I Love YouTube: Fan Films & Trailers

As a life-long nerd and lover of movie trailers I pretty much grew up fantasizing about going to the theatre to watch trailers for film adaptations of my favourite comic books and saturday morning cartoons. But really, what Hollywood executive in their right mind would approve a movie version of the Green Lantern, or Alvin and the Chipmunks, am I right?

I sure was a dreamer back in those days, and for years I even played around with an idea for an epic Inspector Gadget movie that would have blown your mind (without giving away too much, Penny starts her own P.I. business, Brain dies in the line of fire and Chief Quimby is revealed to have been Dr. Claw all along. Riveting stuff). I planned on pitching my idea to the president of Hollywood but they beat me to it and instead made a crappy and completely forgettable Inspector Gadget film that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies. Ah well, what can you do, right?

Well apparently you and your ugliest friends can grab a camera and some light-sabres and make the craziest possible nerd-soaked fan films and trailers in existence, Hollywood be damned. Thanks to YouTube, you might even find an audience outside your uncaring immediate family:

 

STAR WARS UNIVERSE
Oh look, out of the billions of Star Wars fan films on YouTube, I literally found the absolute best and the absolute worst:

Would you just check out these special effects? That one shot of the evil dude swinging around his sabre on it's OWN is the best Star Wars fan-film moment on the entire internet.

 

This one, on the other hand, should be subtitled, 'Me and My Four Friends Bought Stormtrooper Costumes'. As far as trailers go, the 'movie' this one is promoting looks pretty fucking boring.

 

 

THUNDERCATS, HOOOO!

 

Too cool... A ThunderCats fan trailer that actually stars Brad Pitt, Vin Deisel and Garfield. Really great idea, and the execution ain't half bad.

 

 

THE LEGEND OF ZEL-DON'T

I used to think that the Zelda games were not only fun to play, but actually pretty cool. I may need to revise that last part.

 

 

BATMAN: JUST AS DUMB AS SOME OF THE COMICS

Batman: Dead End is, in a lot of ways, the great-granddaddy of nerdy online fan films. Made by an actual film industry professional and guest starring the late Andrew Koenig as the Joker, it was released before Batman Begins ever came out, and got us hardcore Batman fans foaming at the mouth because it actually looks and feels exactly like the Batman movie of our dreams. But then a bunch of Predators and Aliens show up at the end to remind everybody that hardcore batman fans are huge, shameful nerds.

 

 

It DID however, inspire a bunch of other high-production-value fanfilms that aren't so bad! Here's a fake trailer for a Batman film that I would totally go see.

 

 

I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOST

The cheesy home-grown effects and the community-theatre vibe notwithstanding, this Ghostbusters 3 trailer actually makes me think that there's a pretty cool story here.