A new fan film parodying Rian Johnson’s breakout film, Brick, as well as the reaction from parts of Star Wars fandom to Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has been getting a lot of positive attention lately, including from Johnson himself!
Titled Star Wars: Revenge of the Incels, the film was co-written by Dana James Jones and his uncle, Dominic Flores, and directed by Jones. It was written in response to two major events. One, Last Jedi star Kelly Marie Tran abandoning her social media accounts after constant harassment following the film’s release and two, a group of angry fans trying to raise money to do a remake of Last Jedi “fixing” the problems that they had with the film.
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Jones and his uncle saw the news and came up with the idea of parodying toxic Star Wars fandom by remaking Johnson’s first big film, Brick, instead!
Brick was an acclaimed independent film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a teenager trying to solve his ex-girlfriend’s murder. It was a riff on classic noir private detective stories done through the lens of high school. In Revenge of the Incels, this time it is Rian Johnson (played by Evan Brown) solving the “murder” of Kelly Marie Tran’s social media accounts.
Throughout the film, Johnson encounters other major players in the world of Star Wars, like JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kenendy, which allows for some hilarious metafictional jokes (the bit with JJ Abrams and the mystery box is particularly good).
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A particularly interesting aspect of the film is that Jones grew up in San Clemente, CA, which is where Johnson shot Brick 15 years ago, so obviously Jones was familiar with all of the locations that Johnson used in the original film, so he was able to replicate a number of the scenes identically, like at San Clemente High School and the parking lot of Lowes.
Speaking about the genesis of the film, Jones explained, “I was a freshman when Rian shot Brick and so I knew all the locations back then. So many fans are still divided over The Last Jedi, and I think we just needed to make fun of how serious it’s all being taken by some of the fans.”
Jones managed to pull off both a parody of Brick, a parody of the creative talent involved in the Stars Wars films and a parody of toxic Star Wars fandom all in one short film!
People have been impressed, including Rian Johnson, who tweeted his support of the film.
Ok. This is… amazing. https://t.co/ZiP9bvsLww
— Rian Johnson (@rianjohnson) August 3, 2018
(Via io9)