CON: Fanboys

Excuse me while I name drop. In the two days I’ve been at The Con I’ve chased George Romero down on the street, watched The Arrow arm wrestle Ken Foree
twice, shook hands with James Wan, had drinks next to Jessica Alba and Dane Cook, kind of bothered Robert Englund, and stole a cab from Thomas Jane. None of that, however, was as fun as the FANBOYS panel I covered this afternoon.

Sitting in a room filled with the purest of STAR WARS fans, I was treated to five gut-busting clips and a panel full of proud stars presenting a film filled with the love and dedication that makes The Comic Con so special among fanatics. The very charismatic director,
Kyle Newman, stood between stars, Kristen Bell, Dan Fogler, Sam
Huntington and Chris Marquette as he pumped out fantastic scene after scene of brilliant Trilogy references that met deafening laughter and applause. There was and Ewok humping Fogler, Bell imbedding her message of hope into R2-D2, a pimped-out van hitting light-speed, Stormtroopers, Vader, Yoda, incest debates, and Ray “Darth Maul” Park showing off some martial arts moves that would make Chuck Norris proud.

The film, set in 1998, centers around five friends that decide to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a copy of THE PHANTOM MENACE for an advanced screening since one of them is terminally ill and isn’t expected to live to see the premiere. The footage played right into the hands of the eager crowd who more than appreciated not only the STAR WARS parody but WILLOW, INDIANA JONES, and some timely music from RUSH. I couldn’t help but fall in love with everything I witnessed. Any fan of the original trilogy will travel back to a time before PHANTOM that brought anticipation and true giddiness with the news of more tales in a galaxy far, far away. And there’s more…

– The first film to ever get permission to shoot at Skywalker Ranch.

– LucasFilms was very supportive, obvious with their free pass to use any and all characters throughout the footage. They even have Lucas’ voice (he hasn’t even seen it yet) ready for use and hope to still somehow get him in the final cut.

– Newman hopes he’s made an adult version of THE
GOONIES.

– The film has already screened to it’s dream audience at Europe’s Star Wars Celebration with positive feedback.

– In an effort to bond the cast, Newman took them all weapon shopping at a flea market in Albuquerque and held battles in their trailers with pellet guns and Ninja
stars.

– Kristen Bell showed up late and surprised everyone by crawling up to her seat and popping up 10 minutes in. She still got the biggest cheers and the token questions about ‘Veronica Mars’.

– Bell (a huge Red Wings fan by the way) sports the famous Princess Leia bikini in the film but paid the price by shooting in five degree weather while it was snowing. She said it was worth it to get people in the seats.

– Cameos have been shot with Carrie Fisher, Billy Dee Williams, William Shatner, and Kevin Smith who wrote his own lines and threatened their rating by doing so.

– Additional scenes are still set to shoot highlighted by a contest at Fanboyscontest.com which allows the winner to appear in one of the upcoming shoots.

– A sequel has already been seriously discussed and the opening scene has already been shot taking place immediately after the group attends the screening of THE PHANTOM MENACE. Word is they didn’t like it. Who did?