Fan Videos

One interesting thing. Andrew Koenig appeared in a Batman fan video. It's short. About 8 minutes. Very well made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYHieJQKZd8

Would it have been more interesting if it had been less stylish? How would a comic book movie like this look if it were filmed in a cinema verite style? Like an episode of Cops.

Let's see Batman as if Werner Herzog directed. As if Pasoloni directed. As if Jim Jarmusch directed.

Well, of course, this Batman video was done for the filmmaker's own purposes. People have made fan videos simply as fans, or to show what they can do technically and artistically to promote themselves as directors. Like any other short film.

I watched one feature length fan film on You Tube. I don't know if I could find it again. It was Star Trek. It had some of the original cast in it---Lt Uhuru was in it. Maybe Walter Koenig----I can't remember.

It was pretty well-made. They obviously spent a fortune on it.

It was also obvious that the guy who made it was an Ayn Rand nut.

The movie starts with Lt Uhuru talking to some Vulcan intellectuals. She tells them they should get rid of their motto, "The good of the many outweighs the good of the few," because it leads to genocide.

It leads to genocide, eh? So Hitler was just trying to help as many people as he could.

The Vulcans admit that, yes, their motto leads to genocide. And Ayn Rand was the most rational "philosopher" in the universe and was not at all weird-looking. But they explain that they pretty much ignore their motto, so it's okay.

Later, the commander of a star ship introduces himself before a battle:

"I am Captain Galt of the star ship Liberty."

I'm surprised there wasn't some Ayn Rand thing that would prohibit you from wasting tens of thousands of dollars and years of work making a movie you wouldn't exactly own the rights to, that you couldn't legally distribute or make any money from.

On the other hand, if you make a science fiction movie costing, say, $50,000, what are your real odds of getting it into any sort of distribution? What hope do you have of making any money on it, or even making your money back?

At least with a fan video, people will watch it.

For that amount, you can make an original science fiction movie and disappoint viewers with how cheap it looks, or make a "fan film" and have them marveling at how much money you spent.

It does seem like, with a Star Trek fan film, that it would be more within the reach of the filmmaker to make it a fan film of the original series.

For costumes, men would need a red, blue, or sort of yellowish tee shirt and black pants. Women would need mini-dresses and matching underpants in the same colors. Special effects would be easier. The scripts should be built around some Freudian Oedipal confict.

I don't watch any of the new Star Trek shows. But I was forced to sit through one episode. Had Whoopie Goldberg in it. They had children running around the Enterprise, they didn't have a single Jiu-Jitsu fight and the captain didn't sleep with even a single alien.

The old show WAS better.