A Former TheForce.net Staffer Tells All

[Ternian]

Just got this via email by "M.H."

For maxium impact and coverage it's being posted in the EIII forum for the time being.

Most of us here are either members of TheForce.net or were "a long time ago". The staff at TFN are huge fans of MF and lurk here constantly (as does LucasFilm). There is a thread on "Reservation" forum about darthy, DP's old posts, and this cat "Chris Knight".

Long story short Christ Knight gained a little noriety by proposing to his fiance via TheForce.net frontpage which some of the rabid anti-TFN'ers ridiculed. You would be suprised to learn I'm not anti-TFN and could give damn about them. At the time of the TFN marriage proposal I made some remarks along the lines of him looking a bit like Casey Kasem and said something to the effect of "keep reaching for the stars" lol or something. Still others commented on his old dirty sneakers. It was just a dude with a lightsaber proposting to his girlfriend on the internet, no big deal, and everyone moved on.

Anyway, Mr Knight here decided to post on his blog about his tenure at TFN. Sorta long for you ADD kids.

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2005/06/forcery-theforcenet-filmmaking-and.html

[Ayatollah Krispies]

Heck, we got what some might consider to be the ULTIMATE nod of approval when "Weird Al" Yankovic said that we'd done a great job with our very first movie!

Every so often I realize how very little I have in common with the "true" Star Wars fan.

[Nightmare721]

"The entire affair was cruel and, in all brutal honesty it was very un-Christlike."

Worst of all, it was unChristlike. Yeah. Clearly that was the problem right there.

[royalguard96]

Yoda farts?

[darthpsychotic]

Another TFN staffer went out like this also: "Carter". Carter was apparently getting free internet courtesy of TFN. Whatever went down between Carter and the other TFN'ers must have been big to burn bridges with a gig that provides free internet... and DVDs.

This whole site FYI was built upon burned bridges between us with Episode-X and T-Bone.

[Nightmare721]

You know, I really don't know the history of all these sites, nor the strange right-wing fixation TFN has. It might be a story worth telling sometime - if you weren't sick of telling it already.

So much drama!

[Ayatollah Krispies]

I won't say I never frequented TFN, but it was so long ago that I genuinely don't remember. It was definitely before the OS forums opened up, so it was before they became the bloated webpresence that they are now.

The impression I got from talking to TFN regulars on the OS forums is exactly what Knight describes -- a bunch of shitheads who thought that being superfans of the most popular motion picture series ever made somehow made them unique. If you want to show that you have distinctive taste, you do so with a fine rare wine, not Miller Lite. Not that there's anything wrong with Miller Lite, per se, it's just that no one standing in line to vomit at a keg party ever tries to act like their puke smells better because they drank the original Miller Lite.

[BrotherTheFirst]

I never thought of us being a mini-corporate empire only existing because of a vast legitimate one.

i liked this.

[darthpsychotic]

There is a real life drama in the fanfilms side of TFN. Real life physical threats and perhaps restraining orders.

My theory is that someone spends countless manhours on a film project and gets passed over by what one perceives as a lesser film due to favoritism, the disgruntled filmmaker gets postal

The fanfilmmakers stakeout their turf and stalk their competition. It's like Bloods versus Cripps with some of these folk. Not unlike the spoiler site wars.

[netsolo]

Considering most of the pure shit that's hosted on TFN's fan film area, I find it funny that they "pass" on anything in the first place. Are there really a team of studio executives and vice presidents staffing TFN?

[KneelbfZod]

Two words for that dude at TFN...

go outside

[NoCloneTheories]

There is nothing I enjoy more than nerd-on-nerd bickering.

For those who aren't as lame as me who will read the thing, here is all you need to know:

- A dude made a Star Wars fan film "inspired" by Wierd Al.

- Said film was submitted for hosting in TFN's fan films section and was rejected.

- Rather than a standard rejection letter, the dude recieved a point-by-point "review" of why his film sucked from TFN.

- The dude is now pissed because he sees TFN as being staffed by people who consider themselves the best kind of Star Wars fans.

- He then explains why they are wrong to do that while simultaneously implying that he is the best kind of Star Wars fan.

- He was against Josh Griffin's promoting of the Star Wars kid on TFN because he felt it was cruel, a sentiment which I happen to agree with. (Not that we shouldn't be able to download it and laugh at the fat fuck once it hits the internet, but promoting the shit on MSNBC to pimp TFN? That's fucked up to do to a fellow Star Wars nerd, Griffin.)

That's it. How it took him ninety pages to sum that up is beyond me.

But clearly, no matter how justified his gripes are, this douchebag is the victim of overzealous parental encouragement.

It's time for this fuckcharlie to stop caring so much about Star Wars, not to mention being butt-hurt by being rejected by a bunch of forty year old hog stranglers at TFN.

[stan Marsh]

it's fucked up to take a picture with weird al and weird al isn't the bigger dork in the picture

I actually read alot of this and the dude is really kind of right about tf.n but who gives a shit. homeboy needs to get over it.

[BrotherTheFirst]

this douchebag is the victim of overzealous parental encouragement.

i understand why this guy is pissed though. hell, some people here go into a defcon4 frenzied shitattack just because a post of theirs which took all of 30sec. to type is deleted.

[Fantana]

I made the mistake of actually downloading and watching the first 5 minutes of this piece of douchebaggery... Oh Holy Shit this is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen.

I normally don't swear all over my posts, but this fucking movie... oh man. I don't know what the quality of the movies over at TF.N are, but I gaurentee that they are all better than this bag of ass... And it annoys me so much because he says in this article that his movie is better than most of the movies there, and I wasted my time reading the whole thing and believing him. If this came across my desk, I'd rip it the fuck apart too.

Avoid this turd at all costs...

[swjkie100]

If the guy truly feels his fan movie is the shit, then he should stop whining about tfn and get enough nutsack to get over it. Who the hell cares how much his creation sucks ass, just the fact he did something speaks volumes.

[hypertext]

It's 11 pm here on the west coast, my lights are turned off and I had all the intention of reading the awefully long story. But with the black background and white letters I couldn't do it, the letters started turning blue on me, freakin weird.

[giftoflight]

Sounds like a guy who can't deal with rejection very well. I hope he never plans on getting into serious film-making! If he can't handle it from a fucking star wars site, he won't last 5 minutes in the real world! He needs to go get some counselling or something...

Máire

[Swedish Chef]

To me this just reinforces the trouble with the fan community and their unwillingness to join together on anything.

Since we won't be having any new starwars stuff for a while, I was hoping that the fans would embrace each other and not be so devisive. Guess not.

Anyway, fuck TFN. I know this guy sounds like a whiny ass, and he is. But TFN has made themselves famous for this kind of internet squabbling. They have truly become the 800 pound gorilla of internet sites.

[King of Comedy]

This guy must have been really tortured about the whole thing to have been willing to spend hours typing that stuff up, stuff that NoCloneTheories managed to sum up in a couple of lines. The whole thing just seems like a warning about how you can get too much into the realm of SW fandom. Makes me glad I'm only a casual admirer of the films.

[Guru]

Why would anyone want to watch 54 minutes of a "fan film" anyway? Thats like watching poorly acted paint dry.

[Dingo]

Only going to say 3 things about the blog post:

1) Hypocracy is oh so wonderful

2) Funny how he seems to be the only TFN staff member with some moral fibre. He and I must have known a completely different set of TFN staff for the last 4-5 years.

3) Why is it that these "bridge-burning" stuff (in relation to a lot of SW sites, not just TFN) seems to appear only after the fact for the most part when it seems to be able to provide some net 'publicity'? There are various stories over the years from people of all manners, but some of the stories only seem to appear as someone is trying to hype something at the same time.

There is a real life drama in the fanfilms side of TFN. Real life physical threats and perhaps restraining orders.

My theory is that someone spends countless manhours on a film project and gets passed over by what one perceives as a lesser film due to favoritism, the disgruntled filmmaker gets postal

The fanfilmmakers stakeout their turf and stalk their competition. It's like Bloods versus Cripps with some of these folk. Not unlike the spoiler site wars.

No, the fan films group are actually about 10 times worse than the spoiler scene ever got. Some seriously fucked up shit has occurred IRL as you've alluded to and a lot more.

[Nightmare721]

It's interesting, Knight's selective outrage. Sure, he was angry when JG and TFN were cruel and unprofessional, but he did little about it. It was only until his movie got rejected that he finally snapped. It wasn't hurting that pathetic little kid or the childish Internet wars or the decline in tone, it was his precious movie. That says a whole lot.

[Magnus]

wow


that was kinda depressing actually....

[taramasalata]

Wow - he went from angry to vengeful to batshit crazy all in the space of ten minutes worth of reading. I feel like I'm studying F. Scott Fitzgerald all over again.

[irie1972]

i'm sorry i may have ADD or whatever, but i can't read some star wars fan film drama episode. i tried to read a little, but just for kicks i scrolled down to see how long this dribble was and my fucking jaw dropped. this guy basically says he's fucking jesus and is the nicest guy in the world to everyone etc and just because TFN wouldn't host his shitty garage video he writes a fucking novel about how he was "betrayed"? LOL. seriously. LOL.

'nuff said, brougham; summed it up rather nicely. Back to lurking.

[Imperial Force]

I used to go to TFN. But then I found this place!

[ewingsquadron]

I used to be really active over at TFN Fan Film forums, at least back when Digital Llama Radio was popular, and Duality was the coolest thing anyone had ever seen.

It was a great place to get feedback especially if you were a beginner at visual effects and filmmaking. But now, there's really a huge divide in the fan films that are being made. There's either the "home movie" in your garage type of fan film, or the $30,000 fan film. And yes, the drama over in Fan Films was a lot worse than anything the spoiler community has seen. Think about it: This is personal work that's on the line, and people would easily become targets because of their films.

Oh well, thankfully I've moved beyond wanting to make a Star Wars fan film, and instead focusing on my film classes and developing original stories.

BTW doEs any1 knoW when Prelude 2 hope is coMing out?!???

[Mike_Droideka]

I have never been able to understand why people want to make SW fan-films.
I mean, I love Star Wars just as much as the next fan, but if I had the shit to make a fucking film,
I would concentrate on my own ideas, not somebody elses.
Star Wars should inspire others to make films, but not to make Star Wars films themselves; leave that stuff to LFL...

[NoCloneTheories]

Yeah the whole fan film thing is I think cool in some ways, becuse I do think it would be a fun thing to have done when all is said and done.

But as most of you who are filmmakers know, getting money together to make an indie film is hard enough without committing to do something in which you can't (or at least are not supposed to) make any money back, or really give your career any advance beyond perhaps doing work for your effects reel. (And if you're doing that, you don't really need the film surrounding it.)

I read about $30,000 fan films, and my jaw drops. And no offense to those who mmake such films, but thirty grand? Even the worst amateur script about an original idea is better to spend your money on than doing a dimestore version of the kind of movie that costs a lot of money for a reason.

Sometimes the fan film route has led to people getting their foot in the door, which I think is what leads people to continue to want to take that route. But a far more direct route is to make something original.

[SkyWard]

If it was me, I think I would be more offended at getting a standard rejection letter than an honest critique.

He got lucky, if you ask me.

[Shinryuu]

I have never been able to understand why people want to make SW fan-films.
I mean, I love Star Wars just as much as the next fan, but if I had the shit to make a fucking film,
I would concentrate on my own ideas, not somebody elses.

Couldn't agree more.

[AgentPendergast]

I haven't looked at that page yet, and I doubt I will, since the comments here seem to state that it's all just a whine show over something as ridiculously worthless and meaningless as a "fan video"... Is it? Jesus.

[VT-16]

I only like fanfilms when they are really good, like Troops and it´s on-going sequal/spin-off I.M.P.S..

[cassandracain]

What's worse, that this cat spent all this time typing this crap up, or that I fucking read it?

[DarkSeer]

I have never been able to understand why people want to make SW fan-films.
I mean, I love Star Wars just as much as the next fan, but if I had the shit to make a fucking film,
I would concentrate on my own ideas, not somebody elses.

Couldn't agree more.

While I agree with the sentiment, I can understand why they would want too. Think about, a lot of these guys- given a budget and a real crew-- could do some hot-shit. Problem is at 16/17/18 they're not oging to get a budget or a crew and they know it. And they know it's a whole lto easier to drum up the scratch, actors and production help for a fanflick than a indie flick. Besides, it give them some practice in working with zero/low budget and having to do more than one thing at once, so it's worth in, I suppose, for the experience.

Now some of these dumb-fucks should be banned from ever touching even a still camera ever again, including the special breed of stupid that made Forcery. Christ, whoever told him this was good production should be kicked in the nuts. I'm all for encouraging people, but some people should just be medicated and sat in a corner.

[The_Somnambulist]

I would concentrate on my own ideas, not somebody elses.

The understatement of the history of mankind.

I enjoy the Star Wars films and am a filmmaker myself, but I've never been able to even loosely toy with the idea of making anything from Star Wars. This is a sort of fanatacism that must be tempered by greater parental/guardian supervision.

[Fantana]

fantana-cism?

[The_Somnambulist]

No, my spelling is correct.

[stan Marsh]

fantana-cism?

Wanna Fanta

[DarkSeer]

fantana-cism?

Wanna Fanta

Wanna to smack the peon the started that ad campaign.


Anyway...

My problem lies not with the fanfilm itself-- hey if they do it as a hobby. But some of these production ~woof~ They runa online PR campaign that whores their 5 minute fanwank more than a hooker at fleetweek. Some of these guys could be great, and will be. Some of them are basicing in the fickle glory of being a fanceleb for all of a month till some other 16 year old with a camcorder and his daddy's credit card pops up.

[Fantana]

actually, i came up with that campaign, so lets make that clear. secondly, like i said before the only problem I really had with this guy is that he said his movie was better than most of them at TF.N. Since that post, I've seen a few, and I liked them enough. They weren't really that good, but they were much better than his film.

Hell, I hated Revelations, but it was so much better than this movie, and I know thats a tough comparison to make because Revelations had alot of backing and graphics behind it, but thats a movie alot of people know, and having read this thread I'd like to warn people not to waste their time.

Personally, I am not too big a fan of the EU, and I hate fan films, but I'd rather read the books than watch this shit any longer. If Revelations was as bad as it was with all the backing and hype, than I am done with fan films from here on out.

[steps off soapbox]

[The_Somnambulist]

Just so we know what kinds of disturbing fan-produced imagery we're talking about in here:



All you curious fellows! All you seekers of the weird, bizarre and unnatural! Step roiiiight up and witness one of the most mysterious and terrifying creatures of God's whimsy! It astounds the sensibilities of the gentile and is the wretched stuff of nightmares for the wee ones! Step roiiiiight up and take a gander! Test your courage against these grand perversions of our world!

http://img11.echo.cx/my.php?image=untitled9by.jpg

[Fantana]

I think I just found a new avatar

[BrotherTheFirst]

every once in awhile TFN holds lightsaber choreography contests which are interesting & entertaining but the drive to do a fan film still eludes me.

[yarq]

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[yarq]

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