Some fan films are terrible, with fanbrats who can't act, write a script or direct to save their lives. (I'm tempted to make a Twilight joke, but I'll refrain.)
And then there are those few fan films that are truly awe-inspiring, for one reason or another. Maybe it's short but showcases excellent directing and performance by a tiny crew who dont have the resources, or, indeed, the desire to do anything of length. Maybe it's long and easily better than at least some of the source material.
Ryan Vs Dorkman - The original was made by a pair of Star Wars geeks who also happened to be aspiring filmmakers helping out on other fan films while pretending they hated each other. A few years later, someone posted it on Youtube, where it got like a million hits overnight. One of them (Ryan, I think,) actually worked at Lucasarts for a time, even doing some effects for the Episode III videogame. Some of RvD2's choreography is based on a conversation he had with the movie's fight choreographer about ideas George Lucas tossed out, so this is quite the interesting case of "better than the source material." While the flow isn't always perfect, they do a much better job of looking like two people actually fighting than anyone in the prequel movies, who all anticipate the choreographed moves the other guy is doing instead of waiting for them to happen and reacting to them.
Clear Skies - an EVE Online machinima series with a detailed write-up at the linked article so I won't have to do another Wall of Text (and I wrote the tropes page anyway.) How do they do interior shots with characters when EVE has no interior scenes? Why, by building sets in the Half Life 2 engine with blue walls for windows that EVE shots can be blue-screened on, of course. It's better than all the crap television shoved onto the air by dumb studio execs who pander to the lowest common denominator constantly.
Dead End - It's Batman Vs Aliens Vs Predator. Viewers often claim this to be the absolute best and most accurate Batman of any movie, though this has lessoned somewhat after Batman Begins hit.
Metal Gear Solid: Philanthropy - This won't drop until later this month, but they'd have to try to make it suck if the trailers so far are a quarter as good as the final product will be. You can even see how far they've progressed as film makers if you dig through the site and find the trailers for their "old project," essentially their first attempt years ago, which are awful, and compare them to the new ones, which are brilliant. Some of the lengths they're going to for quality: they're getting Americans to dub over the non-original characters instead of expecting the audience to easily accept them having thick Italian accents (and Pierre, but I'm guessing that's because his accent is so thick his English is still impossible to understand.) They've spent a great deal of money out of their own pockets for props, costumes and set pieces to ensure a professional level of production. Principle photography finished months ago and the film is only coming later this month because they've spent all this time working on high-quality post-production. Their end-credits theme is sung by the performer who did Metal Gear Solid's end-credits track. It's up for download on the main page, and it's awesome.
Home 
