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And here we go again. Can't folks come up with original titles anymore?

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    And here we go again. Can't folks come up with original titles anymore?

    There's a new unofficial TOS based Trek film on Youtube called "First Frontier", which seems to go back to the days of Robert April's command.

    Completely regardless of the quality or content of the new film, which I haven't seen yet, why do they have to recycle the title of a prior work which is a completely different story as far as I can tell?

    How good can your film be if you can't come up with your own title?


    #2
    Originally posted by Annoyed View Post
    There's a new unofficial TOS based Trek film on Youtube called "First Frontier", which seems to go back to the days of Robert April's command.

    Completely regardless of the quality or content of the new film, which I haven't seen yet, why do they have to recycle the title of a prior work which is a completely different story as far as I can tell?

    How good can your film be if you can't come up with your own title?
    How good could that 1995 Star Trek book be if they (coincidentally, it seems, since it was published only a few months later) recycled a title that was used the year prior by a Doctor Who Book (1), a title of the series of books by Mike Roarke that he started publishing in 1993 (2), and part of combination titles for a whole host of history books (3)?

    1) https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/First_Frontier_(novel)

    2) https://www.goodreads.com/series/598...first-frontier

    3) One of many examples like this: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...First_Frontier

    It's almost as if reusing titles is common in the industry because there are over a 120 million published books and some 500,000 movies (not counting shorts and TV shows), so restricting people from reusing the same titles would be as unreasonable as asking them to not reuse first names when naming their babies instead of relying on extra information to distinguish between people with the same name (middle names, last names, place of origin, birthdays, social security numbers, etc.). You know, like how there's an accepted industry standard for books, movies, and TV shows to distinguish themselves in these situations by year published/released and author names.

    Also, it's a fan film; the whole point is to steal themes, ideas, characters, and/or names that are familiar to the Star Trek community and repurposed them.

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      #3
      Same title in a different franchise is a different thing than reusing a title from the franchise you're writing in.

      I know there was another discussion about this topic not too long ago, and like I said, it's just wrong, in my view.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Annoyed View Post
        Same title in a different franchise is a different thing than reusing a title from the franchise you're writing in.
        It's not part of the franchise; it's a fan film. The makers of these films do not get licenses from CBS/Paramount, which is what has to happen for it to be considered part of the franchise. This is like going around telling people who write fan fiction that they can't reuse episode/book titles.

        I know there was another discussion about this topic not too long ago, and like I said, it's just wrong, in my view.
        Yes, but you're railing against an industry standard. The last time we discussed this, it was in the context of the franchise hypothetically reusing a title that it owned. That's also not uncommon. Companies license properties out to book publishers, toy makers, video game makers, etc., and task them with making a whole host of merchandise that the writer(s) of TV shows, movies, and books may or may not be involved with.

        Star Trek has actually hired several book writers to work on their TV shows, and George Lucas used to involve himself in some of the Star Wars books, but most film and TV writers don't pay much attention to that stuff. As a consequence, they'll write contradictory things into their scripts, and if they come up with a title that happens to be the same as a book, it's not likely to phase them or any studio heads. From their perspective, why should they be kneecapped from using a title that they think nicely sums up their work and perhaps even would entice people to watch just because a few thousand people read a book with that title that is not considered canon?

        The other place where this is common is reboots. Hence we have things like "Planet of the Apes" (1968) and "Planet of the Apes" (2001). There's also a video game, comic book, and TV show with that same exact title. A number of reboots that do this attempt to tell a completely different story and a lot of tie-in material that reuses a popular title is not necessarily trying to adapt an existing story into a new medium. Instead, a lot of them tell their own, original stories. There are over a dozen TV shows, films, and video games just called "Spider-man."

        It's totally fine that this is a pet peeve of yours. I have a pet peeve about calling non-humans animals baby when they we have existing words for their young, but I don't go around correcting people if they say baby instead of doe because it's so commonplace that it's an accepted dictionary definition and so many people disagree with me on this that it would be a waste of my time to try to convince anyone otherwise. All I can really do is control my own speech and writing.

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          #5
          Originally posted by Xaeden View Post
          It's not part of the franchise; it's a fan film. The makers of these films do not get licenses from CBS/Paramount, which is what has to happen for it to be considered part of the franchise. This is like going around telling people who write fan fiction that they can't reuse episode/book titles.
          I hate lawyers. Aren't you splitting hairs here? fan film or not, he's working in an established genre, "Star Trek".

          As for the rest of it, we disagree here. If you followed me at all in the off-topic/politics threads before they shut them down, you know that I don't care if the whole world jumps off a bridge, if I think it's a dumb idea, I won't go along with it.

          I just think there are arbitrary right and wrongs with things, and in my opinion, swiping the title of another work in the universe you're writing in is wrong.

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