Amph Resonanting Worlds: A Discussion of Fan Films [Embed Heavy]

Fan Films have populated the web for nearly two decades- the influence of our own forum's parent site, TF.N, pretty much being born out of the explosion in interest over the fan film TROOPS early on. As digital filmmaking capabilities increased over the years, the quality of these productions have jumped exponentially (particularly in the last decade or so) and even attracted professional involvement or officially endorsed competitions based around them.

The intent of this thread is to discuss the more prominent and impressive works within a general film/entertainment context (especially since many tend to favor superhero or sci-fi subject matter that lays at the core of our forum). This thread is not about sharing or developing fan film production techniques, tutorials or other resources. We have an entire forum dedicated to that. It is also not the place for promoting your own fan film(s).

As a loose rule, since this thread will be embed heavy, I'd ask people to try to not link to more than 3 videos at a time. It'll make it easier for discussion to remain more focused and not become a share-a-thon.

That said, I'm only breaking that rule for this opening post to get a decent initial offering out there to kick-start things and get some of the obvious ones out of the way.

Some of the more notable ones in recent years include Adi Shankar's "Bootleg Universe", which includes several shorts, some of the more famous ones being:

"Dirty Laundry" (The Punisher)


"Power/Rangers"


"Truth in Journalism" (Venom)


Other fan films highlights beyond Shankar's work include:

Star Trek: Prelude to Axanar


"Batman: Dead End"


"TIE Fighter"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_CP4SuoTU

"TROOPS"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvswNDAAZCU

And some web series have basically made fan film-like concepts their bread and butter, such as Super Power Beat Down:

"Batman vs. Darth Vader"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6saLrn3UY

"Batman vs Darth Vader (Alternate Ending)"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3tC8TPh9oQ


That selection provides examples that represent some of the more interesting fan film discussions. TROOPS was at the genesis of the fan film explosion of the late 90's (which led a certain future-mod to sign up for the Jedi Council forums in the first place back in '99) and is probably one of the few to get a limited physical distribution (through a DVD-themed magazine; though they had to change the theme song for copyright purposes).

Dirty Laundry surprised everyone by it's nature when it first screened (though i don't believe the video is online anymore, a bootleg of the premiere with the wild crowd reaction at the reveal of the skull logo was one of my favorite things) and gives us what is probably the most pure version of Thomas Jane's Punisher (which I was a big fan of to begin with) and gives us a glimpse of what might-have-been had War Zone not screwed the pooch seven ways to Sunday.

And while Dirty Laundry may have given us an extension to a superhero, Dead End effectively gave us a bit of a preview of a superhero down the road, with the back-to-basics suit and other concepts sharing sources of inspiration with the eventual Batfleck designs (come to think of it- both are shown fighting aliens too, ha!).

Both Axanar and Power/Rangers highlight the times when a fan film can run up against the copyright holders due to forthcoming productions and other issues (such as fundraising, etc). While the latter seemed to work everything out after fan pressure, the former resulted in a drawn-out lawsuit that has seemingly altered the Trek fan film landscape permanently.

 

P/R was interesting in that it took a cyberpunk angle to the world, as well as making the Green Ranger's gold armor an energy shield which made more sense (if only from a movement standpoint).