Con Man Series Trailer
July 18, 2015
Con Man is the crowdfunded web series staring Alan Tudyk and Nathan Fillion. These are the two dudes with the entire Firefly fandom behind them, and they’re a relentless fandom. According to the Indiegogo campaign, Con Man raised over 3 million dollars. That’s right. 3 million. Now according to an article by Entertainment Weekly, the original asking price for this celebrity web series was $425,000. A project like this, fully crowdfunded and released through a portal like Vimeo on Demand, means Tudyk and Fillion have complete creative control.
Fast forward four months later to July 9, 2015 at San Diego Comic Con. Con Man has its own panel, of course, and screens the new series trailer.
Fast forward four months later to July 9, 2015 at San Diego Comic Con. Con Man has its own panel, of course, and screens the new series trailer.
Con Man - Trailer from Con Man Web Series on Vimeo.
Trailer opens with clips from the fictional sci-fi series Spectrum a painfully obvious reference to the dear Firefly. The trailer both makes fun of the fan obsession and pays tribute to it. The trailer shamelessly features Tudyk, and his hate for Spectrum. Doesn’t it suck when you’re show gets canceled and then you’re typecasted? Forget about the number of actors in the industry that don’t fit into the endless roles for ‘straight white man,’ and so they are lucky to get any work at all.
What gets me is there are a number of talented ladies making appearances in this trailer, and very few of them have lines. Several of them are sexualized for the benefit of the male characters. We have Felicia Day, Amy Acker, Summer Glau, Tricia Helfer, Mindy Sterling, Emily Kinney, and Gina Torres to name a few. All of their parts seem secondary to the roles of Tudyk and Fillion. Along with Michael Dorn, Gina Torres and Mindy Sterling are the only non-white people prominently featured in the trailer (although there are several more credited on the IMDB page.)
Speaking of Michael Dorn, this trailer is chock full of science fiction/fantasy references. You have Michael Dorn (Star Trek TNG), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), and of course a pissed off Wil Wheaton (Star Trek TNG). Joss Whedon also shows up. There’s probably more, and of course Fillion and Tudyk’s fellow cast members from Firefly are there, because why the hell not. It’s just a show ranting about Firefly in positive and negative ways, so why not bring back everyone from the show to hang out. The entire show seems to play on our glee for science fiction nostalgia, and makes it seriously lack any originality. This idea has been done with movies like Galaxy Quest. Science fiction fans love these actors, but the whole ‘actors playing themselves’ concept doesn’t make up a plot for a 12 episode series.
What gets me is there are a number of talented ladies making appearances in this trailer, and very few of them have lines. Several of them are sexualized for the benefit of the male characters. We have Felicia Day, Amy Acker, Summer Glau, Tricia Helfer, Mindy Sterling, Emily Kinney, and Gina Torres to name a few. All of their parts seem secondary to the roles of Tudyk and Fillion. Along with Michael Dorn, Gina Torres and Mindy Sterling are the only non-white people prominently featured in the trailer (although there are several more credited on the IMDB page.)
Speaking of Michael Dorn, this trailer is chock full of science fiction/fantasy references. You have Michael Dorn (Star Trek TNG), Sean Astin (Lord of the Rings), Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers), and of course a pissed off Wil Wheaton (Star Trek TNG). Joss Whedon also shows up. There’s probably more, and of course Fillion and Tudyk’s fellow cast members from Firefly are there, because why the hell not. It’s just a show ranting about Firefly in positive and negative ways, so why not bring back everyone from the show to hang out. The entire show seems to play on our glee for science fiction nostalgia, and makes it seriously lack any originality. This idea has been done with movies like Galaxy Quest. Science fiction fans love these actors, but the whole ‘actors playing themselves’ concept doesn’t make up a plot for a 12 episode series.
