Those Who Fight (partially found footage of cancelled internet movie; 2013)

Screenshotted poster taken from DeLonge Wannabe's coverage.

Status: Partially Found

Those Who Fight is a cancelled internet reviewer crossover movie in the vein of the Channel Awesome anniversary movies. It was helmed by Zenith (formerly ZenithWillRule/ZenithWillReview of The Media Meltdown, now under The Bun Squad/Zenith & Crew) and filmed partially at MAGFest 2013.

History

The desire was to make a movie featuring most of the current internet reviewers of the time in the Reviewaverse, beyond the scope of Channel Awesome's anniversary specials into other reviewer sites like Nerdvice, Geekvision, Reviewtopia, Channel Zero, The Agony Booth, Space Monkey Mafia, Reviewers Unknown and That Gothic Kid. It initially started out as an IndieGoGo project called The Review Avengers, with the synopsis: "When an ancient evil is unleashed upon the world, one reviewer is not enough to stop it. Zenithwillrule must call upon the Review Avengers."

The storyline of it would start out in the Anime Observations videos before leading up to the film. A villain is attacking Zenith who calls out to all video producers everywhere to help, building up to a massive battle involving all of the reviewers against the villain for the movie. It would be around 45-55 minutes long and available on Blip.tv and all of Zenith's other websites, also have a DVD made with commentary, behind the scenes, and other extras like a physical movie poster and signed cast photo. The funding would be for costumes (1 for Zenith and a few for the villain), a boom mic, unlicensed music for the film and the DVDs. Exceeded goal money would be put towards special effects and props or saved for the next big film, alluded to continuing the storyline, of which details are otherwise unknown.

It would be built up for quite a few months, with an intended release in late March 2013. The battle would be filmed at MAGFest in January 2013. It would be shot over 5 days, with all of Zenith's parts filmed before MAGFest but all of the group sequences and scenes with other reviewers shot at the convention. Day 1 of the convention would film all of the smaller battle scenes and some of the individual reviewer battles, day 2 would film all of the group segments and the majority of the individual reviewer sequences and day 3 would be anything left to film or any reviewers that would only be free on that last day. It was projected to take several months to edit, being fully edited by late March, with the planned DVDs coming in April.

The campaign featured 2 now lost videos, possibly including one where ThatGothicKid would talk about the project and explain a few of the updates for the production, including some new big-name people, perks and other "awesome things".

Scripting of the first act of the film would be finished by October 1st, 2012 and sent to most of the actors for their approval, which everyone liked. Count Jackula, Horror Guru and a few others kept secret for the time being were added to the cast. MasakoX would also be in contact to voice the villain and create the opening and ending credits of the film. Apollo Z. Hack was worked with closely as the film would build off of his A Reviewaverse Saga series storyline, with three new videos made (presumably of that show) that would set up the events of the Reviewaverse and start the build-up for the project. He would also provide some of the special effects for transformation sequences, though more help making those was also welcomed alongside artists and musicians to help out and reduce the cost of the film, perhaps under exposure.

The campaign had standard perks like credit in the movie and received 54% of its flexible funding goal of $2,000. On January 5th of MAGFest, it was reported that shooting was going well. On January 6th 2013, it was said that the movie would be out in tentatively July, with plans to show it at the following year's MAGFest. Tweets on the movie would continue into 2013, with Zenith announcing the new name of the film as Those Who Fight in Tweets as far back as October 2012.

A teaser debuted on February 1st, 2013, possibly being DeLonge Wannabe's teaser with an earlier logo. The teaser description of the plot reads similar to the original IndieGoGo description: "Very soon, an ancient evil will rise. Very soon, the forces of good will have to band together to fight for what they believe in. Let me introduce you to Those Who Fight!"

A proper trailer would come on March 1st, 2013, presumably what is now known as the "full length movie trailer"; under Zenith Productions and edited by TheFilmRenegado. This was later referred to as trailer stuff that was never finalised.

It would indeed show the MAGFest 2013 footage of a giant brawl, whilst DeLonge Wannabe couldn't attend the convention and discussed different ways to incorporate himself into the movie, eventually taking on a directorial role of his own segments without Zenith's participation of him and his friend The Gambling Gamer trying to make their way to MAGFest. He'd describe the movie as apparently an homage to cheesy Silver Age comics stories and being for the fans in particular, akin to the notorious advents of the TGWTG crossover films. His reviewer character takes a long hiatus, being downtrodden and even thinking of quitting, and his friend hears about the trouble at MAGFest and needs to get him back in the game as they have to get down to the convention. He was able to upload this footage on his own having been separate a production from Zenith's, putting it into the aforementioned teaser, an official 2nd trailer coming soon after the 1st on March 3rd, 2013, both from his perspective, a making-of video describing the process and a straight clip of his part of the movie.

A poster for the movie would also be made by March 22nd, 2013, appearing in DeLonge Wannabe's coverage of the film.

Another non-trailer clip of the movie would become available after the movie's scrapping in memorial of Justin Carmical, one of the reviewers featured as JewWario / The FamiKamen Rider. Uploaded by Apollo Z. Hack on YouTube, who would've also had access to the footage as a visual effects artist and editor. It would feature him, Linkara and FamiKamen Rider arriving to face down an adversary as the big three stars of Channel Awesome. The main trailer would feature the same footage with voiceover of TheFilmRenegado suggesting he might know the perfect guy for the job; the destroyer of the Reviewaverse. The clip description reads:

1,138 years after the events of APOLLO Z. HACK: A REVIEWAVERSE SAGA. the Reviewaverse has once again reset itself after Revuer Xseid wiped everything during the second Nerdpocalypse (this occured during Episode 6). No one recalls the events of A REVIEWAVERSE SAGA except the reincarnated Apollo Z. Hack ... a man who lives in solitude, ashamed and fearful that he may one day again become "The Destroyer."

And since all this has happened before, it all starts to happen again ... Apollo starts to hear that familiar frakkin' music and suddenly he encounters his best friend Aries for the first time since Episode 6. While extremly happy to see him, Apollo becomes extremely angry when Aries presents to him the Xseid Revuer Unit---the very device that made him destroy before. Aries explains that there is a great war that will take place and that Apollo must take part in it ... as Xseid.

Apollo reluctantly travels to North where a new Reviewer War is brewing ... and this is where this scene picks up essentially; where he has to save his former 'nemesis' Roo from a couple of baddies.

Timeline-wise, the entire REVIEWAVERSE SAGA took place 1,138 years before any of the events of the Channel Awesome specials with this particular scene taking place AFTER the events of FAREWELL, FAMIKAMEN RIDER.

Apollo Z. Hack also made his own unofficial teaser focusing on his character/Xseid, referring to his role as small and claiming multiple people cut together character-specific trailers for it, perhaps beyond just DeLonge Wannabe.

Cast

• Zenith
• Lewis Louvhaug (Linkara)
• Justin Carmical (JewWario/The FamiKamen Rider)
• Joey Desena
• Bryan Clark
• Patrick Stergos
• Bethany Clark
• Matt Burkett (Apollo Z. Hack; also editor and visual effects)
• Oscar Alonso (voice in Apollo Z. Hack's segment)
• Jerred Adams (DeLonge Wannabe; also co-writer, co-editor and co-director on his own part)
• The Gambling Gamer
• MasakoX (voice of the villain, planned opening/ending credits maker)
• Chris the Nerd
• TheFilmRenegado
• Sean Rankin (Happy Viking)
• Rosenhacker
• That SciFi Guy
• TKDForYou of Video Game Cover Bands
• Diamanda Hagan
• Michael Black (ThatGothicKid) and "Pimpin" Paul McDonald of Team Gothic Kid
• Zach Hurst (RL King)
• DJSoundbite
• Ms. Nightmare
• Il Neige
• The Obscure
• Sharphoe
• Jon St. John (as himself)
• Lotus Prince
• James Rolfe (referred to as Angry Video Game Nerd but seen in trailer footage without Nerd attire and speaking directly to the camera)
• Joshua the Anarchist
• Y2Staller
• Derek the Bard
• LacTheWatcher
• Matt Iannone
• Patrick Alexander
• Rollo T
• Pimpin Paul
• Renegade Cut
• Marcus Hazard
• Kat Mac
• Count Jackula
• Horror Guru
• Unknown guy with a bat (IndieGoGo)
• Unknown guy with a flat cap (IndieGoGo)
• Unknown guy with a gun (IndieGoGo)
• Unknown guy with Wheatley from Portal (IndieGoGo)
• Unknown gal of the Hack Pack, Rosenhacker's group of reviewers (Indeigogo update)

This listing is presumably incomplete, especially if there were other participants that were never revealed. Other people were @'d on Twitter about the project but not confirmed to be involved like MovieBob.

Cancellation

By Autumn 2015, the project had fallen through, Zenith referring to the Apollo Z. Hack segment as what remains. When asked about it by the disgraced reviewer Toby Mobias on Tumblr, Zenith explained:

Honestly it’s mostly monetary issues with the project, inability to travel to actors because of monetary issues, and work. I’ve changed jobs a few times recently as well and I had to focus on finding a steady wage. At the moment, I have a steady job that won’t go away anytime soon but with my current projects, work, and student loans I don’t know if it will ever resurface. It was an ambitious project and by now many of the actors involved have stopped making videos or have had controversy surrounding them. Not to mention one of the actors is sadly no longer with us. I don’t know if it would be respectful to use that footage without permission from family members. It’s sad but I may just push forward to projects I can better manage.

This implies that there was still more left to film with the other participants beyond the MAGFest and DeLonge Wannabe shoots, rendering what was shot an incomplete movie (unlike the eventually finished All Critics Must Die! of similar origins). Jerred Adams also seems to have been a reviewer with controversy surrounding him depending on the timeline, having come under fire for harassing women in disgustingly egregious ways, complicating further involvement.

In the years since, Zenith came out as a transgender woman in 2017, potentially causing more issues revisiting a past version of herself, especially if more footage needed to be shot. In addition, allegations of Justin Carmical being a sexual predator came to light in the fallout of the Change the Channel movement, further complicating whatever amount of the film involved his character. Beyond that, if a lot of the actors had moved on from making videos in 2015, over a decade since the film was conceived and partially shot onward, the Reviewaverse community of reviewers would be a shell of what it once was. The many reviewer sites mentioned are no longer active and the majority of Channel Awesome contributors and their imitators have long moved on.

Availability

The main trailer for the movie was seemingly taken off of YouTube at some point, suggesting a desired distance from the project by the uploader. The unofficial Apollo Z. Hack teaser was also taken down despite his segment from the movie staying up. Both have since been mirrored unofficially. DeLonge Wannabe's coverage also remains up on his ancient YouTube channel long after the controversy, making his and Apollo Z. Hack's segments made of the movie the only non-trailer footage of the film that survives, alongside the 4 trailers, making-of video and poster for the movie.

Whether the lost IndieGoGo videos and potential other character-specific trailers made by their contributors can be found over a decade later is unknown, as it and general D-List internet reviewer phenomena lie in greater obscurity nowadays.

What wasn't even formally released of the shot footage for the movie seems even more exceedingly unlikely to be released or somewhat finished by Zenith for the aforementioned reasons, leaving it as an unmade oddity amongst internet reviewer films of Channel Awesome or otherwise.

Gallery

DeLonge Wannabe's teaser.

The full-length trailer.

DeLonge Wannabe's 2nd trailer.

Archive playlist featuring Apollo Z. Hack's unofficial teaser at the end.

Clip of DeLonge Wannabe's story.

Clip of Apollo Z. Hack's story.

Making of featurette.