If you were around Earls Court this past weekend you might have spotted a unique sub species of human beings; the fanboy.

Well, actually what you would have seen were Star Trek characters, storm troopers, superheroes and maybe even a Sim or two. This is because Earls Court is home to the London Film and Comic Con and was besieged by tubby geeks wearing Spock ears, hoping to meet their sci-fi heroes.

Unlike my fellow nerds, I don’t have all the time in the world to geek out and watch all of the Lord Of The Rings movies back to back, nor can I sit at my computer playing World Of Warcraft all day. But not having a real social life frees up a lot of their time and allows for some unusual talents to appear.

If you’ve ever tried to watch a movie trailer on YouTube then you’ve probably seen a ‘fan-made trailer’. These are dotted annoyingly all over the site and can be hard to sift through to get to the real deal. Taking footage from various films and TV shows, a fanboy will sift through hours of film and then spend a week trying to edit it together.

And since most of them are superhero related, we’re starting off with a mock Green Lantern trailer, in honour of Ryan Reynolds being recently cast in the role.

You’re welcome.

GREEN LANTERN

We’ll show the best one first in case you don’t believe me that they can be awesome. This trailer has cast current hero of the fanboys, Nathan Fillion from Buffy, Firefly, Serenity and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Even though Ryan Reynolds has officially been cast as Hal Jordan AKA The Green Lantern, you have to admit, it looks pretty sweet with Nathan.

The geek who made this clearly has superior computer skills and no life. As well as a hell of a lot of patience; he’s ripped footage from 29 films in order to make this. We’re not quite sure why he’s done it, but we’re grateful.

HE-MAN: MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE

By the looks of this we’d be quite happy with a follow up to 1987’s Masters of the Universe movie and the animation negates the question of who to cast. This is a bonus because there aren’t any famous muscle men around at the moment and all of the old-school ones are about 60.

No sign of She-Ra, though we’re pretty sure that’s a good thing.

GHOSTBUSTERS 3

Year after year, we wait with baited breath for a new GB movie. In an unusual move, the series stopped at just 2 films; both were wildly successful and yet there was no third instalment.

And now, finally, a third movie has been announced. Oh happy day, rejoice, rejoice!

Most of the original cast will be returning except Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver, despite what her IMDB profile says. In this fake trailer we get badass modern effects with old school GB action.

The geeky creator made it in 2006 before GB3 was announced so there’s no recent footage in there.

SUPERMAN REBORN

OK, you have to respect the skill of the geek that made this.

This trailer for an imaginary Superman movie featuring the head of Smallville’s Tom Welling and the body of Christopher Reeve. The editing is pretty amazing to be honest, not perfect, but hey, you think you could do better?

The story for the trailer has the Man of Steel pitted against his worst enemies including Lex Luthor, General Zod and Doomsday. If you couldn’t decide who you liked better: Welling or Reeve, this will give you the best of both worlds.

Honestly, we preferred this one trailer over the entire Superman Returns movie. Brandon Routh? Stop it, just stop it.

PAC-MAN: THE MOVIE

People were in danger. The world cried out for a hero. And Pac-Man was there to answer.

If that’s a baritone voiced trailer intro that you’d want to see, then this fan trailer is definitely for you. It’s not low budget, it’s no budget. Ghosts plague a city and apparently the police, the army and the Government are useless. Pac-Man is the only one who can…um…eat a pill and make them change colour?

The effects are shoddy and the acting is piss poor; it’s hilarious and rubbish. We highly recommend it.

THUNDERCATS

From the fanboy who brought you Superman Reborn, comes Thundercats. There seems to be a bit of a pattern emerging; things from the 80’s make good fake trailers, apparently. This geek has decided to take footage from the likes of Troy and Farscape and layer Thundercats make up over their faces. Simple and brilliant.

This trailer, complete with CGI Snarf, is so badass you’ll pray to the Gods that somebody actually makes this version. Plus, Hugh Jackman as Tigra? There’s just something so funny about that. Vin Diesel has also been cast as Panthro and looks surprisingly natural as a grey skinned man-cat.

WORLD’S FINEST: BATMAN AND SUPERMAN

The Man of Steel and the Dark Knight team up for this fanboys’ wet dream. It combines the world of Metropolis and Gotham City and sees Two Face and Lex Luthor team up against the good guys.

This trailer doesn’t use footage from any film as it’s all acted out by an original cast. It’s actually pretty good; it’s like a low budget film student project but with capes. An original storyline with a new cast and a good director? I kind of wish I had this on DVD.

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

Now if you watched the last trailer and thought, ‘Bloody hell they’ve got sets and extras and everything!’ then brace yourself for this.

This bad boy is a full-on trailer complete with location shooting, decent special effects and acting that isn’t half bad. With period costumes and real props and everything, I was actually pretty disappointed when I realised this was an April Fool’s trailer by IGN.com.

All in all a bloody good fake trailer, but a bit excessive for an April Fool’s gag. If they really did make a Zelda movie then it probably would look a little something like this…

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON

If you thought Star Wars fanboys were the craziest then you obviously didn’t see Twilight in a cinema with screaming 12 year old girls. These fangirls are friggin mental. They are just as intense as fanboys but their desire is of a romantic nature.

I genuinely fear for the safety of Robert Pattinson, the lead vampire lover in the series.

The fangirls at the moment are all in a tizzy because the trailer for New Moon, the second in the saga, was released a little while ago and they can’t wait any longer. So essentially one of them has made a trailer… of a trailer.

This one looks damn near professional as well, I had to double check to make sure it was fan made.

Still doesn’t make me want to see the film, I don’t have to; I still remember Buffy.

DEAD NOON

If you saw the Grindhouse movies that Tarantino and Rodriguez did, then you saw the fake trailers that accompanied them. Dead Noon is in that style and let me tell you, it rocks. Hard. You know you’d totally see this if it was released for real.

‘It’s Sam Raimi meets Sam Peckinpah. It’s Dawn of the Dead meets High Noon.’

Well that’s good enough for me. This was actually made for a Grindhouse trailer competition so it really has a Tarantino feel to it and it has wicked zombie murdering action in there too.

Zombies + cowboys = awesome.

Hot diggity dawg, this trailer sure is mighty fine. I can’t really pull that off can I?


Emily Moulder