DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 18, 2002 19:04:55 GMT -5
I'm not sure if all of you have heard that there really was a petition going on requesting that Paramount make a DS9 Movie, but FYI, there is and it's being currently run by me, Terry Harris. Originally I only spoke about the petition publicly on the Trek BBS. The reason I do that is because it's hard to know if it's safe to talk about it. James tells me that I can answer questions and give you updates and most of the input here has been positive. However, if you have negative comments, I'm more than happy to take them. If you can imagine what it's like on the Trek BBS, negative comments are not new to me. As a matter of fact I can almost read your mind right now- You're thinking the petition is not going to work. Believe me, I'm aware of the chances and I won't lie to you. They are low. I just want to make the effort so we know at least where Berman stands on the issue. A defeat would be bad, but I have plans if it does.
If you haven't heard of the petition, the history has been a little rocky because it recently changed hands after the DS9 Horizons Campaign(the first and only campaign for a DS9 Movie, which owned the petition) pretty much collapsed. I'm the last of the three original petition owners, so I'm the only one who can keep it now. The other two have moved on to hopefully bigger and better things.
So onto the update. Right now there are 6088 signatures. We get just around 100 new signatures each week unless there's a bullet out for it at Trek Today. Then we can get as many as 230 signatures in a week. We also have 22 web supporters including Spacedock.(And I thank God for each and every one of them because every site owner has been very helpful). Trek BBS does not support the DS9 Petition because they want to be neutral and they want $$$ from me. I'd never pay for support in the first place, and this petition doesn't make any money from anywhere. I've been depending on the kindness of strangers. Even the petition's webpage that is the "base of operations" so to speak is owned by thingy Davies from Starfleet library who donated the space.
There hasn't been anything new other than that. I will tell you about some of the recent developments you may not have heard about. We ran a poll recently at the webpage asking everyone to vote about when the petition should be sent in. I decided on not picking the date myself. The people seem to have spoken and the date when the petition is going to be sent in is in late December of this year so it makes it to Paramount around January 4th, 2003, the 10th anniversary of DS9. I have *no idea* what is going to happen after that. I don't even know if Paramount will respond. But we can't wait any longer than that.
That's about it. If I remember anything else I'll say something. Please ask questions or make comments if you have any.
EDIT: Apparently there was a problem with how I posted this message because for some reason one of my sentences was a little fragmented. At first I just thought it was because I made a mistake in my rush to see "Survivor" but now it seems to have been a problem with the URL. So it's been edited accordingly. If you need to see the petition site, the banner is actually right above this message board.
EDIT 2: You know the part in my post where it says "...owned by thingy Davies"? I tried editing it but it doesn't work. I deleted the URL already...that worked but it just keeps saying "thingy Davies". I mean to say "thingy Davies". When I try to edit that part it just seems locked. I can't explain it. But now you know what I meant to say.
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Post by Zeph on Apr 18, 2002 22:30:01 GMT -5
I will just add that James has given his blessing for this thread. Please do not move or delete it. Thanks Zeph
(P.S. I will sign it too)
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Post by UltimateTrekker on Apr 19, 2002 7:07:02 GMT -5
Well, the word p-oon is sensord, so sp-oon = sthingy. Quite a silly thing that we've kept only for the humor of it. As for the petition, I'm sure Paramount is in the know about it. They tend to keep tabs on these sites to make sure no one is making cash off of their material. But, the unfortunate side of the internet is that it is SO easy to use and easy to get free addresses, a petition of 10,000 is more like 5000 (with some doubles and triples mixed in). A film (of trek price) needs a base of millions of tickets sold to get the cash back. (depending on the deal with the theatres) This is just me though. Pesimist as always. I never sign internet petitions, but I'd feal guilty for not signing this one (at least once)
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 19, 2002 11:38:22 GMT -5
I don't think I said anything that needed to be censored. I'm rated PG...but I don't really understand how any of this goes so I'm just going to take your word for it.
The petition company said that multiple signatures are rare because there are certain safeguards preventing it. I don't want to go into specifics here obviously but if you're interested to know about that kind of stuff you're welcome to ask me because I already trust you. I just can't say in public.
But I'm in the process of going through every signature and if anything seems out of place or if there's a signature that is simply odd(like one I found about Death to the Defiant and Death to DS9") I'm deleting them. I'd rather people sign with their real name, but screen names are...acceptable. I don't like it but some people aren't comfortable giving out their name. Given my paranoid nature about it from watching 20/20 too often I'm not nuts about giving my name out on the internet either. Unfortunately I don't have a choice.
But sometimes there are people who take it too far...I call them "nonsense signatures". An example would be like the one I just mentioned, or like someone who signed saying they were Garret Wang. Another was perfectly sound, but their comment was "Give us a movie you [fill in the blank]." Negative remarks directed toward TPTB will also be deleted. So far I've been through 2000 signatures and 41 have to be deleted. A second sweep later might be necessary. I don't know it that's really reassuring to anyone but there are things I'm doing keep the petition as legit as possible.
Aside from that, a written petition is simply not possible in the world of Star Trek, because the fan base is scattered all across the world so I cannot possibly go around the world doing that. Petitions against certain legislations would be successful since they are local issues, but Star Trek's a lot different...This is all just an effort made by an amatuer activist with not a lot of resouces or contacts. The only thing I've got is insane optimism and irrational reasoning abilities. Both of which are necessary if you want to go against odds like these.
But yes, some people are in the know about the petition, but I haven't heard anything about any higher ups at Paramount. Some actors like Nana Visitor(Kira), Alexander Siddig(Bashir), Aron Eisenberg(Nog), J.G. Herzler(Martok) and Mark Allen Shepherd(Morn) have been positive according to Doug Wilson, who ran the DS9 Horizons campaign. They're the only people I know about.
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Post by Zeph on Apr 19, 2002 21:31:20 GMT -5
Don't worry about robo censor it gets' us all sometimes, Don't take it personaly. As one of the two Mods on this board I personaly hope your quest will suceed in your venture. Are you pushing for a paticular storyline, Or just trying to get them to do a movie? I cant speak for the whole board If they will all sign it, But as I have said before, your thread is welcome here, And I will do all I can to help support your cause here.
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 20, 2002 0:05:22 GMT -5
Thank you, as a matter of fact, I haven't suggested any storyline. I write fan fiction but I don't have enough confidence to actually think of an idea for a DS9 movie. I certainly have a long list of writers who I'd love to see write it, all from the DS9 staff. If I might ramble on, there's a certain concern that if there is a DS9 Movie Brannon Braga would write it...first of all he writes good stories and Enterprise is a good show. There's a few things I don't generally agree with that he's done but he's not horrible. Second of all I think it's highly unlikely that he'd have anything to do with a DS9 movie. Executive Producers who used to be writers have always in the past written TNG movies when they were the writer on that show. Star Trek X seems to be an exception but hopefully it'll be a great movie anyway. Ron Moore, Brannon Braga, and Micheal Piller, and of course Rick Berman were all writers for TNG. Generally I'm not able to calm down any of those fears, but that's my opinion on that subject. There's a chance Braga would write it, but then again there's a chance an asteroid could destroy Earth...just not a big one. BTW I finally figured out why I was getting censored. The first name of the person I was trying to mention is spelled a lot like "Rick" if you replace the "R" with a "D". So apparently the name was mistaken for something I certainly wasn't talking about.
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Post by Christina on Apr 20, 2002 4:21:39 GMT -5
Been there, signed it.
I'd like a DS9 movie. It'd be interesting to see how things are moving on there. Somehow I doubt Nemesis will be mentioning the aftermath of the War too much...
(apart from that Sisko half alien nonsense........)
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Post by Ana Ng on Apr 21, 2002 13:12:01 GMT -5
I will definitely go and sign..
On the topic of who should write it, I'm all for Ira Behr. IMO, he was the heart and soul of DS9, it only seems right that he should write the movie.
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 22, 2002 20:21:13 GMT -5
Well, I just got the news that Ira Behr said that he'd want to do a movie and that he thinks there should be one. However he doesn't really think it will happen. That part isn't surprising, but his interest in a possible DS9 Movie project is.
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 24, 2002 14:35:10 GMT -5
Well, apparently the news about Ira Behr did not harm the petition in any way.
Both TrekWeb and The Great Link posted articles about the petition yesterday and since then the petition has gained 685 signatures since those two articles were posted...in other words that's the number of signatures it would take 6 weeks to get at our normal rate, and we've covered that territory not in a week, but only in the past 35 hours. I don't believe the signature rate was ever this high before.
The grand total right now is 6835, and the rate is as high as it was this morning.
But this is significant in another way, because 6700 was the amount of signatures the *first* DS9 movie petition had, but it was lost by the petition company and we had to start over. I was working on the Horizons campaign at the time and I told the person in charge of it that we'd never get that many signatures again. One of those moments when I'm glad to be wrong.
So whenever we hit a so-called "milestone" in the petition, like the 5,000th signature it didn't mean a lot to me personally because that's charted territory. But now this is as new to me as it is to you so I'm eagar to see how far it can go.
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Post by Zeph on Apr 25, 2002 1:23:21 GMT -5
You are doing a great job, And if there is another topic on DS9 you would like to discuss here please feel free to start one(tasteful off course...) but yes please do.
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Post by =^=First Contact=^= on Apr 26, 2002 7:48:52 GMT -5
WOW! 8209 now
WOW WOW WOW
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 26, 2002 10:23:00 GMT -5
That was my reaction! It's at 8302 now which means the petition grew 33% over the past three days. The rate is beginning to slow down again, but I can't complain when we get over 2000 signatures in that amount of time. P.S. Zeph thank you, but my mind right now is at a blank. When I do think of a topic I'll let you know.
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dllmzca
NCC 1701-A
Official Guardian of the Sacred Stembolt of O'Brien
Posts: 116
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Post by dllmzca on Apr 26, 2002 14:26:12 GMT -5
Just wanted to say, keep fighting the good fight, DS9_Fan! I believe that I signed the petition a long time ago, and I wouldn't want to invalidate it by signing twice.
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DS9_Fan
NCC 1701
Ever the optimist...
Posts: 73
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Post by DS9_Fan on Apr 27, 2002 21:40:12 GMT -5
Thank you, Gisele La Roche and I are trying to keep things together. We're gaining more support from the online community certainly. But one thing we need, that we may never get, is outside support. I'd like the two Star Trek magazines to be aware of it, but somehow I doubt either would even reply. I think I'm going to try informing them but I want to wait until we have at least 10,000 signatures. It shouldn't take more than a couple of months for us to cross that number.
And I know I shouldn't be doing this to myself but I am looking at what the Excelsior Campaign(the campaign for the Sulu series) accomplished, and they have done a lot more and I have no idea how to do what they did. It generated a *lot* more buzz and was featured in TV Guide as a matter of fact. And they were also able to get people to protest outside of Paramount studios. Gisele's way over in Canada and I'm on the other side of the country so I don't know how we're going to do that. While I didn't exactly agree that there should have been a Sulu series you can't help but admire those people.
The only thing we have more of that the Sulu campaign did not is online support. Right now I don't know if that means anything. I remember seeing their petition and it had less than 1,000 signatures(I can't remember exactly...I thought there were about 500 but I'm just not sure enough). We've got nearly 9,000 now so something tells me that there is a *lot* more interest in a DS9 movie than I previously thought.
So the only thing we can do is hope.
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