Fan film: "Green Goblin's Last Stand"

Hi all, for this edition I wanted to share something a little different and focus on one of my inspirations for producing my super heroine stories. The fan film I'm talking about is a spiderman film called "The Green Goblin's Last Stand". What made this production so special is what was to be made in such a small to non-existent budget  (only $400) but with a ton of passion.

This was created by Dan Poole in 1992, before the first Spider-man movie in the early 2000's.
The was his passion project since he was a huge Spiderman fan and he saw this as an opportunity to get into the film-production business as an actor/stunt-man. In fact in this fan-film he plays as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and he did all of his own stunts. The highlight os this video is seeing him doing the crazy but awesome stunts from swinging from buildings on  rope to diving into boxes and debris. The prop-making is also very interesting and creative. The storyline is based on the classic "Death of Gwen Stacy" storyline that pits Spiderman against his most dangerous arch-nemesis, Green Goblin in their most famous battle. Based on the budget constraints and location limitations, Dan Poole had to modify the storyline to be able to shoot and it works out great.

It's also cool to see how he used the environment and self-made props in this. It did give me a couple of ideas for my own productions. It should be noted that this was made in the early 1990's before Hi-definition cameras and the lighting is poor and the acting is a bit cheesy, campy and over the top but this kinda added to the charm of this video. It should also be known that this was one of the first fan-films to truly become one of the most popular in the fan-film genre and should be considered a  must see. it is incredible to see how far amateur film-making has come along since then. But something this has that others lack is that this has a lot of heart and there are a lot of tips that new, self-made film-makers can learn from.

I first this fan-film when I bought it at a comic book convention as a DVD back in 2004 and it has been one of my favorite DVD's of all time. It also had a documentary of the story behind the production and it was very enlightening and informative. Not only did I see the fan film but the hard work  and sacrifice that Dan Poole did and the "out of the box" thinking needed to create something special like this. As I've said the documentary was very helpful and I suggest anyone interested in film-making to check out the fan-film and documentary.

Today, you wouldn't be able to get the DVD anywhere since there are a lot copyright issues but fortunately both the film and documentary can be seen on Youtube. I suggest checking both out if you're a comic fan, aspiring film-maker and/or just a fan of fun stuff.

Movie review, "Athena: The Goddess Of War"

Hi folks, I finally got my DVD copy of “Athena: The Goddess of war” from Maiden Network. The Maiden Network is a new streaming channel that you could subscribe to like Netflix and Hulu. This channel focuses primarily on Heroine and female driven-action programs/shows which I think is great, especially for the superheroine genre. One of their first joint productions is a super-heroine film called “Athena: Goddess of war”. This character is very similar to wonder woman in her appearance, powers and greek mythology background.

In this story it appears that her enemy is Persephone, another Goddess that is bent on taking over the world and it is up to Athena to stop her. It is mostly set up in a small town and Athena is assisted by a few citizens and government agents. The production is pretty good for a small budget film like this and the special effects are pretty good, it’s pretty apparent that it was done by After Effects which can be brought for your home computer but still looks pretty good. The major negative that I have for this film is in the acting. Most of the main characters seems stiff and or lifeless, especially the villainess. The villainess character is very powerful and usually has the upper-hand over the heroine Athena but
unfortunately, we don’t feel that from the actress.

The storyline itself is pretty simple but effective and the heroine goes through a lot of challenges and is defeated a few times and is often in peril which I think is great as it shows the heroine powerful but also very vulnerable and the final fight scene between Athena and cyber warrior was pretty cool as the monster gains the upper hand in the fight. Another aspect that I found pretty cool is the reverse damsel in distress plot. Usually the male hero’s love interest is the one in danger and must be saved or motivate the hero but in this case it was good to see the roles reversed with Athena’s love interest in that role of the relationship.

I’d say give “Athena: The Goddess of war” a view if you’re a fan of the super heroine genre. It was done on a smaller scale compared to more high budget/main stream productions and I feel that is what is the film’s biggest strength. I could also see that the director/producer has a real love for the character and genre as it shows in this film.  It also gives me more motivation to do a bigger movie production on one of my main characters. It’s also worth checking out Maiden Network. It’s in the early stages as a new network but can develop into a premier site for fans of the superheroine/heroine genre.

A Great Villainess, Diana from "V"

There are a few series that I could watch over and over again at anytime and have the same amount of enjoyment. One of these is the original "V" series from the Eighties and I'm including both miniseries and the 1st and only season of the show. This series is a lot of fun to watch, the mini-series were a bit deeper and thought provoking while the TV show had it's fair share of exciting stories and unpredictability.  There were a lot of twists in story lines and over the top characters  despite it limited budget and dated special effects by today's standards. A brief description of this series is that aliens arrive on Earth posing as friendly human looking explorers in need of our help but in reality they are actually a reptilian, war-like race that wants to steal our natural resources and sees humans as food. Soon, their true colors show and they try to conquer the world with their superior technology and all that stands in their way is a small rebellion of humans and a few compassionate aliens.

That storyline alone is pretty cool but what makes this show memorable and a joy to watch is  the main villain of the series...Diana. This character is so evil, vicious, sinister and over the top comic style bad guy that she practically steals every scene she is in. She has a lot of unique traits, One of which is that she  enjoys eating mice and other mammals...including humans. One of the most iconic scenes is when we get a glimpse of the true nature of the visitors (nickname for the aliens) when she eats a live hamster and as you can see in the picture above, under the fake skin is her true reptilian self.

This character is so conniving, not even her own allies or crew are safe from her aspirations for power. She kills her commanding officers if they get in her way and schemes to get rid of anyone that she doesn't like or possibly poses a threat to her power and that's with her own alien kind. For humans, her wrath is much worse. Besides simply eating us, she is also a scientist and revels in experimenting on humans. She dissects people physically and mentally. She takes great pleasure in mentally breaking her prisoners and turning them against their friends as sleeper agents. She usually lets others and subordinates do the dirty work for her but is not above shooting the enemy herself even if its to their back. Only on rare occasions does she willingly fight in hand to hand combat but when she does she is quite formidable. It should also be noted that due to her alien background, she does have some attributes that gives her something of a super-human abilities (by human standards). For example, she could spit acid that could blind or even paralyze her foes. She is also bullet resistant, I'm not sure if it's from the armor of her clothing or her skin but she has been shot by regular guns without being severely harmed.

One of the main things that makes this character so iconic and memorable is the actress that played her, Jane Badler. She captures the perfect villainess qualities and is so good, I can't imagine Diana being played by anyone else. Even when we had the new 2009 "V" series, the main baddie is Ana (inspired by Diana) was nowhere near as devious as the original which I think hurt that newer series. I believe even the producers knew then needed something to give that show a real shot in the arm and they brought in Jane Badler to re-introduce Diana. It was not the same Diana from the Eighties series but she had some of the same qualities. Unfortunately it would be a little too late and the show was canceled. I believed if they let Diana be Diana earlier in the series, it would have bought in more viewers and be much more fun t watch. As for my own productions, I've tried to think of a villainess as awesome as her and the closest I've gotten is Devla. I'm still going to try and create a closer character to this awesome villainess.

As I'm writing this blog post, I am watching the series on DVD. The SyFy channel used to play these as marathons but unfortunately haven't done it in awhile and it's not on Netflix nor Hulu at this time so the best way I'd say to see her and this great series is to get the full DVD series on Amazon.com.