I sense a great disturbance in the Force: I haven’t seen an outcry from Star Wars fans this huge since Greedo shot first. Coming from The Weinstein Company is a quirky-but-entertaining sounding little film called Fanboys, which is about a group of Star Wars fans who, in 1998, sneak into the Skywalker Ranch in order to steal a copy of The Phantom Menace before its release to fulfill the dying wish of their cancer-stricken friend. Apparently, someone at the studio (possibly Harvey Weinstein himself) thought the cancer subplot was too much of a downer, and the film was reedited by Steve Brill, the director of Little Nicky and Without A Paddle. Now, the nerds (who include Veronica Mars herself, Kristen Bell, who wore a very cute outfit including a Chewbacca t-shirt and Chuck Taylors while talking about the film at the Star Wars Celebration last year) are just stealing the film because they’re Star Wars nerds! Those wacky nerds’ll do anything! One source claims that the new version tested two points better than the old version, and then a new new version was made featuring more swears, boobs, and all that wacky R-rated comedy stuff, which tested two points higher than the old new version- although some of the audience members may have been plants. The only trailer officially released makes it seem like the studio is going for the wackyness- although there is an amusing cameo.
Anyway, a number of people who saw the original cut in preview test screenings are outraged. They thought that the original version of the film had a touching feel to it, showing that Star Wars fans actually care for each other as much as they do their beloved franchise. They feel that this new version of the film just stereotypes them as “wacky nerds who will do anything to get info on the thing they’re overly obsessed about.” They’ve set up a whole campaign to get “Darth Weinstein” and “Grand Moff Brillohead” to release the original version or else boycott all of the studio’s films.
I’m not really sure what my opinion on this is- the overt Star Wars analogy they use on the site (they’re the rebellion, Weinstein is Darth Vader, etc.) seems to me to reinforce the negative stereotypes they think the new version of the film will. But this does seem to me an example of the usual art-vs.-commerce war of Hollywood.
Here’s another article, another another article, a cartoon, and this semi-related video which actually doesn’t relate, but I can’t publicize enough.