There is a phrase in the industry we know as "development hell." It has become a catchall for all sorts of tomfoolery, strangeness and average, everyday muckety-muck that can hold up a feature film from being made. Maybe it's because of a stubborn producer who just doesn't get it or a script that is never quite right or rights issues that keep the printed page from going in front of the camera. I've followed the story of Ernie Cline's script Fanboys for the last 10 years now, ever since it was first announced in 1999. The story, which was very timely at the turn of the millennium, is about a young man with cancer making a cross-country road trip with friends to steal and watch a print of the new Star Wars movie The Phantom Menace before it is released ... because odds are he isn't going to live long enough to see it. The idea was simple, touching, and rife with comedy gold.

Which of course meant it would take 10 years to see it.

Sadly, the new Fanboys DVD doesn't chronicle that adventure -- a long, arduous, and intriguing one in which an intrepid screenwriter and his band of rebel producers had to avoid imperial entanglements, casting woes, re-shoots, producers wanting to cut the entire "depressing" cancer angle, and the screenwriter having to enter the chamber of the Dark Sith Lord himself, Darth Weinstein. The film, finally released a few years after the first frames were shot, found itself on a limited release crawl across the country to mixed reviews and little promotion. And now it finds itself where fans can finally discover it after its long travail: On DVD.

While the long and arduous process to make the movie appears nowhere in the special features, at least the DVD has finally come out for Star Wars and comedy fans alike to enjoy. A classic road movie, the film is filled with scads of talented young comedians at the top of their game: Jay Baruchel (Tropic Thunder), Kristen Bell (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Dan Fogler (Balls of Fury), Sam Huntington (Superman Returns), and Chris Marquette (The Girl Next Door). It's clear the five actors bonded on the film; their friendship really comes through as their characters endure all manner of humiliations and hangups on their trip to Star Wars heaven known simply as Skywalker Ranch.

Along the way the group runs into numerous sci-fi luminaries and cameos-o-plenty amid the likes of Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia), Ray Park (Darth Maul), Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, William Shatner, Seth Rogen, Danny Trejo, Jamie King, Danny McBride, Christopher McDonald, and Ethan Suplee playing one of my closest friends in the world, Harry Knowles. You want a weird experience? Try watching someone play a friend of yours on film.

The film is heaps of fun, especially for the geek or nerd inclined, but doesn't require a strict knowledge of the Star Wars canon to understand or enjoy it. Sweet, adorable and pretty damned funny, this is one to put in the queue. Despite its woes, the special features simply focus on the antics of the cast behind the scenes (which really is entertaining to watch as the folks seem to really be having a hell of a time with one another) and a couple of deleted scenes, one involving an alternate actor, William Katt (The Greatest American Hero) in the role ultimately played (very differently) by Danny McBride. Nothing spectacular here, but fun and worth sifting through at least once.

Fanboys is available now from Weinstein Company Home Entertainment.

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