Showbits

After stumbling across the excellently-choreographed Ryan vs. Dorkman Star Wars fan films, I started watching for more from the dynamic duo of Ryan Wieber and Michael Scott. Hearing their interview on Geekza was cool, but I wanted to see more.

I found it when I subscribed to Scott's YouTube channel, as shortly thereafter, he posted this teaser trailer:

It's a live action adaptation of the Dark Horse comic book The Descendants, which doesn't seem to be a widely-distributed publication; the best source of information I've found about it is its MySpace page. We can gather more from watching the trailer, though.

First and most important, it features Ray Park, who deserves any role he wants after his enjoyable performances as the short-lived Darth Maul and the evil mutant Toad. Second, the trailer exhibits some great special effects, but something about their nature that I can't put my finger on suggests homebrew — like that of a high-quality fan film instead of a professional studio. Backing up that intuition is the fact that many other sites are reporting this venture is intended to be a Web series. But from co-director Scott himself comes the admission that its ultimate format is to be determined:

We're trying to get funding for the full project, but we don't know yet what form it will take. At this point in the negotiations with certain groups, it could become anything from a theatrical feature to a TV miniseries to a collection of webisodes posted right here on YouTube. It's up in the air at the moment.

So there remain many questions about this project, but based on the directors' portfolio and what I've seen of this latest collaboration, I hope the answers are positive. IMDb suggests we won't be seeing the fruits of their labor until 2009, which should be enough time to get The Descendants the green light it deserves.