A while back, I wrote about the silly campaign by Trekkies to raise the money to finance another season of STAR TREK ENTERPRISE. The LA Times reports today that even the Trekkies are finally realizing what anybody who has spent even a little time visiting the real world already knew — that Paramount isn’t going to ever accept money from viewers to produce ENTERPRISE or any other TV series. Duh.
But now there’s a scandal in the Trekkie universe. It turns out the folks spearheading the inane effort, led by Tim Brazeal, were informed by Paramount at the get-go that their campaign was pointless…but the Trekkies in charge kept this communication secret.
After Paramount posted the letter on its www.startrek.com website earlier this month, Brazeal tried to
explain to his fans that he hadn’t mentioned the Paramount letter earlier
because he had made "personal promises" that he wouldn’t reveal any information
about the negotiations.Brazeal’s rationale unleashed a torrent of abuse on various "Trek"-related
online forums, where insult and invective are fairly common. Critics poked fun
at some of TrekUnited’s colorful leaders, including Andrew Beardall, the
attorney and sometime seafood purveyor who is perhaps best-known around
Bethesda, Md., as "the Lobster Guy," and Al Vinci, a mysterious Canadian
producer and publisher who said he was spearheading talks with an unidentified
executive at the studio. In a phone interview last week, Vinci refused to
provide details of the discussions, names of other broadcast professionals he’s
worked with or the titles of his recent credits.Brazeal insisted that he was not raising the money for his personal enrichment.
However, as the attacks continued he admitted in an online posting that he had
been arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession in 1979 and served probation
for an auto theft charge in 1983. He also confirmed to the Los Angeles Times
that he filed for bankruptcy in 1998, but added that he does not believe the
filing is relevant to TrekUnited’s mission.Brazeal now says he just
wants his life back. "You reach a point where you have to say, ‘Reality’s
reality.’ … Paramount is just unwilling to bring [the show] back," he
said.
I read an article the other day that mentioned these whackjobs had raised a couple million bucks. Seems impossible.
They claim to have raised $3.1 million in contributions and pledges…and even if that were true, (which the LA Times story casts into doubt), it would only pay for one episode, some promos, and lunch for the cast (and that’s not counting the start-up costs of rebuilding the sets which have been struck).
So if “he was not raising the money for personal enrichment”, then where does the money go from here? I guess teh question to ask beforehand, though, is how much of it is left?
The phrase “contributions and pledges” hides a zillion heges. Somehow I suspect they got a couple hundred cash, tops, and that several people pledged much, much more, to be given at the time when the group had enough pledged to actually launch production.
By the same token, I hereby pledge to give a million dollars to my new organization, the Center for Global Peace, in order to bring world peace to the world by buying every human being a box set of the origanal Star Trek series. And I will make good on this pledge the day my organization is ready to start buying those eight billion box sets — just as soon as we’ve raised the rest of the eight hundred billion dollars we need.
Now my group’s got donations and pledges worth a million bucks.
If only there were some way I could deduct that million-dollar pledge from my taxes…
Bringing about world peace by buying everyone a box set of TOS? Dunno about that, Bill, it might just result in women running around in miniskirts and boots and men settling disputes with roundhouse punches!