I am a huge fan of the Star Wars series. Even despite the rather poor quality of the prequels, I was engaged by the political and mythological exposition in the three movies. I delight in the mythology of the series, drawn from major world mythologies in human history. A lot of people give me flak for buying the prequels, but it’s the threads that I like (even if the scripts themselves were bad).
One of the things that has made up for the bad, professionally done prequels are fan films. These are not-for-profit movies written, produced, and directed by devout fans. The films are available from the internet. Some of them have scripts and acting just as bad as the prequels, but even at their worse they are as good as Episode II. That’s saying a lot.
I say all of this because I am excited about “Secrets of the Rebellion”, a coming fan film [SOTR]. This movie will deal with the days just before “A New Hope”, and it sounds pretty cool. This inspired me to dig through the archives and list my top favorite fan films. In order, from favorite to least (but still watchable), they are:
* “Reign of the Fallen”:http://www.reignofthefallen.com/ Set a long time before the Lucas series, this film explores one of the explosive starts to a Sith/Jedi war. Set on the last days of the planet Prias, the story follows two young Jedi as they face their fates and learn the secrets of their destinies. One will rise, and one will fall. Good writing, good filming, and a nice expansion on the thread of the Skywalkers.
* “Art of the Saber”:http://theforce.net/fanfilms/fxprojects/artofthesaber/index.asp This is just a wild exploration of the light saber duel genre. These two brothers are amazing, and with just a single digital camera and their own skills they produce an amazing fight scene.
* “TROOPS”:http://theforce.net/fanfilms/shortfilms/troops/ This is one of the damn funniest spoofs in fan film history. This spinoff of “COPS” explores life in the ranks of the Storm Troopers, especially in those pesky days leading up to the first Death Star battle…
* “Revelations”:http://theforce.net/fanfilms/shortfilms/revelations/index.asp Of the bad films, this was my favorite. It’s a lot better done than some of the really poorly written ones, and I like the exploration of the “Emperor’s Hand” mythology, a second lord of the Sith employed by the Emperor, who really did not trust Vader. The Emperor’s Hand was introduced, to my knowledge, in the books by Timothy Zahn. This movie also explores the inner mistrust amongst the Jedi, especially in the last days before the Empire.
.. [SOTR] “http://www.xpressentertainment.ca/index.php”:http://www.xpressentertainment.ca/index.php
