Fanboys

Non-anime/manga-related TV, movies, books, and comics, especially but not limited to pre-2000 titles
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greg
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Fanboys

Post by greg »

Tonight I watched Fanboys, which is a road trip movie for Star Wars nerds. This movie came out in '08, and I never watched it until tonight. I bought the DVD last year from Amazon and finally watched it. I loved it! Set in 1998, the story is about four Star Wars loving fans who travel from Ohio to California to steal a work print of Star Wars: Episode 1 because one of them has a terminal cancer and will die before May of '99. This movie is full of nostalgia, and it took me back to that magical time of excitement when it was okay to be a die hard SW fan, back when the only big letdown was Greedo shooting first, before the crappy prequels came out. It turned out that any of our imaginations would have been better than how the prequels ended up being, but back then, our expectations were high and we just couldn't wait for a new Star Wars movie.

Billie Dee Williams, Carrie Fisher, and even Bill Shatner make cameo appearances in this movie. The movie goes into the whole Star Trek/Star Wars fan rivalry, and touches on other great stuff like G.I. Joe, Thundercats, X-Men, Back To The Future, and other great stuff. (There was a great scene referencing The Princess Bride, but that is only found in the deleted scenes section of the DVD.) I won't spoil it, but the funniest part of the movie was the very last line spoken right before the credits rolled.
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usamimi
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Re: Fanboys

Post by usamimi »

I've always meant to watch that movie, it looked really fun. Good to know it's worth a watch!
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Animusubi
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Re: Fanboys

Post by Animusubi »

I think I've watched Fanboys at least 10 times. :lol: Absolutely love that movie!
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Re: Fanboys

Post by usamimi »

Ok so thanks to this thread I finally got around to watching this yesterday. I loved it! It was really cute and funny. The ending was especially amusing to me. XD
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greg
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Re: Fanboys

Post by greg »

Yeah, the best part was the very last line spoken!

Like many other die-hard Star Wars fans, I tried to convince myself that I liked the prequels. Before Episode 1 came out, I knew about Jar Jar and I knew how annoyingly grating he would be. Once I saw the trailers, I realized how stupid he would be. So, I was braced for impact. What I did not expect was to have the foundation of what we all loved about Star Wars to be completely shattered. We all figured that the Jedi were these noble guardians of justice, but they were reduced to a bunch of boring, celibate, inept child abductors. We all knew that the Force was a mystical, magical thing, as eloquently described by Yoda and the philosophy behind it. But then the Force was reduced to some stupid mitochondria inside our bloodstream, and the more you have in your blood, the stronger you are. We all expected Anakin Skywalker to be a tragic character, a noble Jedi who falls from grace because he succumbs to the temptation to use evil for the sake of good. But instead we got a sniveling brat who was a dangerous, rotten brat from the get-go. We also expected the main character to be Ben Kenobi, but it turns out that Epsiode 1 really didn't even have a main character.

There is a really great documentary called The People vs. George Lucas which is both an indictment and an ode of love for George Lucas. I bought that on DVD when it came out in October 2011 and watched it with some friends.

For a hilarious and very intelligent analysis of the prequels, I highly recomment watching the reviews on redlettermedia.com. Start with the Episode 1 review here. The reviews are done by the Mr. Plinkett character, and they are a bit distracting with the serial murderer tangents. The reason behind that is that the character started out with reviews of all the Star Trek: TNG movies, and the character started out as a senile old man who killed his wife and ended up becoming a serial killer. Anyway, watching these reviews triggered all the negative reactions I had felt upon first watching the prequel movies. I tried surpressing these emotions for the sake of my love for Star Wars. These reviews are seldom nit-picky, and they directly show, step by step, what a disaster they were.
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