Sunday, January 16, 2005

SuperShadow: Super Starwars FRAUD!

I seem to be a bit late on this one, but today my attention was brought towards www.supershadow.com
'SuperShadow' claims to be a Starwars "insider" who posts Star Wars news, images and FAQs on his website, regularly speaks to George Lucas on a weekly basis, has a copy of the written Episode 3 script and even treatments for sequel trilogy Episodes 7-9 on his site that Lucas will permit him to shoot after his death.
This guy has a LARGE following who swear by God he is telling the truth. Supershadow Claims to be IN Episode II (the guy sitting behind Obi Wan in the Dexter's Diner scene - even though the extra looks completely different to the image of Shadow on his very own website) and says he will be a Jedi padawan in episode 3.

SuperShadow is the Internet alias of Mickey Suttle, His claims, most notably that he is friends with George Lucas and that he possesses advance copies of screenplays, has made him a controversial figure among Internet Star Wars fans. The only biographical details on his website are as follows:

"As you would expect, all information regarding SuperShadow is above top secret (classified at the highest level). Currently, nothing is known about SuperShadow except that SS is very close, personal friends with George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars."


SuperShadow's website first appeared during the production of Star Wars Episode I. He released 'exclusive' information and claimed to be an Industrial Light and Magic employee and personal friend of George Lucas. One day, the following disclaimer appeared:

This web site has no association with Lucasfilm. SuperShadow.com is a fan operated web site that makes no claims as to the copyrights held by Lucasfilm regarding Star Wars. Star Wars, its characters and all related items are copyright Lucasfilm.


It's reasonable to assume an actual Lucasfilm employee was made aware of the site, and threatened Suttle with legal action. However, to this day Suttle still says he is friends with George Lucas.
He continued posting "news", which all turned out to be fake with the exception of stories which appeared on other websites earlier in the day, but attracted controversy again when he claimed to be in possession of the script for Star Wars Episode II--quite a feat considering George Lucas had not finished writing it at the time. SuperShadow's source was "Brad Bender, head of Lucasfilm Internet Relations". There is never, and has never been a Brad Bender employed by Lucasfilm, but this was all made elementary when Episode II turned out to be nothing like SuperShadow's version of the story. His excuse was that the script he'd received was a "Rough Draft".

SuperShadow claimed to have read the script for Episode III, but could not post any information about it due to copyright law. After enough spoilers information had been released about Episode III to cobble together some kind of basic plot, he posted what he claimed to be the script - it contains only a brief rundown of each scene and no dialogue.
He also claims that Lucasfilm released the title "Revenge of the Sith" earlier than expected (July instead of November) because one of his readers had successfully guessed it.

Despite seemingly irrefutable proof that he is a pathological liar, SuperShadow has attracted a legion of fans who send him their questions, which he answers on his website every day or so. These questions pertain to Star Wars history, trivia, and the upcoming movies. These appear on the index page of his site, with the answers in bold text following the questions. He is most famous/mocked for replying to fans who suggest plot and narrative ideas with "I'll pass on your suggestions to Lucas". Infact SuperShadow claims to have had a meeting with George Lucas during his writing of the Episode 2 script to discuss how to incorporate ideas contributed by the fans!!

SuperShadow claims to possess the scripts, or at least the outlines, for episodes VII, VIII and IX of Star Wars. These involve an army of Dark Jedi on rocketpacks, a superweapon which creates black holes, and characters fighting clones of each other.
SuperShadow also claims that the Sequel Trilogy will not be made by Lucasfilm, but by SuperShadow himself, and the fans who support his website - who he claims Lucas has promised will "inherit" the Star Wars franchise after his death!!
SS has never specified when or how, but receives and posts many comments about it regardless.

See for yourself:

SuperShadow's Episode 7 "The Fallen Hero" plot script
SuperShadow's Episode 8 "The Republic in Crisis" plot script
SuperShadow's Episode 9 "Victory of the Force" plot script

SuperShadow claims that these scripts have been written by George Lucas, even though the creator of Star Wars has said many times that Episode 3 "Revenge of the Sith" will be the final Star Wars film.

Perhaps more tragically, SuperShadow regularly updates a section of his site dubbed 'SuperShadows Girlfriend' - normally with a picture of an extremely hot looking babe who he claims to be his latest conquest (and he brags about having quite a few!)Most SW fans dismiss this section of his site also as pure fantasy, and quite right they are to do so too..
SuperShadow was actually caught using an unauthorized picture of a female who most certainly was NOT his girlfiend - she was not happy about this and exposed him on her Blog.

Well it doesn't take a complete genius to figure out that this SuperShadow guy is a complete fraud - Supershadow.com does not link to any other Star Wars sites, since the vast majority openly state that he is a fraud. Most major Star Wars news websites have some sort of disclaimer which warns that any information found on supershadow.com and not verified elsewhere is fake. How he has attracted so many readers and why his site remains relatively popular remains a mystery.
Intentional or not, SuperShadow is a source of amusement (through ridicule) for many internet Star Wars fans.

for more details: Supershadow discussion thread

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