This

May 13, 2002 6:54 AM

This is the winner of the Star Wars Fan Film Awards (as chosen by George Lucas). Did he get it right? Should it have gone to the very cool Gangsta Rap? Or one of the other finalists?
posted by kebab (15 comments total)

Although I'm not totally surprised, it's still a little disgusting that he'd pick a film entirely about "BUY MORE STAR WARS TOYS".
posted by some chick at 7:29 AM on May 13, 2002

Of course he chose it -- it was about selling toys, and that's what Lucas is all about.

I found the Flash-driven entries to be mostly uninspiring. Nifty on the web, but poor film and TV.
posted by majick at 7:31 AM on May 13, 2002

Although I did get to waste a few minutes and not get any real work done, watching that little girl in the movie was really annoying. Almost as bad as the stupid song.

Jar Jar's Walking Papers was much better.
posted by LeLiLo at 7:47 AM on May 13, 2002

i agree with the 3 previous posts.
it is a rather original idea though.
my personal favorite star wars fan movie is duality
posted by sixtwenty3dc at 7:52 AM on May 13, 2002

That movie was really lame... It was drawn out too long.. so I kept expecting something funny to eventually happen... with those 3d modelling skills (they were pretty decent), I'd expect some amusing physical comedy, or some cool scenes that were semi-related to the movie..

Instead it was a stupid, too-long, too-repetitive song about a girl wanting star wars toys? What the heck?
posted by twiggy at 8:40 AM on May 13, 2002

I was disappointed with how the Gangsta Rap came off on TV. They really should have taped it from a faster computer.
posted by kindall at 8:40 AM on May 13, 2002

Awww man, what about Troopers?? Or Star Dudes? Duuude.

Or Console Wars?

And TIE-tanic wasn't even mentioned anywhere (though I can't seem to find it online either).

Man... I never really realized just how many Star Wars fan-fiction animations and films there are out there until now.
posted by mkn at 9:48 AM on May 13, 2002

I think Troops would have won hands-down, but because of IP dilution issues movies that weren't obvious parodies couldn't be accepted. Troops uses high quality costume reproductions, err minus the droids, and integrates itself kind of like 'lost scenes' from the first star wars movie. I don't think the lawyers wanted to endorse that pandora's box. Plus the people from Cops might start complaining too.
posted by skallas at 10:12 AM on May 13, 2002

George Lucas In Love wasn't even nominated.
posted by waxpancake at 10:37 AM on May 13, 2002

Gangsta rap gets my vote so far, that was hysterical! The Xmas one was just bloody annoying. The voice was grating, the modeling was excellent, but mostly pointless...I think the reason it won is twofold; one, it's all about selling more crappy toys made in sweatshops and two, it had a girl in it, so Lucas could say "See, look! It's not just 12 year old boys and scary guys who live in their mom's basement who want this crap...I mean fine product." I wish I had time to watch them all right now, I'll have to catch up with the rest later...I've just worked my way through the ones recommended by y'all. :)
posted by dejah420 at 12:06 PM on May 13, 2002

Just as a matter of clarification, an excerpt from "Troops" was shown during the program, despite any IP issues surrounding it: The beginning (although none of the intro) as well as the Jawa scene. I had never seen it from tape, only the large Quicktime, and it was even clearer that the folks who made it worked very hard to make "Troops" look good.

It wasn't clear if it was ever in the running, as I missed the first part of the program, but I'm surprised that the original fan film, "Hardware Wars" gets no mention at all.
posted by majick at 1:59 PM on May 13, 2002

majick, according to Atomfilms Troops was never submitted. There was an earlier slashdot discussion about the submit rules and Troops didn't seem like it could have made the cut. I could be wrong, but its suspicious that they didn't enter it.
posted by skallas at 3:14 PM on May 13, 2002

It wasn't clear if it was ever in the running, as I missed the first part of the program, but I'm surprised that the original fan film, "Hardware Wars" gets no mention at all.

It was in fact the very first fan film mentioned in the program, IIRC. I don't know about whether it was entered in the contest, however.
posted by kindall at 5:06 PM on May 13, 2002

I watched part of this the other night between commercials and it seemed to be some crap ripoff of the Keanu crapfest, The Matrix. Needless to say, it sucked ass.

Oh, did I mention the fact that shite director and fanboy Kevin Smith works my last nerve? The fact that he's still in business proves that anyone can make it Hollywood!
posted by mark13 at 5:20 PM on May 13, 2002

Says you. I say that Dogma is one of the best films of the past 10 years to talk about the Catholic church and the hypocrisy of religion. And I say that his other movies are pretty good, and that he's one hell of a comics writer.

I think that the fact that he's got the movie and writing credits and you don't is proof that not anyone can make it in Hollywood.
posted by Irontom at 6:15 AM on May 14, 2002