Written by From international shipping issues at Mattel Creations to the Walmart “Cancel Con” debacle, in an effort to give a voice to the community, He-Mania.com tries to focus on issues impacting that community. And today, we thought it might be beneficial to shine a spotlight on frustrations some have been experiencing for years with a project called “Faking Filmation“.
“Faking Filmation” is a proposed documentary that surrounds a classic Filmation-like “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” fan episode titled the “The Return of Faker” by He-Man super fan James Eatock.
It was a clever idea: repurposing backgrounds, character models, animation and voice recordings from the 1983 classic He-Man cartoon (and other Filmation works) with new elements to create a fan 131st episode, so to speak.
If you own the “The Eternia Collection” set on Blu-ray, you can already watch “The Return of Faker” right now because James Eatock assisted Plaion Pictures on this collection.
All you need to do is insert “Disk 20 – Extras”, go to the last selection titled “Werbung & Promotion”…
…and then press the right arrow on your controller and Faker appears. Then just press play.
While “The Return of Faker” may not be everyone’s cup of tea, as a fan episode (in the context that it should be judged), it’s a real fun endeavor and a love letter to the series.
However, wouldn’t you know it, the rights holders to the 1983 “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” cartoon felt otherwise, and they pulled the plug on the fan project.
Enter Zero Cool Films, a division of Pyre Productions, the parent company run by Rob McCallum. They started a kickstarter campaign for a “Faking Filmation” documentary that is supposed to surround the saga of this fan episode (among other things.)
Their goal was to, along with delivering a documentary, include the entire fan episode “The Return of Faker” in the documentary:
On April 6, 2021, the Kickstarter campaign was launched, and with a $30,000 goal, 1,204 backers overfunded it by 381.71% with a pledge of $114,513 to bring the documentary to life.
Some add-ons purchased would be delivered by the creator of the fan episode himself, James Eatock, including having “your likeness” added to “The Return of Faker” fan episode.
Plus the 9 additional minutes would be added to “The Return of Faker”.
The estimated delivery date for this project was January 2023, but now over 3 years past the promise date and close to 5 years from the launch date, many backers of the project have become disgruntled over the ordeal…
…louder than ever when super fan James Eatock put out a video last week that he will be showing the full 40 Minute “The Return of Faker” episode at MOTUFest (a convention this September in Northern Kentucky) with possibly Rob McCallum there to show “Faking Filmation.”
Normally that would be awesome news, considering they were restrained from showing the fan episode years before. But apparently at this point, the Kickstarter backers hadn’t heard something concrete about their deliverables… yet it was being shown at a convention.
So after the backlash, both Rob McCallum and James Eatock quickly put out statements, promising to deliver on those the deliverables. You can find those statements HERE and HERE.
Yet, some are still concerned those deliverables may not be met, especially the fans that paid for their likeness to be added to “The Return of Faker” fan episode. The question was raised for years, but a backer as recent as 7 months ago received the below response:
Yet, still, as recent as two days ago, it seems many people have not been reached out to, as expressed on social media, our community forums, and the kickstarter itself (where the below examples were pulled:)
Several people have contacted He-Mania.com directly about it as well, to see if we can assist since they are not getting responses.
It is hard to imagine why it has been almost five years and these backers have still yet to be contacted, however we are not going to speculate where exactly the disconnect is.
We do hope shining a light on this issue is something that will help people get the responses they are looking for… with it ultimately being resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.
We’ll see you next time.
Thank you for this.
Good on you to try to keep these guys honest…
Polite honesty. I was never good at that. Lol
Never heard about this before. I’m glad I didn’t because I would have slapped down the $99 to be in the episode for sure!
Very well done. Stuff like this is why this site shines.
The best case here is they contact everyone and deliver the goods but then admit that the communication has been horrible.
Great that you are shining a light on this!
I only pledged to get a DVD of the whole project.
If Faker is not on it, that defeats the purpose…
Films take a long time, but yeah, pandemic and all, it would be nice to get to the finish line.
I can’t afford that Eternia Set on the aftermarket!
No one asked for my likeness. I thought it was just me but I can tell now that it’s a lot of people. Can he get my likeness in the episode in time if he showing it in Sept.?
@dimestorekid Zero chance. Prepare to be outraged.
I didn’t follow this, how many people were actually supposed to get their likeness in the episode? It has to be a lot and don’t see it happening. That extra 80k is probably long gone
@brasco Which car did Rob buy? 🤣
That is a good question. If there are hundreds of likenesses to add how will they all fit in one episode? Unless the plan is to make 100 different versions of Return of Faker and each version has a different likeness.
@firefly Do you know how that is supposed to work?
James said in his response he promises to deliver on the likeness. I wonder if that means only emailing people digital images or does it mean everything including adding everyone to the Faker episode. It should be both. Maybe he has time to do it but I doubt the discs will be ready for Power-Con.
Does anyone know how they can show Return of Faker at Power-Con now? Isn’t not being allowed to show it the whole story of the documentary but now they can show it? I don’t get it.
@samuel Someone missed the irony that they are screening it a con they are not allowed to screen it at.
@caliban That’s what I don’t get.
JAMES SAID HE HASN’T EVEN STARTED WORK ON IT YET!
😡 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡 😡
@dimestorekid And when do they take your money?
I paid it in 2021. Kickstarter takes the money right away.
@dimestorekid The question was meant to be rhetorical.
I’m confused – if they received the money in 2021, then why hasn’t James even started work on the likenesses for the last 5 years? I’m not a backer but this seems outrageous to me.
@durendal That is shocking.
@He-Dad I’m not sure exactly how the likeness will work out. I’d be surprised if we each got our own individual version or a lot of screen time, but I hope it is more than just a one second pan to a big crowd of backers that you have to pause quick just to see yourself. I don’t know how many picked the likeness thing as it was a later add-on, so I don’t see a direct number on the Kickstarter website like I do the initial items.
Over a month later and no new updates from them.
@firefly if I had to guess they’re hoping people will forget
@firefly Because they’re hard at work!
I guess what @dimestorekid posted is your update.
After recognizing there is a problem I don’t understand why James doesn’t reach out to all the people who paid for it to reassure them. It makes no sense.
There was an email update today asking for a picture. I wonder if they read here. I have definitely contacted both James and Rob about it multiple times in the past so thunderpunch definitely wasn’t the only one. He also should have seen all the comments on Kickstarter.
@firefly It’s about time. Awful communication. I wouldn’t doubt he read it here today but he’ll never admit it. James likes to act oblivious and he is above it all.
James probably doesn’t want to see another story written about it. All your.points are valid. I hope he finally comes.through for you.