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 The concept of ‘Star Wars’ fan fiction is a YouTube sensation
with videos collectively getting over 16 billion views in the
last year alone.
To kickstart the competition #GoRogue, Disney hired James
DeJulio's crowd-sourcing company Tongal to find superfans to
make four short films to inspire competition entries and they
picked Kevin Ulrich, Ben MacKenzie and Tucker Barrie.
Ulrich, who has made short films with the toys since the age of
11, explains their place in popular culture. "George Lucas did
something brilliant with Star Wars which nobody else had done
which was to make so many toys that you could have just the
random background characters, you could have the major
characters and you could basically create your own Star Wars
world with toys."
The toys are being released less than three months before the
film’s cinematic release. However, the three fans making the
films got to see the range much earlier than the general public.
MacKenzie explained "We didn't get any more information than was
available to the public but getting these characters and getting
to see them up close more than just a second in a trailer and
seeing their designs was sort of a joy."
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But they did get a little insight into the film's storyline by
accidentally emulating it.
"There was a lot of feedback from Disney and Lucasfilm," said
Ulrich, who animated the Lego scenes as well as wrote the
screenplay. "I'd make something up and maybe it would be too close
to the actual film so then we'd have to change it."
When the first 'Star Wars' film 'A New Hope' was released in 1977,
the action figures swiftly became the year’s most wanted toys and
toymaker Kenner was unprepared for the demand. By the end of 1978,
$100 million was made in sales from the toys.
The Star Wars toy market continues to be strong with $500 million
worth of toys sold in 2015 and the same expected in 2016.
The competition is open until October 21 and media asset packs are
available on the starwars.com site.
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