Galactic Battles is a short film that laughs at the idea of a mere cameo. It’s also a copyright lawyer’s worst nightmare. Or dream day on the job, depending on who they’re working for.
In case that GIF — which crams Halo, Star Wars and Star Trek into around two seconds of footage — doesn’t make it clear, Galactic Battles is a short that’s going to combine most people’s favourite sci-fi franchises into a single showdown.
Not pictured in that gif is Mass Effect, who will also be joining in and will be represented by Commander Shepard (played, in a nice touch, by Mark Meer, the character’s actual male voice actor).
The project is looking for funding on IndieGoGo; because that means raising money, and because money attracts copyright lawyers and rights holders like blood in the water, this trailer might be the only thing you ever get to see of the flick, so enjoy it while you can.
Comments
8 responses to “Sci-Fi Trailer Is Star Wars Vs Halo Vs Star Trek Vs Mass Effect”
No Red Dwarf, Firefly Futurama or Dr Who? Then you fail.
Asking for funding publicly? It’ll get smacked down before it gets finished…
Agreed, these projects sit in a touchy enough copyright situation as is but asking money ahead of time banking on other people’s IPs to sell it? That isn’t fair use, that’s literally what the IP laws were created to prevent.
Create it on your own back, or build enough of a following that you can use patreon or the like to support yourselves as film makers and then create a film like this from there.
But a quick skim of their Indiegogo page and I have no clue who these people are. What have they done? What have they worked on before? Have I seen anything of theirs that I liked?
Instead they’re asking money based on IPs they don’t own, an very basic conceptual pitch and a trailer that wouldn’t match up to the content on some weekly youtube channels.
Limited Edition Concept Art & Storyboards
Galactic Battles Backer T-Shirts
Galactic Battles DVD / Blu-Ray discs
3D Printed ships from the film
Limited Edition 5″ GB Master Chief / Commander Shepard Statue
So let’s look at this, what they’re offering is:
a.) Reproductions of copyrighted material from 3d printers
b.) Unofficial Master Chief and Commander Shepherd statues.
Everything there DEFINITELY falls under breach of copyright, absolutely it does. Especially when you’re talking 3d printing ships from the movie? Given all the ships are from various franchises. I mean good luck with it, but expect lawyers to be contacting you. I don’t even know where to start with the figures…
Ok I hadn’t even checked out the perks…. But yes you’re spot on.
Technically you could potentially argue the film itself is under fair use as a parody, I was just arguing that ethically it wasn’t….
But those perks are literally unlicensed merchandise.
It reminds me of the old RvB T-shirts, where they couldn’t actually ever have any images from the series on there because that was a breach of copyright where the series itself wasn’t. So all their merchandise was just plain text on a shirt.
Years later they became so big they worked something out with MS and could have artwork on their shirts… Which has no relevance but I felt like segwaying into the fact that I miss their initial abstract shirts. /tear
I still have one of those old shirts somewhere.
I still have quite a few, but most are getting pretty ratty….
I kind of wish I could just replace a lot of them =P
Worth noting there is Mass Effect in the trailer; the reapers in the distance eradicating a town/city? with the Imperial starship in the background.