addiesin said:
I'm curious how many of these are of comparable quality to the Vader fan film and could be compiled into an unofficial anthology, like a personal project disc, approximately feature length. Maybe release order, maybe chronological, maybe grouped by theme or subject matter?
Would anyone familiar with most of them be willing to dish some details or give opinions? Are there a lot more fan films than listed above? Are there some that should be avoided? Are most basically depicting events that could canonically happen, other than the obvious like Batman vs Vader? Is there some kind of fan film ifdb that would have all this info already?
As I said in the other thread, I already wrote a long response but somehow lost that message. So let’s try again.
George Lucas in Love manages to be a pitch-perfect parody of both
Star Wars and
Shakespeare in Love. I actually own a VHS from the filmmaker for this one.
Rebel Scum has a clever twist at the end, although as with many fan films, it feels like the story just got started when it abruptly ends.
Days Past is very nicely acted and beautifully filmed.
Han Solo: A Smuggler’s Trade is terrifically entertaining, and has a more believable young version of Harrison Ford than
Solo did (although, again, I love
Solo).
The Solo Adventures is also a ton of fun and well-animated.
Hoshino is one of my all-time favorites. While many fan films feature lightsaber battles in a forest, few invest in their characters as much as this one does. The visuals are great, and so is the acting.
Emergence probably would have meant more to me if I hadn’t seen
Hoshino first. This one covers a lot of the same ground, although this one won a lot of awards, so maybe it came first.
Darth Maul: Apprentice got a ton of Internet buzz the way
Vader: Episode I did, but IMO, this one was also lacking in the story department.
Batman vs. Darth Vader: The one posted here is the alternate ending, which is the
correct ending.
I still need to see most of the others.
There are a lot more fan films than listed above. Due to the success and acclaim of
TROOPS, a lot of other people were inspired to make Star Wars fan films in particular. There are probably thousands of Star Wars fan films alone, although other fandoms have made some inroads. Here’s a
database that lists many (but not all) fan films.
For a long time, fan films were not made to fit within canon. They were usually parodies, maybe in part because the smaller budget was more forgiving if the whole thing was a joke. For a while, Lucasfilm had Fan Film Awards, but only parodies could be submitted. (Perhaps Lucas was afraid of being upstaged.) When the Fan Film Awards were reopened recently, serious films were allowed, which seems to have encouraged a lot more people to try their hand at them.
I don’t know if anyone has ever assembled the best fan films onto a disc, although there might be YouTube playlists out there that accomplish a similar thing. There are a lot of quality fan films out there. I can give you some recommendations if you like, but at this point, this is already a super long post.
(EDITED because I forgot to include the link to the database.)