The Fanboys Mess Continues

John Campea 10 Comments

As a life long and die hard Star Wars fan, I was as excited as anyone to see Fanboys when the trailers first came out. But man, it feels like I saw the trailer 2 years ago and still we’re no closer to seeing this movie.

The idea was this: A group of friend decide to sneak into Skywalker Ranch and steal an early copy of “The Phantom Menace” so that they’re cancer striken friend can see it. It becomes a comedy/roadtrip/fan film sort of movie. Sounds great. Well… the Weinsteins then decided recently to edit the whole “cancer” part out of the movie and spent millions of dollar on re-shoots to work around it. All this, and there is STILL no release date. To complicate things even more, it appears they’re going to be offering 2 version of the movie on DVD. One with the cancer storyline, and one without. Huh?!?!

Our friends over at Cinematical give us this:

Now, fans (led, it must be said, by the 501st Stormtrooper Legion) have gone on the warpath. 30,000 e-mails have been sent to the production company, along with threats of a boycott of all Weinstein films, a picket line at Superhero Movie, and cries of “Darth Weinstein!” have forced the company’s hand — slightly. The Weinstein Co has agreed to release two versions of the film on DVD — the original, and the reshot version, and are pondering whether to release both in the theatre.

Ok, the first thing I should say is this: Boycotts of movies because the filmmakers or studios aren’t doing what some fans want is fucking stupid. You found out Paramount clubs baby seals to make their movies? Ok, that’s a good reason to Boycott. You want to organize a boycott for The Hobbit because Peter Jackson isn’t directing? Congratulations… you’re a retard.

Trying to tell a studio how to make a movie is ridiculous. Yeah they may make a ton of mistakes, but guess what, I’ll take their judgement over yours (or mine) any day (as far as the film making process goes).

For fucks sake, let them make their movie as they see fit, then decide if you like it or not. I’m willing to bet if you put the 501st in the producers chair it would turn out 40x worse. It’s great to have opinions and speculate and debate and even have thoughts on how a studio could have done the movie better…. but don’t cross the line into actually thinking you have a place to try to CONTROL what the studio does. That just ruins it for everyone.

About John Campea

View all posts by John Campea →

You may like these posts

  • http://HisDivineShadow HisDivineShadow

    Great article John.
    Lmao.

    I’m really only into seeing this film to see Kristen Bell and the interiors of Skywalkwer ranch.

  • nbakid2000

    @ Kurt

    Superhero Movie is NOT your typical Date/Epic/Meet the Spartans. The people behind it have a long established history of producing quality movies.

    It’s too bad no one ever mentions that fact and just blows it off as JUST another bad spoof movie.

  • BrDanzig

    I plan on seeing the original cut only. At least they are making it available. However John I must disagree wholeheartedly about one thing…clubbing baby seals is not a good reason to boycott a studio. That is awesome on so many levels. I would go so far as to say it is awesomely awesome. If a studio would pay anyone money to do it, I would gladly do it all day.

  • http://www.twitchfilm.net Kurt

    There is a thousand reasons to boycott Superhero movie. The editting of Fanboys is not one of them.

    If you like film in general, you should be boycotting Superhero Movie. These Spoofs are atrocious. Their McMovies and I wish they would all just go away for making people think that is what going to the movies is about.

    On the Fanboys edit. Well, in General, I really don’t like the Weisteins tinkering with films, I’ve never seen anything good come out of their meddling, retitling, etc. I still blame them for wrecking Martin Scorceses Gangs of New York with ‘forced edits’. It’s too bad we don’t have the directors cut for that one lying around…before Harvey Scissorhands went to town on it.

  • http://herostew.angelfire.com/ Hero Stew

    I talked to Kyle Newman about this on Feb 21st. He told me “I am the director of fanboys. And it is a film by Kyle Newman. Steve Brill did some uncredited work on the film too.” According to him, nothing is being done to this film without his consent.

  • http://www.myspace.com/cruelmessenger Darren J Seeley

    I’m split on this.

    On one hand, there’s Wienstien. When he ran Miramax/Dimension, as good as to some filmmakers they were, they were outright contreversial with others, such as Del Toro on Mimic and Kevin Smith as noted above. I also remember various films I had been looking forward to whem Miramax picked them up for distrbution and then shelving it until who knows when (Prozac Nation, anyone?)
    Yet, he and/or his brother have put thier name on some good films too. Lord Of The Rings for example (*I wonder if there might be some bad blood between Del Toro and the Wienstiens still, if the Wienstiens are connected to The Hobbit)

    But here’s the thing. I agree with John on this

    Why?

    Okay, first tinkering with a cut of the film that the test audiences/fan base responded to rather well is a dumb move. The whole cancer thing apparently was a big deal in the film. My understanding is that’s the reason the filmmakers wanted to do the film. I don’t entirely buy it, but if it is that important to the story? It’s a big mistake. It’s especially suspect when neither “cut” has been released and there’s a odd DVD double dip talk. Does that include full screen and widescreen editions? Does that exclude a filmmaker comentary where one would expect a bit of spew?

    I don’t get the whole mess on the Wienstiens part.
    Now

    like I said, I agree with Gio.

    To the fans of Fanboys and/or Star Wars in general:
    Boycotting the uneeded spoof film Superhero Movie isn’t going to help your cause. It is out of your hands and the situation is only in your hands IF the distributor announces a release and sticks to it. Then go to the film. If it goes right to DVD, which it sounds like it will, rent/buy the version YOU want.

    In case I need to make a longer story short, here’s how to speaketh to the Wienstiens:

    Money Talks, Bullshit walks.

    Don’t punish other filmmakers -even those behind stuff like Superhero- because “they” don’t have a stake in the “Fanboys” editing room.

    On a side note…..
    I…..I’m sorry. I have to ask this last question:
    Is the film in either cut good to begin with?

  • Dom Dunc

    I’m fairly happy with the way this turned out. Go and see the re-edit in the cinema and if it sucks, buy the original on DVD. I don’t see how anybody loses in this situation, the studio has their more mass-market version and the fans have their version.

    It just goes to show that the studios do listen to the fans on occasion.

  • http://community.livejournal.com/movie_trivia/ calviin

    The only reason I find this significant is because there have been calls for boycotts & petitions in the past that have been labeled as useless and a waste of time. This only proves that, regardless of whether or not they are a good idea, they are not predestined to fail.

  • nbakid2000

    I am actually OK with putting two versions of the film out - that’s what Mallrats did with the 10th Anniversary edition.

    John - I only half agree with you on the topic of telling the studio how to make the film - essentially, the only people who will see this movie are Star Wars fans (I think). Therefore, I think they SHOULD listen to fan reaction (ON THE CANCER STORYLINE) because those are the people who will pay the bills for the movie production. In fact, if I wasn’t so lazy, I’d write them a letter about it. HOWEVER. If anyone seriously believes they’re gonna boycott Weinstein films - it ain’t gonna happen.

    However, did you say a PICKET LINE AT SUPERHERO MOVIE??!?!?! That’s totally retarded.

  • http://www.twitchfilm.net Kurt

    Sounds like the behind the scenes shenanigans of MALLRATS. I wonder what Kevin Smith’s opinion of the whole thing is, he’s a Weinstien studio-man (Mallrats happened over at Grammercy/Universal), but also a big starwars nut.

    Yea, I’d be curious to his take on the whole mess…