Pink Five Trilogy

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Look, We're Viral!
Getting ready to head out to Celebration III on Thursday, whereupon we shall fly the pink flag at the Fan Film Awards on Friday night.

Until then, I shall be busily burning promotional DVD copies of Volume One - yes, it really does exist - to hand out to select dignitaries and, I dunno, the new Pope if he happens to show up.

Speaking of DVD's, approximately half the mail I get asks when or if the Pink Five movies will be available for sale. I should really set up a FAQ on these pages to deal with that question, but in the meantime I'll take a moment to answer it here.

The answer is:

"As far as we know, never."

And ditto for any merchandise featuring the character of Pink Five in any way. But thanks for asking!

See, the whole Star Wars fanfilm phenomenon exists within a flimsy bubble of tolerance to begin with - yes, the powers-that-be allow it to go on, and occasionally even give prizes to some of us. But the minute anyone (not just us) attempts to make money with an unlicensed Star Wars product, trouble ensues. Big corporate well-paid lawyer trouble.

It's even more complicated for those of us who are Atomfilms finalists - any fan film you see on Atomfilms is there because its owners signed away all distribution rights to Lucasfilm and Atomfilms for at least five years - it's a requirement to get into the competition in the first place. Thus, Pink Five and Pink Five Strikes Back are only available at Atomfilms and no place else on earth. Not legally, anyway.

Even knowing all of the above, we went to the Oracle of Lucasfilm months ago and asked if there was any way around this little hitch ("hitch" in this case meaning "potential felony"). To their credit, they didn't say "no" right away. They waited a whole day.

Anyway, there ya go. It's not like we don't want to sell you a Pink Five t-shirt or DVD... trust us, we do. It's just that it would be kind of... illegal. We love you guys, but we're not doing prison time for you. We're never going back there again, man.

Anyway. What we can do is enjoy all the attention we get. For example:

MSN has been running a viral campaign ("viral" meaning "you would never have heard about it if I hadn't just told you") in which they showcase oddball little videos via MSNSearch.

Guess who's being showcased this week?

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