So stop me if you’ve heard this one before… but a few friends get together and decide that they want to make a Zelda fan film. Okay, cool… we’ll see if Nintendo is cool with that. But then they decide, “Hey, we need money. Why don’t we start a kickstarter?” Um… yeah, okay. Good luck with that, son. I give it about two weeks before Nintendo shuts you down.
Sure enough, two weeks later… Nintendo laid down the hammer and those fans can no longer make their Zelda fan film.
Forgive me for coming across as a prude here and part of me feel sorry for these folks who had their hearts in making this thing. Hopefully, they can pivot towards something else and pursue that instead.
But how stupid do you have to be to announce that you’re making a fan film based on a property owned by a company who is known to be quite protective of its intellectual property, for better or worse, and then to ask people to SEND YOU MONEY to help make this film? As soon as I heard that they were making this thing and then started a Kickstarter, I gave it a couple weeks before it got the axe and sure enough…
I remember a time ages ago when Star Trek fan films were a dime a dozen, almost getting to the point where the actual actors were even taking part in these. And then something happened involving one particular fan film punching above its weight class (I don’t recall the name) and Paramount/CBS (or whoever owned the property at the time) laid down the hammer and that golden age of fan film came to a halt.
Look, I’ve got nothing against fan films. I’ve seen a few fan films, I’ve enjoyed a few fan films. There’s nothing wrong with a bunch of kids getting together, making a silly movie pretending they’re their favorite characters from that thing or whatever, and having a bunch of fun in the process. We’ve seen some quality stuff out there and not so quality stuff. But there comes a point in making your fan works where you reach a certain line that you probably shouldn’t cross if you don’t want to risk the ire of the people who own the IP. Asking people to send you money to make a movie based on a property that you don’t own the rights to is probably not a smart idea and I’m not just saying that because it’s Nintendo.
You wanna make a film? Come up with something original. You wanna make a fan film. Do it out of pocket and on your own free time… and don’t show it to anybody or sell it or put it on Youtube or anything like that. That way, nobody will sue you unless they go over to your house and raid your tape library or something like that.
Hold on, what was I talking about, again?
dtm666 