The geeks are rallying.
/Film, a geeky movie website, led a boycott of the insignificant spoof Superhero Movie to protest the cutting down of a film called, of all things, Fanboys. The feature film version of this story about Star Wars obsessives was shortened by the studio, and the geeks at /Film were not ok with that. Their boycott sort of worked—Miramax will release the complete Fanboys on DVD—but it just underscores the distinct force that the geek contingent has become.
Of course those known bastions of geek love, your Star Treks and Star Wars and stories about magical creatures and fantasylands, have long relied on the super fan to turn out in massive droves on opening night, buy the merchandise and watch the sequels. But there was a time when geeks were seen as a niche market rather than a compelling force. In the old, old days, comic books were once thought to be as dangerous to society as rock and roll, and certainly not catered to. They made a movie about Dungeons & Dragons in the 70s that certainly didn’t work. Comic-Con, the yearly comic book convention in California, was a relatively small affair until a few years ago, and didn’t “Star Trek fan” used to be synonymous with “awkward around girls,” not “J. J. Abrams”?
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