Fandoms truly are the foundation for the success of any project, but sometimes when the public is disappointed it’s time to take things into the fandom’s hands.
Despite its immense success Star Wars has presented characters with huge potential but then did injustice to the character and the public. Without back stories or even proper deaths, some fan favorite characters just appear on screen with a potentially good arc, but then is quickly written off. In the earlier “prequels” depicting the history of Anakin Skywalker who becomes Darth Vader, the public was introduced to Sith villain Darth Maul. The formidable Nightbrother was trained by Darth Sidious and presented himself as a menacing villain before the time of Vader. Posing as a great threat to Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, the Sith Lord was seen as the official poster boy for the dark side for the films. But then the character was killed off in a meaningless manner and quite early in the story, completely eliminating the building potential of the Dathomirian’s villainous nature. So what’s to be done when your favorite baddie is done off in a horrible way? Create your own film.
YouTube production team T7 recently released what’s being deemed as the “best Star Wars fan film made”. Created by German filmmaker Shawn Bu, along with an impressive crew, wrote, directed, and edited the fan film Darth Maul: Apprentice- A Star Wars Fan-Film and posted it on YouTube for other fans. The film is 18 minutes long but does more justice to the Sith than the Hollywood level feature length films. The T7 Production team took about two years to create the film that features grand special effects such as space flight, forest drones, and epic lightsaber battles. Vi-Dan Tran joined the team to work on the impressive fight choreography and the main character is played by Ben Schamma while being voiced by Peter Serafinowicz. The story is completely original and not based on any comics or previous storylines, but depicts the journey Maul went through to become a Sith Lord. The team has released two videos, one being the film itself and one being a behind the scenes video that shows the making of the insane fan film.
This goes to show that if something doesn’t sit right with a fan, even if it’s 17 years past the release date, film justice can be taken into the public’s hands.
