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Star Wars Fan Films / Shorts - a general discussion thread — Page 3

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I’m certain he will face problems with unlicensed merchandise. Once there’s money involved he’s on the radar.
The Mouse, like all big companies, has people searching the web for their IPs. And they will act.

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An intriguing post found another site (all credit to Tuskin38 on TrekBBS):-

You’d think it’d be easier to remove and replace the music in question from the fan film - with something else that’s not going to cause issues such as this…
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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That would make him look less like a victim, a cool rebel against an evil corporate empire, than if he just admitted he made a mistake and tried to change it.

Less drama = less views

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Why do you all assume that SWT is to blame in this when if this happened to one of our own we would be defending them. Seems pretty hypocritical to me that as soon as a youtuber gets cracked down on everyone talks about how he’s the villain yet when one of our own gets threatened you trust them. Why is it?

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Who here has been threatened by Lucasfilm or Disney?

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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It’s not a question of blame or hypocrisy, LZ.

Many editors, project preservationists and members on here (and elsewhere) over the years have suffered the occasional youtube takedown notice, or copyright notice, or received something similar - or the same - as to what SWTheory has. Some of it seemed unfair, unjust, undeserved, or wrong - and some of it not.

The difference is, as far as I can recall, is that most of the people on here have simply adjusted or edited their work on youtube to comply with any requests/problems - or contested it (where they felt a mistake may have been made - as much of this process is automated and mistakes do happen). Or they moved their content to the likes of vimeo, dailymotion or one of the other video hosting sites.

And that was pretty much it, they may be have been a bit miffed and inconvenienced - though they learn from the experience, and then move forward with their projects.
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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Hey Zerome, sorry about yesterday if I was rude to you. We just have two different opinions and that’s totally fine. Sorry again man.

Anyway, I think a big difference between fan editors and SWT is that he makes money (a lot of it) from his audience. And video monetization and patreon is one thing, but also selling merchandise that is clear copyright infringement (using Star Wars characters, logos, etc.) is another. I think when money is brought into the picture, it introduces another motive that must be considered with every decision he makes.

Beyond that, I think despite what he says about not wanting to spread negativity, his identity feels strongly built around it. Even in his follow up video, I feel he is still criticizing Disney/Lucasfilm without overtly doing it, by doing things such as giving a long praise for George Lucas (acknowledging him and ignoring the rest of the Lucasfilm team), and by reiterating that what he is doing is “by the fans, for the fans”. Again, in a way saying that he is doing what the fans want and Lucasfilm isn’t. George has become a way for a lot of detractors to gives themselves a semblance of authority, by saying they are “preserving George’s vision or legacy”, implying that modern Lucasfilm isn’t.

And despite understanding the rules, he keeps bringing up how much money he could’ve made if he had been able to monetize the video or crowdfund the project. Man, that is rule #1 of fan projects, but why do you keep bringing this up? You don’t make money for fan films, you don’t make money for fan edits. Period. And even talking about this issue with I had people keep bringing this up to me. It’s like by reminding his audience about this, he’s trying to imply how unfair Disney/Lucasfilm is by not allowing him to make money. Again, painting them in a bad light.

And like I said, Lucasfilm couldn’t allow people to do that even if they personally like SWT and really wanted him to be able to. It’s just a factor of IP law, and a safeguard to protect copyright ownership. People can cry what is fair or not fair all the want, it’s the law.

As a fan editor, or at least a person who likes fan editing, I have my own opinions on intellectual property law, but I still have to respect it to a degree. Again, Disney historically have been a major problem in the history of IP law, so I have my own critical opinions of Disney. Despite that, though, I don’t think it is fair to villainize a company when it is convenient for one’s image. Especially Lucasfilm.

SWT is also alligned with several other YouTubers who, in my opinion, are also responsible for spreading negativity in the community while having little to no responsibility for it.

Again, taking his apology video. Even though he says he’s not about the negativity, interestingly enough his comment sections don’t reflect that, going on and on about boycotting Disney or firing Kathleen Kennedy. If he meant what he said, he would actually address his audience about this.

Listen, I don’t think these people necessarily got on YouTube just to hate on Disney or Lucasfilm. People can dislike the new movies, that’s fine, totally their opinion. What happens is that the when a lot of these people started out, they began noticing that the videos they made where they talked about things they didn’t like got more views than other stuff. So, they start talking about more and more of their criticisms, drawing people in with clickbaity titles (even bigger outlets like Collider are responsible for this, especially recently), and now their identity is built around criticism and negativity. I mean, this isn’t anything new, yellow journalism has been a thing for a very long time.

And that brings me back to SWT. I think it is really cool that this guy I had a idea for a story and wanted to make a fan film. But I feel like from the beginning this whole project was built around the idea that this was an to attempt to do something better than modern Lucasfilm. So the fan film itself has inherently become a criticism of Lucasfilm, obviously enough that even the Rule of Two podcast had a video titled “Is SWT fan film better than new movies?” Super clickbait, controversial. I’m sure it was just based off a question they got from a viewer since personally there isn’t an argument, but it shows that this how a lot of people are perceiving this fan film. But to each their own, you know?

Fan films used to not be like that. Even during the Prequels, there were some fan films that parodied the prequels, but you could tell all of them were coming from a place of love.

I’m sure this project originally came from a place of love from SWT, but to me it felt like it was trying to be a big “Fuck You” to Lucasfilm.

But when people’s careers and income are built around stirring the pot because that’s what gets the clicks, the negativity we see in the fanbase today is clearly going to be a product of that.

Geez, even his recent video where he talks about things Disney could do to “unite the fanbase” is so condescending. It reeks of “I know Star Wars better than you.”

I just don’t get why these YouTubers can’t talk more about the things they actually like rather than the stuff they hate? Why do they want to complain all the time? This whole controversy is just a repeat of the Solo gun marketing fiasco, where people like Geeks + Gamers and SWT began calling Disney SJW’s and pushing an agenda, when it was just Disney making variant posters to follow Brazil’s federal guidelines. Even SW Explained, another SW YouTuber, called them out for it and of course they were offended by being called out. At least they were able to give a semblance of an apology that time. Even after realizing this situation had more to do with Warner and little to do with Disney, he still take back any remarks he made from his previous video.

That to me is what is so funny about Thor’s video about the situation. He goes on and on about Disney/Lucasfilm, when this situation has barely anything to do with them. But it is an opportunity for them to vent their own biases that they have. Their opinions are justified! Thor is especially guilty of this, since it feels like now most of his videos you can’t avoid him criticizing Lucasfilm. Even videos not overtly talking about his gripes will still have a little anecdote like, “Unfortunately, Disney has done this instead, or chosen not to do that cooler thing.” You can’t get away from it.

What happened to these people talking about things they liked? Why can’t Star Wars fan just agree to disagree and MOVE ON, and talk about stuff they like about Star Wars. Everything is a crusade nowadays.

Luckily I still think there are YouTubers that are generally positive but still have their own, unique opinions where they have things they like and don’t like, but choose to focus on things they like.
Eckhart’s Ladder, EC Henry, Star Wars Explained, HelloGreedo. There are things they don’t like about the new movies, but they don’t get hung up on that stuff and instead generally make videos about stuff they actually like. Being positive, you’re gonna get positivity. Being negative, you’re going to get negativity.

Even with the first big fan editor, the Phantom Editor, he didn’t hate George Lucas or the prequels. He approached it like a professional, so what worked and what didn’t, and wanted to try and improve it. Even in his commentary, he discusses how he didn’t like how his edit became a symbol for people who hated the prequels. He even talks about how after making, he probably will never get to meet George Lucas and how a part of him regrets that.

And the OT community in general, back in the day I’m sure some people disliked George for the Special Editions, but generally from what I understand, it wasn’t constant Lucas-bashing, they just wanted him to release the theatrical editions of the films.

Things feel like they’ve changed, and people are so quick to forget how people used to be. It is so funny to me how much SWT praises George Lucas in his videos (a way to take a jab at modern Lucasfilm in my opinion), but if this guy had been born 20 years prior, he would be giving Lucas the same vitriol that he gives Disney/Lucasfilm today, and would be talking about how George has lost touch, and has forgotten what Star Wars is all about. But now it has become cool to like the prequels again.

This stuff is so relative, but people fail to see it. You can’t tell me our fanbase doesn’t have a problem when you have Daisy Ridley and Kellie Marie Tran chased off social media. It’s Jake Lloyd and Ahmed Best all over again. These people, these YouTubers, are influencers, and they have the opportunity to make the Star Wars community are more positive, inclusive one. But they don’t, because that would be going against what they’ve been preaching all this time, it feels like. They would be “selling out”, but their partially responsible for creating this environment I feel like they’re trapped in.

I just think his “brand” is too tied with the negativity of his community, and he is more concerned about saving face rather than being honest with his fanbase, which has led to me to not really trust his motivations for the things he does or says.

But who knows? I’m hoping when Clone Wars and The Mandalorian roll around, we will have content the majority of fans can agree on and we can start being friendly again and just enjoy Star Wars, like it’s so hard to do, and that will put people in a better mood when Episode IX comes out.

But if they start complaining about how Clone Wars doesn’t have enough episodes and it is Disney’s fault for not greenlighting more episodes, or if they find something to criticize about the Mandalorian I also won’t be surprised. But I’m hoping it won’t be that way.

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Apology accepted Rouge and I agree a lot with what you said because I can see that things have gotten too dark. I’m glad that we have guys like Harmy to be our White-Knights.

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Valheru_84 said:

A perfect example of how PR is affected regardless of the cold hard facts:

https://movieweb.com/star-wars-9-boycott-disney-darth-vader-fan-film/

Just wanted to say as well that while I think this could have been handled differently by Warner/Disney, I think SWT could have handled it differently as well though I can understand his frustration.

Val

Agreed. I get where his frustration is coming from, but yeah he definitely could’ve handled it differently.

But the attention is good publicity for him. I personally think this article is just verbatim repeating SWT’s own perspective he gave in his video, not really giving us any new, objective information.

SWT doesn’t really have a case, though, and I’m not really expecting this “boycott” if that’s what you want to call it, to go anywhere. Even now if you go on reddit it seems like his supporters in this situation have become a vocal minority, and even people who hate the new films see that he is taking a stand on really shaky ground.

This whole issue is definitely more related to the growing problem YouTube has regarding copystrike regulation, in my opinion, rather than anything that should be directed at Disney. I’m not sure what people want Disney to do, or what they should apologize for. Both Warner and Disney are legally bound to take the actions they did. People keep going on about him “having a deal” with Disney (literally a few generic emails), but I’m sure the use of the Imperial March composition wasn’t discussed by SWT. Maybe if the music had been more generic (or put on a different platform than YouTube) he wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

All of this just feels extremely entitled, in my opinion. Like, SWT is making money off unlicensed Star Wars merch and other things but he is the one who deserves an apology. Haha.

I personally think the best thing Disney could do is not even achknowledge this situation. If he tries to fight this, he’s not going to win. And if they say anything at all people will just twist it to still make them look bad, because Disney.

And yeah you can talk about Disney’s optics but that’s a whole other story. But for how evil Disney apparently is people really seem to drool over Marvel still. Really sticking it to the man, there.

And I agree Zerome, with Despecialized and the 4K projects, I personally don’t care if Disney releases the theatrical versions officially or not. We practically already have it.

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How is it odd? Warner, Disney and Lucasfilm don’t communicate constantly.
Lucasfilm must’ve gotten in touch with Disney/Warner that he had contacted them must’ve pulled some strings. He should be really grateful, and I’m glad he is actually thanking Lucasfilm for a change. Hopefully this will help stop people from lumping Disney and Lucasfilm together constantly, but who knows.

EDIT: The more and more I read YouTube comments the more I realize it is mostly literal children and I’m wasting my time thinking about this so much.

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RogueLeader said:

How is it odd? Warner, Disney and Lucasfilm don’t communicate constantly.
Lucasfilm must’ve gotten in touch with Disney/Warner that he had contacted them must’ve pulled some strings. He should be really grateful, and I’m glad he is actually thanking Lucasfilm for a change. Hopefully this will help stop people from lumping Disney and Lucasfilm together constantly, but who knows.

EDIT: The more and more I read YouTube comments the more I realize it is mostly literal children and I’m wasting my time thinking about this so much.

I have been watching waaaaay too much Young Justice.

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Thanks for the thougful posts, Rogue. I find myself on YouTube for at least a little while a day due to my situation and strange aversion to watching actual shows or movies most of the time, and Star Wars stuff comes up a lot. It sometimes sucks me into a more cynical mindset than I’d like, I’ll admit.

I would also like to admit to a certain form of (reverse?) jealousy regarding YouTubers who sell licensed merchandise with trademarked images on them. For one thing, if I were for some reason paid minimum wage for each and every hour I’ve spent working on Star Wars stuff on my computer(s), I could pay off my student loans. I won’t even mention what that would look like in the case of someone like Adywan. Why is it okay for people to sell trash with Star Wars imagery on it? I’ve likened our careful efforts to avoid anything approaching profiting from our work to Star Trek’s prime directive, which exists in part to protect us. It kind of makes me mad to see others wantonly endangering us vicariously by promoting what often seems to me like lazy, loud mouthed channels.

For my part, I very much appreciate our solidarity in refrainin from anything that would even suggest any personal gain from what we do; we build safety rails around the safety rails. I don’t ever want that to change. When other people step out from under that carefully maintained umbrella, we all are put at risk while they make $5.

I admire the Phantom Editor and, at least to my own mind, have tried to approach fan editing Star Wars from a place of love and (spirit of) professionalism.

I suppose the brazen disregard for these principles coupled with the unsavory personal gain I see being derived from it rubs me the wrong way. It’s worse when done with pomp and arrogance, maybe.

All this being said, I love all y’all.

My stance on revising fan edits.

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Thanks for sharing, Val! I haven’t heard of movieweb, but they do seem pretty biased, or at least only supporting SWT’s perspective. To me it just seems he’s just repeating verbatim what SWT’s been saying in his videos, so I don’t know how much is the writer agreeing with him or just trying to tell the story how he’s receiving it.

If I’m not mistaken, his thumbnail in the update video has Superman with Lucas’ face photoshopped on it. I’m not sure why? Like I’ve said, I think it just supports my opinion on this whole fiasco. He thanked Lucasfilm, but could you imagine him actually thanking the President of Lucasfilm?

Also I thought I would share the r/StarWars thread regarding the update. If you take your time to scroll through it seems more and more people are questioning SWT’s motives and why this was so newsworthy in the first place. You still have some detractors saying things like “But the video wasn’t monetized” that haven’t kept up with everything, but people are starting to seem pretty iffy about him. Even Eckhart’s Ladder even chimed in about it. I dunno. Just thought I’d share.

https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/agqp9k/lucasfilm_has_revoked_warner_chappells_copyright/?st=JR03O2NH&sh=d8aeeefd

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Hal 9000 said:

Thanks for the thougful posts, Rogue. I find myself on YouTube for at least a little while a day due to my situation and strange aversion to watching actual shows or movies most of the time, and Star Wars stuff comes up a lot. It sometimes sucks me into a more cynical mindset than I’d like, I’ll admit.

Thanks for taking the time to read them, Hal! I know where you’re coming from regarding being sucked into that cynical mindset. I feel like it is so easy to be persuaded by a lot of the more critical videos. If anyone follows my posts know I defend the new movies pretty regularly, but even when I watch pretty harsh critiques it does make me question myself until I take a minute to step back and reevaluate my own opinion.
You probably are already aware of these YouTubers, but I would recommend people like HelloGreedo, Wayward Jedi and EC Henry, who approach the new movies pretty fairly. Greedo recently had a baby too so you would probably relate to him a lot. EC Henry talks a lot about both Star Wars and Star Trek, and he really approaches things in a totally unique way, but his upload rate is more spread out than others.

I would also like to admit to a certain form of (reverse?) jealousy regarding YouTubers who sell licensed merchandise with trademarked images on them. For one thing, if I were for some reason paid minimum wage for each and every hour I’ve spent working on Star Wars stuff on my computer(s), I could pay off my student loans. I won’t even mention what that would look like in the case of someone like Adywan. Why is it okay for people to sell trash with Star Wars imagery on it? I’ve likened our careful efforts to avoid anything approaching profiting from our work to Star Trek’s prime directive, which exists in part to protect us. It kind of makes me mad to see others wantonly endangering us vicariously by promoting what often seems to me like lazy, loud mouthed channels.

I totally understand that feeling. I’ve always thought it would be great if there was a way for fans could collaborate with studios on their projects to make something like that possible. I don’t see that happening anytime soon, but the more people try to take advantage of the system, the harder it is ever going to be for that to even be possible, especially when it comes from a place of “We’re better than you”. I also get the feeling you’re a Star Trek fan (if your old Kirk profile pic wasn’t an indication), would like to pick your brain about that sometime.

I don’t know if you keep up with that side of the fandom but they have a fan film situation going on with Axanar. One Trekkie YouTuber suggested the idea of fan filmmakers and CBS collaborating by having CBS fan films being put on their All Access Streaming Service and somehow make an arrangement from that to encourage community activity. And Disney/Lucasfilm could do something similar by having a fan film category on Disney+, for example. It’s definitely an interesting idea, even if it is unlikely. I don’t think that could ever happen with fan edits, though, since they sort of are critiques by their very nature. I think we’ll always have to remain and underground art form. But about the people that will try to take advantage of this grey area and profit off it, I don’t really know what all we can do beyond just calling them out when we see it.

But I think this rise in this kind of behavior is sort a combination of the democritization of filmmaking tools like digital video equipment and editing software, plus general ignorance of copyright law (or simple greed).
Maybe it would help if someone from this side of the community were to create a channel to kind of counter and respond to this kind of behavior or negativity in the fandom in general, but a part of me also doesn’t think our little subculture needs anymore attention than it already has. I think a fanediting podcast would be a cool idea, though!

I admire the Phantom Editor and, at least to my own mind, have tried to approach fan editing Star Wars from a place of love and (spirit of) professionalism.

I think you’ve definitely achieved this so far, Hal!

And yeah, wanted to thank Zerome and Val again for being cool and having this conversation with me too.

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Yeah their articles on this particular matter have seemed pretty biased or without much thought or research past repeating the narrative from SWT point of view. Movieweb has been around for quite a while but seems to focus more on getting stuff out quickly rather than applying to many quality control processes, which makes it a good place to pick up stuff early but you do need to apply your own filters and it can also be quite dependent on who writes the article itself.

All up it has been rather a good springboard for SWT himself with even his video being embedded in the latest article.

No idea what the SuperLucas is all about, some strange reference to honouring his vision or something I guess.

On a different but related matter, this is why I don’t mind Thor. He admits he was wrong about Disney and apologises:

https://youtu.be/DxgP74CtJjs

He also has some great points about either side of the divide around TLJ. Generally Thor is pretty reasonable, logical and level headed about most things and a lot of the time when people speak negatively of him (as in a very false black and white fashion), it is usually their own assumptions and prejudices giving them the wrong impression and understanding, especially if it requires a little more thought or introspection against your own opinion and feelings on the matter to understand a deeper issue whereas I’m sure many people simply switch off if they don’t instantly like what they are hearing. Like anyone else, Thor is just expressing his opinion complete with any human flaws that may make it less than perfect but he does make a lot of valid points which even if you don’t agree with them, can be food for thought that may still have an affect on your opinion or it can just be a window into the perspective of people on the other side of the fence.

Val

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There’s nothing too toxic but toxicity itself.

I’ll see myself out.

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Dark Legacy - an Unofficial Star Wars Story by Anthony Pietromonaco’…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gKpJy3bzaw - a 12 minute video at the Anthony Pietromonaco youtube channel.

More info at https://www.starwarsdarklegacy.com
 

An engaging watch, with references to Sith thinking and culture, and also some top choreography - along with emotion and an unpredictability to the fight scenes. Very well done overall - a quality production; I hope they do more releases in the future.
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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Time
 (Edited)

Birth of a Monster | A Star Wars Story’…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0OfGeDkSlM - a 21 minute video at the Escape Velocity Content youtube channel
 

The blurb: ‘Birth of a Monster is a story of discovery and friendship surrounding a mysterious young boy and his loyal droid on the desert planet, Tatooine. What they discover will shape future generations in their galaxy.’
 

Beautifully shot and acted; with an engaging story too - a really enjoyable watch with an immersive Star Wars vibe running through the film.
 

A little patience goes a long way on this old-school Rebel base. If you are having issues finding what you are looking for, these will be of some help…

Welcome to the OriginalTrilogy.com | Introduce yourself in here | Useful info within : About : Help : Site Rules : Fan Project Rules : Announcements
How do I do this?’ on the OriginalTrilogy.com; some info & answers + FAQs - includes info on how to search for projects and threads on the OT•com

A Project Index for Star Wars Preservations (Harmy’s Despecialized & 4K77/80/83 etc) : A Project Index for Star Wars Fan Edits (adywan & Hal 9000 etc)

… and take your time to look around this site before posting - to get a feel for this place. Don’t just lazily make yet another thread asking for projects.

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It really captured the vibe of Tatooine. Reminded me of when the droids were lost in the desert/canyons during ANH.