An open apeal to David Weber-Kickstart the Honorverse movie

Dauntless wrote:full bore CGI? intresting.

as you say it solves a lot of issues with cast age, also if it looks like it is going to be long running as it hopefully would it would also fix any issues with cast members ageing out or injury during action sequence.

would also open up options to cover more of honor's back story. even using prolong excuse it was always going to be tricky to have same actress used for ms midsipwoman harrington when honor is described as looking barely a teenager and then use same actress for the rest of her stories the next one chronologically is her XO stint during the Gryphon avalance. that will have taken at least 20 years given slow pace of promotion in peactime RMN.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, you're casting a voice rather than a face. Age and physical condition of the voice actor isn't really a major issue as it would be for film.

Typical of this is the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The same actor portrayed the voice over decades (my kids were in Middle School when he started, now both are in their mid-thirties) and still sounds strong as ever after several series and made for DVD animated features.

There would be no need to "reset" sets and special effects (explosions or such) after each "take" and the actors wouldn't need hours in a makeup chair or with a hair stylist. This lowers staffing requirements as well non-productive time for crew and actors.

robert132 wrote:

Dauntless wrote:full bore CGI? intresting.

as you say it solves a lot of issues with cast age, also if it looks like it is going to be long running as it hopefully would it would also fix any issues with cast members ageing out or injury during action sequence.

would also open up options to cover more of honor's back story. even using prolong excuse it was always going to be tricky to have same actress used for ms midsipwoman harrington when honor is described as looking barely a teenager and then use same actress for the rest of her stories the next one chronologically is her XO stint during the Gryphon avalance. that will have taken at least 20 years given slow pace of promotion in peactime RMN.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, you're casting a voice rather than a face. Age and physical condition of the voice actor isn't really a major issue as it would be for film.

Typical of this is the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman. The same actor portrayed the voice over decades (my kids were in Middle School when he started, now both are in their mid-thirties) and still sounds strong as ever after several series and made for DVD animated features.

There would be no need to "reset" sets and special effects (explosions or such) after each "take" and the actors wouldn't need hours in a makeup chair or with a hair stylist. This lowers staffing requirements as well non-productive time for crew and actors.

This is especially true, because a well done series is going to include zero gee scenes, alt world scenes, Treecats, Masadans, counter grav air cars, etc. Nothing that cannot be done easily with modern CGI, but all things that increase the cost of production when you are merging it with live action shots. All animation or CGI would simplify production.

However, Personally, I prefer Live action. I still feel distanced from a complete CGI film that I do not feel with live action.

Theemile wrote:This is especially true, because a well done series is going to include zero gee scenes, alt world scenes, Treecats, Masadans, counter grav air cars, etc. Nothing that cannot be done easily with modern CGI, but all things that increase the cost of production when you are merging it with live action shots. All animation or CGI would simplify production.

However, Personally, I prefer Live action. I still feel distanced from a complete CGI film that I do not feel with live action.

I prefer live action also but so much of what comes to screen today has a lot of CGI in it, there's really no way around it when you're portraying dragons, 40 foot tall apes, treecats and whathaveyou.

Remember Avatar from just a couple of years ago? Much of that HAD to be CGI. That's the level of quality I'd like to see in an Honorverse series and the quality today would probably be even better.

First, let's address the issue of who owns the rights. As far as I know, all media right are held within The Manticore Company, the holding company for based on the Honor Harrington IP. The fact that Weber still has control and has NOT sold to a major studio means that their is less chance for studio interference.

Regardless of the shadiness surrounding Axanar and the state of the Star Trek IP as a whole, I think we can agree that Honor Harrington being less well known is an advantage. Not only do fewer people have an understanding of it, but fewer people are prepared to pounce on and exploit it. The situation with Evergreen appears to not have been anything regarding criminal misconduct, but the volatile market of small Hollywood graphics companies.

Back in 2015, we learned that HIMSELF had been approached by the studio behind BONES for a possible mini series deal. Given Weber's schedule, they could be in negotiations right now, or have changed their minds. In all honesty, whoever tries do a miniseries with the Honorverse IP is taking a risk. The market is out there, but they also need a hook for wider audience appeal. As some on this forum discussed when Evergreen was still active "They already have our money"(and this is true for whoever ultimately does produce this.).

Kickstarting is a BAD idea, because you would need the money to pay the production to produce a teaser, and this would be a HUGE financial risk("Hey everyone, we need money for this IP you have never heard about, despite it being around since the 1990's!").

Star Trek AXANAR is actually a lesson into why kickstarting is bad for something. If a group creating something from a KNOWN IP like Star Trek can be shut down, then what does that mean for a lesser-known one?

My own feelings on Axanar are nuanced. While I liked "Prelude" more than anything Paramount has produced in the past few years, the project clearly tap danced over copyright law along with other actions which ruined it for everyone else. All that money is basically gone, while those who love the IP and want to see it grow are left holding the(mostly garbage filled) bag.

My gripes with the Evergreen Project:
1) The Art Style

Nothing against the artists, just was not a fan with the art that they went on all the media Evergreen directed(Comics, Tales of Honor Game).

This also hurt the comics, because if enough existing fans did not like it, then they were not get anyone else to like it. If a current Honor Harrington fan can't recommend a comic to a friend, there goes your plan to use the comics to expand the fanbase.

Its not like the stories were BAD either. A few of the stories were interesting, but none were GOOD or GREAT.

case in point: the infamous "Nekkid Nimitz"


2) The Video Game
For long time fans, we have been down this road before. First the Honorverse: The Online Game that was set for release in Fall of 2008(and people say STAR CITIZEN is overdue!). Next came Tales of Honor:The Secret Fleet. Not only was this what I call an advanced mobile game, sinceyou could play it on your phone, but not ANY smartphone.(It was not exactly CANDY CRUSH). People who know ANYTHING bout the gaming industry will tell you that a video game BY ITSELF can be a HUGE and RISKY investment.
Video Games from KNOWN IPs fail all the time. It would be a bold play to make if there was a solid foundation, but since support for the game has gone POOF since Evergreen went under, that was clearly not the case.

While I am sure the idea was "we can develop our customer by using the existing fans to draw in new fans through a interactive experience", this was a terrible idea.That was also money spent to hire voice actors, programmers, artists and more for a product that is no longer supported.


Speaking of gaming that brings me to my final gripe which was...:

3) SITS-down
So did someone at evergreen go "I see that there is an existing game that ALREADY has a staff , acknowledged by Weber, a production and supply chain and is known by the fanbase and this might be good. HOWEVER, we see an opportunity for another revenue stream, so screw that paper and dice stuff."?

I saw little promotion from Evergreen about Saganami Island Tactical Simulator.Where was the effort to use SITS as an advertising path? I realize that Final Sword is not a large company and so are limited in what they can do, not to mention dealing with the separation from Ad Astra. I do not fault them for working with limited resources, I fault Evergreen for not giving SITS more support in favor of THE SECRET FLEET.

You could still have done the video game, but maybe wait until AFTER the release of the movie.

Phalanx wrote:My gripes with the Evergreen Project:
1) The Art Style

Nothing against the artists, just was not a fan with the art that they went on all the media Evergreen directed(Comics, Tales of Honor Game).

This also hurt the comics, because if enough existing fans did not like it, then they were not get anyone else to like it. If a current Honor Harrington fan can't recommend a comic to a friend, there goes your plan to use the comics to expand the fanbase.

Its not like the stories were BAD either. A few of the stories were interesting, but none were GOOD or GREAT.

case in point: the infamous "Nekkid Nimitz"

One thing you are unaware of: The existing fans? Do not matter to the success of the comic. Comics target a much wider audience; the grousings of the few thousand people who are hardcore fans of the series to the extent that they actually care about such things as releases in other media really are irrelevant.

2) The Video Game
For long time fans, we have been down this road before. First the Honorverse: The Online Game that was set for release in Fall of 2008(and people say STAR CITIZEN is overdue!). Next came Tales of Honor:The Secret Fleet. Not only was this what I call an advanced mobile game, sinceyou could play it on your phone, but not ANY smartphone.(It was not exactly CANDY CRUSH). People who know ANYTHING bout the gaming industry will tell you that a video game BY ITSELF can be a HUGE and RISKY investment.
Video Games from KNOWN IPs fail all the time. It would be a bold play to make if there was a solid foundation, but since support for the game has gone POOF since Evergreen went under, that was clearly not the case.

Mobile games on the other hand, not so much. The game had a lot of problems; first and foremost, that it didn't actually hit anywhere near the things that make the series interesting. It felt a lot like a generic game template that got an Honorverse skin slapped on top.

While I am sure the idea was "we can develop our customer by using the existing fans to draw in new fans through a interactive experience", this was a terrible idea.That was also money spent to hire voice actors, programmers, artists and more for a product that is no longer supported.

At a guess, the game cost somewhat less than 300k USD to develop. In return, the game sold somewhere between 100k and 500k units (I suspect the actual user base to be somewhere on the lower end of that scale); I would assume the game was at least cost-neutral or marginally profitable.

Speaking of gaming that brings me to my final gripe which was...:

3) SITS-down
So did someone at evergreen go "I see that there is an existing game that ALREADY has a staff , acknowledged by Weber, a production and supply chain and is known by the fanbase and this might be good. HOWEVER, we see an opportunity for another revenue stream, so screw that paper and dice stuff."?

I saw little promotion from Evergreen about Saganami Island Tactical Simulator.Where was the effort to use SITS as an advertising path? I realize that Final Sword is not a large company and so are limited in what they can do, not to mention dealing with the separation from Ad Astra. I do not fault them for working with limited resources, I fault Evergreen for not giving SITS more support in favor of THE SECRET FLEET.

I played the first version of SITS. It was garbage. Yes, it did do its best to reflect the realities of 3D combat. It was absolutely terrible at being a manageable game (Even the rather dreadful BattleSpace for the BattleTech universe did better). Doing promotion for it would be futile, as the game's ability to draw in players was strictly limited to those who believe that extensive record-keeping and doing vector math in your head are fun.

Dauntless wrote:full bore CGI? intresting.

as you say it solves a lot of issues with cast age, also if it looks like it is going to be long running as it hopefully would it would also fix any issues with cast members ageing out or injury during action sequence.

would also open up options to cover more of honor's back story. even using prolong excuse it was always going to be tricky to have same actress used for ms midsipwoman harrington when honor is described as looking barely a teenager and then use same actress for the rest of her stories the next one chronologically is her XO stint during the Gryphon avalance. that will have taken at least 20 years given slow pace of promotion in peactime RMN.

Cast members DO NOT do action sequences. Period. Full Stop. That's why you have stunt doubles, and why the production insurance companies insist on them. Douglas Fairbanks did his own stunts. A century ago. Aging a young actress with makeup is easy. If you do not believe me watch the CD of Crouching Tiger in which they interview the actress afterwards.

Well, having supported Axanar from the get go, I can say I do not have any issues with anyone running it. With all the things people have said it is a lot of misstatements floating around that may have colored opinions.
That said, Axanar proved one thing, high quality material can be made for low cost. Even with the actors not getting paid they spent 80K on Prelude. Richard Hatch gave a great talk at a Comic Con where he explained just why it is so expensive to make movies today, and it centers around the lack of discipline, a lackadaisical attitude for preparation, way too much time wasted in shooting due to the lack of prep, and a "spend it, it's not our money" attitude. His premise was a top notch movie can be made for 10-15 million complete. Axanar was going to make a 90 minute movie on about a million total. Add in the current SAG costs and you get up to probably 5 million for all cast and crew. So, a 10-15 million budget is not a fantasy.
ST Beyond had a budget of 185 million and took in 343 million. It had CGI that was comparable to what Axanar and Pacific 201 are producing, so even if you doubled the budget you still have a realistic cost of 20-20 million for a professional 2 hr movie. The Sci Fi market is very open, and an HH movie made to Axanar standard would be a killer, as long as it was close to the real story, and the director does not take off at right angles to it to make it "his" (as happened with Starship Troopers).
As far as CGI goes, the technology today is near realistic. Go look at what Star Citizen has produced, using multiple mesh layers, and the latest enhancements and tech, it is absolutely amazing. Once you have all the basics down, you just need the green screen layering and all the action done by people with the funny suits on, and you can then CGI the entire rest of it, with no need for sets. Go look at Star Trek Horizon for what can be done with that.
So, there is the tech and materials out there to make an HH movie, or series, or stories, it just takes people who have the desire and the skills to do it, and some kind of prenupt with His Highness to ensure that everyone is onboard.
I would think it would not be too big a project to actuall make a set of parts of a ship, that could be modified to reflect different classes, and have it as a set for fan film making, if someone wanted to go down that road.
Fan films are a distinct possibility today. An inexpensive, high quality series is as well. I think it is not so much a matter of a fan base (which is surely there) but more a matter of getting unimaginative executives to actually ponder the potential. I gave up on todays TV offerings after CSI hit episode 326 (Or whatever) and the 28th variation on NCIS came out. There is no imagination, just a pursuit of tried and true formulas. If you look at the Sci Fi shows that held their fans (Star Trek, Babylon 5, some of the lesser ones like Space:1999) they all were considered risky, run by people who had a deep commitment to the stories and ares till around today as fan clubs, comic con venues and such.

It is doable.

Duckk wrote:I wouldn't trust Alec Peters with a goldfish, let alone a film production. Dude's a scummy bastard who singlehandedly destroyed the good thing Star Trek fanfilms had going.

The concept of raising funds for Arts Projects is not new, I am most aware of the efforts of independent musicians. and... if you don't trust this person, there must be dozens more who we could trust.
This is an idea that should get some traction.

...Do we know if J. Michael Straczynski has taught anyone how to plan ahead like he did with Babylon 5 (The first Sci-fi show to regularly come in ahead of schedule and under budget)?

The Honorverse (IMHO) would work better with a miniseries for each book (films play havoc with actual character development due to timing constraints) and having re-usable props (especially multi-function ones) would prove useful in the long run. With BuNine on board for ship designs etc, the parts would be in place, requiring only a skilled planner to get things moving in an efficient manner.