Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

Entertainment

Op-Ed: Paramount drops lawsuit against Star Trek fan film

The basic legal issue was naturally the use of Star Trek intellectual property, which is Paramount’s intellectual property. Abrams, who is a huge Star Trek fan himself, intervened to shut down the problem. Settlement talks are now underway, and better still, Paramount intends to set up guidelines for future fan movies.
What happens when millions of people work on a huge idea?
That’s actually much more significant, in many ways. Star Trek is perhaps unique in being the only media product ever produced where the fan base has as much or more technical capacity than the production company. Forget Star Wars — Star Trek is very much aficionado-based, with literal warehouses of fan literature, fan sites, and more or less constant input from a global fan base. Some Star Trek fans could actually write the code for movies. Others can write content, and know all about the Star Trek lore and history.

Screen shot from ‘Star Trek Beyond

Screen shot from ‘Star Trek Beyond’
Paramount Pictures

The result of all this DIY Star Trek content, of course, is a gigantic potential base of new materials and highly enthusiastic support from fans. It’s an interesting scenario, in which the fan base has outgrown the original media, and essentially evolved over itself and the Star Trek idea into something so much bigger.
Paramount doesn’t really have much to worry about — the new content and levels of interest really do fit the “sustainable” theory of new media. “Sustainable” media is media which is basically self-generating. In the case of Star Trek, that’s almost an understatement. The sheer number of Star Trek novels written by fans alone, published and unpublished, is gigantic.

Stra Trek s Immortal Crew

The original Star Trek cast.
© Everett Collection / Rex Feature

Letting loose so much crowd sourced creativity is also a fascinating concept. What happens when you let millions of people loose with a really big idea? Looks like we’re about to find out. Expect a lot of new technology ideas, more things like “the physics of Star Trek,” which is actually a virtual subject of itself, new characters, and much more.
For writers and producers alike, a couple of tips — there are no limits.The original Star Trek was written by a lot of very highly accredited top science fiction writers. Theodore Sturgeon, Diane Duane, Vonda McIntyre, and a virtual arena full of lesser-known writers have contributed to Star Trek over the years. Imagine a few more generations of writers, new technologies, and the sort of eclectic spread of characters Star Trek naturally generates.
You can almost hear Gene Roddenberry laughing his head off. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, indeed.

Avatar photo
Written By

Editor-at-Large based in Sydney, Australia.

You may also like:

World

Calling for urgent action is the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

World

Immigration is a symptom of a much deeper worldwide problem.

Business

Saudi Aramco President & CEO Amin Nasser speaks during the CERAWeek oil summit in Houston, Texas - Copyright AFP Mark FelixPointing to the still...

Business

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal infers that some workers might be falling out of the job market altogether.