely ignored him, he would change dramatically. [N.B. This is a general statement and NOT a comment on his politics – I am in no position to voice an opinion on US politics.])
    PS. I love the edit capability you now provide. Thank you.

    1. Alec and I have both tried ignoring the detractors. It doesn’t work. They’re pretty obsessive, and while their ranks have thinned over the past two years, what’s left is super-concentrated vitriol and hatred. And to be honest, I don’t write these blogs to try to affect the detractors in any way. That’s like yelling at a tornado not to blow away your house.

      Instead, I post the occasional blog about Carlos and his posse to immunize the uninitiated…those who might not be aware of him and accidentally run across Axamonitor on the web or Facebook and think, “Hey, is there something about Alec Peters I should know?” No, there’s something about Carlos Pedraza and the detractors you should know, and here it is. And these blogs also provide an opportunity for those who support Axanar to link to something that says, “Yeah, we’re not the problem…” and provide the evidence to back up the argument that it’s the detractors who have pretty much gone off the deep end.

  18. So a grown man goes to a small little convention to spy on a guy whose fan film crashed and burned…why don’t the detractors just declare victory and move on?

    I imagine this guy who recorded and reported back to Carlos isn’t married or doesn’t have kids…because I’d be embarrassed if my spouse or my Dad did something like this. This is the legacy you’re going to leave behind dude?

    Get a life…these people are secretly in love with Peters.

      1. Heck….I have met Alec and Crysstal, and Lee and a few others, they are all nice people. As Patrick Swazye said in Roadhouse “be nice, until it is time to not be nice”.

        Funny thing is all this hoopla over Alec being at a tiny con, but the same con had Treklanta set up a table. Well if it was good enough for them…..

  19. I hope Carlos has figured out how to monetize his axamontor site. That way, he can, when he finally comes to his senses, use the money to pay for mental health insurance to get proper treatment for his obsession with Alec and Crysstal. As far as Brian and Carlos goes, both Alec and Crysstal need to go to the courts, present the evidence of this obsession to the court and get an order against both of them to keep them physically away from both Of them, and possibly other Axanar staff and premises. It that way, they can totally cut off all further antagonizing information, leaving Carlos little, if any new information to write about. I know Carlos will read every tidbit on the web, Facebook and a Twitter, etc he can, but without the direct info, he may run out of interesting garbage to feed his following, making for a boring page and a mass exodus from it.

  20. It’s to bad that Carlos’s Powers can’t be harnessed for Good instead of Evil.

    The Question one needs to ask is is the continued acrimony of a few really worth it.

    The Few interactions I have had with him outside of Axanar, AP have not been unpleasant, And I think that potentially he’s a decent sort of fellow…

    The latest crop of articles come off sounding like a bad history channel series… Like the Secret of Axanar Island. or Hunting Axanar.

    1. Unlike most detractors, Carlos is actually quite intelligent and well-spoken…even charming at times. However, like most detractors (and indeed, even like most Axanar supporters), Carlos does not like to be wrong. It’s not only that it would be embarrassing, it’s more that it would suddenly make all of this effort he’s been putting into detracting seem like a complete waste of time. No one wants to think they’ve just been wasting their time–especially when it’s as much time as Carlos has been putting in.

      Back when the lawsuit was still going on, Carlos and the detractors were arguing strongly that Alec would lose and lose badly. Obviously, that didn’t happen. So when they were proven wrong, the narrative needed to shift to Alec’s financial mismanagement and inability to get Axanar made…along with blaming him for single-handedly ruining things for all fan films. The closer Alec gets to making Axanar, and the more fan films that get released despite the guidelines, the more the detractors’ arguments run the risk of being proven wrong again. So Carlos and friends need to concentrate more on arguments that can’t be objectively proven wrong…and that involves attacking Alec as a bad businessman who wasted $1.4 million. Obviously, the counter argument is that he was sued by a Fortune 100 corporation (two, in fact!) who spent a million dollars trying to shut him down. But there’s more room for back-and-forth debates on that. So that’s why you’ll see the detractors focusing more on arguments they think they can “win.”

      In the end, though, they can’t win simply because…who the hell cares? If they somehow “win,” how do they even know they won? Obviously, if Alec doesn’t make Axanar, they might be able to consider that some kind of “victory.” But even then, who cares? It’s not like the detractors kept Axanar from being made. And if Axanar does get made, then all that the detractors have to justify the massive amount of time and effort they spent is the ol’ “sour grapes” strategy trying to snatch a defeat from the jaws of victory. So if/when Axanar is finally completed, expect Carlos and the detractors to focus on the loss of $1.4 million (or however much Carlos arbitrarily increases that number to), the length of time it took, and how Alec still “ruined” fan films forever. After all, continuing to argue those points is easier than admitting that they wasted years trying to destroy the reputation of someone who, in the end, got to have the last word and do a victory dance.

      Eventually, the world will view Carlos and the detractors the same way we view those still arguing that Al Gore should have been elected president and that George W. Bush stole that election. Yeah, at one point, that was a very timely and passionate argument to make. Now, it’s a “who cares?” topic that only the most obsessive and stubborn people are still arguing about.

      1. We know Carlos hates being wrong…look at the sputtering and finger pointing and “I was intentionally misled!” whining when he ran his hastily written (and not fact checked) “big reveal” of the new location in Georgia…
        He got that information from Brian Hartsfield as well…

  21. Jonathan,
    You can thank Carlos for all the comments here. Whereas quite a few of your interesting posts get only a few comments, any time Carlos let’s fly there’s a spike in apparent interest.

    And we can all appreciate your use of a sushi knife on Carlos’s mouthings.

    1. Yep, I’m usually lucky to get to one dollar in ad revenue on any given day. Yesterday: $1.61! It’s raining money on Fan Film Factor! 🙂

  22. It is amazing how much time some human can loose over something trivial as this.

    I always find amazing how some human concern themselves with others, instead of putting that energy in something more constructive.

    By the way, Alec Peters Prelude to Axanar is pure Star Trek by Gene Rodenberry. Everything after Gene dead is Star Trek, trying, to print money. CBS should go back to school and learn from Fans. Fans can save a show and can kill it too. But that is my opinion.

    Nice day to all and to Jonathan Lane, Great writing 🙂

  23. At one point I’ll have to go back to my granfather’s advice and just mutter ” . . . and 99% of the constipated people couldn’t give a shat.” Carlos. Dude. Lack of fiber in the olde diet is showing.

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