{"id":39049,"date":"2023-03-03T15:19:37","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T20:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39049"},"modified":"2023-03-03T15:19:37","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T20:19:37","slug":"star-wars-kid-the-rise-of-the-digital-shadows-2022-cinejoy-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/03\/star-wars-kid-the-rise-of-the-digital-shadows-2022-cinejoy-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Star Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows (2022) [CINEJOY 2023]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>To his friends he\u2019s known as Ghyslain Raza, but if you grew up during 2003, in the infancy of the digital age, you know him as \u201cStar Wars Kid.\u201d What began as an innocent test with a high school project turned in to one of the most viral videos every conceived on the internet. It\u2019s also probably the earliest incident of internet bullying ever to develop, as a young high schooler by Ghyslain Raza became the object of media scrutiny and mockery by literally everyone from the UK to America.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cStar Wars Kid: The Rise of the Digital Shadows\u201d is a long overdue documentary, as it comes during a time where the internet plays such a crucial part of our everyday lives. In 2003, no one really knew what the internet could have in store for us, and the virality of the \u201cStar Wars Kid\u201d showed us in a nutshell the pros and cons of internet fame. In this Mathieu Fournier documentary on the first viral phenomenon of the digital age, Ghyslain Raza (the \u201cStar Wars Kid\u201d) breaks his silence and reflects on his story for the first time. In doing so, he also explores our collective experience living in an online world in which we have to make peace with our digital shadows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Rise of the Digital Shadows\u201d is by no means a poppy nostalgia documentary. Instead it\u2019s a stern and thoughtful glimpse in to the sensation of the \u201cStar Wars Kid\u201d and how the short video propelled Raza in to a spotlight that he didn\u2019t want. Director Fournier takes balanced pacing in exploring the life of Raza, and explaining the events that led to Raza filming the video one night after high school. We meet Raza twenty years later as he\u2019s now a man who\u2019s been forced to come to grips with the entire fiasco that changed him and his family\u2019s life. Raza is a soft spoken and kind man, and one who admits to not even being much of a \u201cStar Wars\u201d fan when all is said and done.<\/p>\n

Acting as a precursor to what would become a common practice in modern internet bullying his video was uploaded by classmates without his consent. What began as a mere \u201cgag\u201d on their part turned him in to in infamous personality who\u2019d be peppered throughout pop culture and the media throughout the early aughts. Along with Raza, director Fournier interviews Raza\u2019s supportive lawyer who helped through his initial lawsuit, Amanda Brennan a noted web archivist, and of course Andy Baio. Baio is the man who coined the phrase \u201cStar Wars Kid\u201d and contributed to the circulation of the video throughout 2003. Raza is able to reconcile a lot of his past and come to terms with his infamy, all while garnering different perspectives from the aforementioned people.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s interesting is the dispelling of a lot of myths surrounding Raza, the meeting with Baio, and how he found a way to move forward. While Fournier does encapsulate a very turbulent moment during the conception of the internet, \u201cThe Rise of the Digital Shadows\u201d is also a fascinating, stirring discussion about bullying, journalistic ethics, privacy, and the curse of being an accidental celebrity.<\/p>\n

CINEJOY featuring CINEQUEST Artists is held from March 1st<\/sup> through March 12th<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To his friends he\u2019s known as Ghyslain Raza, but if you grew up during 2003, in the infancy of the digital age, you know him as \u201cStar Wars Kid.\u201d What began as an innocent test with a high school project turned in to one of the most viral videos every conceived on the internet. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1284,12],"tags":[292,469,501,980],"class_list":["post-39049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-indie","category-festivalsevents","category-movie-reviews","tag-documentary","tag-history","tag-indie-film","tag-star-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39051,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39049\/revisions\/39051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}