Star Trek: Phase II - "We're not professional"

Karl Hodge

The Nebula awards fan film controversy takes a new twist as Phase II producers claim amateur status.

Published on Mar 7, 2008

An argument about the inclusion of World Enough and Time, a Star Trek fan film, among the nominations for Best Script at the upcoming Nebula awards took a new turn yesterday. Earlier this week, we reported on a statement made by DS9 scribe and World Enough and Time director Marc Zicree, in which he made several claims to the project’s professional status.

Now James Cawley, Star Trek Phase II/New Voyages producer and super-fan, has made public a letter that he sent to the Nebula awarding body, the Science Fiction Writers of America on the Trek BBS, a Star Trek message board. In this letter he refutes any claim to professional status – saying Marc Zicree had painted a “wrong picture” of his project.

“Paramount Pictures owns the copyright to Star Trek. The relationship of Star Trek New Voyages with Paramount Pictures is very strictly defined.

“Legally, we are a fan-based production. We exist solely because we maintain our amateur status, and good faith relationship with Paramount CBS.

“I must stress this as strongly as I can. We are committed to maintaining our relationship with Paramount Pictures. We are a fan-based production. Legally, our episodes are AMATEUR. Marc Scott Zicree's claims otherwise are notwithstanding”.

Previously, Phase II co-producer Carlos Pedraza had posted a response to our original article on his blog at www.doorq.com

“Marc (Zicree) has a vested interest in portraying the show as professionally produced – he (not the production itself, mind you; the award is only for the script) can now win a Nebula. (…) we have a vested interest in remaining non-professional – our agreement with Paramount is that we can't be professional (i.e., earn money) and continue producing our show. But in a pro vs. non-pro contest, I'll put my empty wallet up against the empty space on Marc's mantle any day. It would be a shame if the Nebula controversy ended up as a pyrrhic victory – Marc gets his award and the show is shut down by Paramount”.

The full text of Cawley’s letter can be found at the Trek BBS