While I didn't care at all about Anaxar, I had a buddy who was real excited about it - he saw a bit and thought it was the next official Star Trek thing due to the major actors in the show. But he also thought it sucked - poor writing, poor acting/directing. When I told him it was actually a fan thing, his reaction was basically "Oooh, that explains it." He immediately assumed that it was a "one take only" budget thing, explaining why even veteran actors seemed to be of lower quality than their norm.
He's looking forward to Discovery now, which I'm also ambivalent about. I'll wait to see what he says about that.
I agree that Axanar's plot isn't exactly very creative, it's, in fact, rather safe and conventional.. It's basically a war movie and an arms race where fed and klingons try to gain the upper hand by coming up with better and better ship designs all the way up to D7 cruisers and the constitution class..
That, however, sounds and looks way more reasonable to me than anything I've ever heard about Discovery.. Like disco being a prequel+reboot, out of place technology that isn't appropriate for the T0S era, awkward klingons, or new characters suddenly being related to famous characters like spock in a hilarious attempt to win over the hardcore Trek crowd, I suppose??
This looks a million times more appropriate for Kirk:
than this:
Kinda looks like a ship you would see in Star Trek Online.
However,
what it is really all about you can read up here:
http://www.startrek.com/fan-films.
This one, especially, drives me furious:
The fan production must be less than 15 minutes for a single self-contained story, or no more than 2 segments, episodes or parts, not to exceed 30 minutes total, with NO additional seasons, episodes, parts, sequels or remakes.
Is CBS/PARA butthurt now or what? They could at least do it like unity engine and only start to charge them once they make actual money with it or straight up buy Axanar when it's that obvious (
kickstarter campaign) that the fans wanna buy Axanar.
I like that guy's commentary regarding the whole issue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it-6YP8e-B4
P.S.
'all of which breach the guidelines CBS and Paradox released in June of 2016.' Stellaris's ST NewHorizons mod, haha xD