Galaxy Wars

Galaxy Wars (also known as Galaxy Wars: The Weenie Menace) was the first movie officially produced by Film Gate Studios and LA!LA! Productions in 2008. It was conceived as a Star Wars parody by Rokas Valadka and Leon Fox O' Brien after the massive success of their previous film, The Superhero, released under LA!LA! Productions. The movie follows two teenagers, Alan Shoestalker and Hobo-Ka Bobo, on their journey to become Doughnut masters and save a princess from an intergalactic war. The movie was filmed on a low budget of 30 million Roks.

Plot
Alan Shoestalker (Leon Fox O' Brien) and Hobo-Ka Bobo (Filipe Moore Simas) are two poor teenagers, who have just stolen a load of bread from a local bakery and are being chased through a cyberpunk-style city by an automated Police-bot. They spot a spaceship coming to dock, and take cover behind a nearby wall. A small alien man exits the ship. He approaches the Police-bot and explains to it that he will take care of the two. He approaches them and says that he could sense that they weren't committing a crime maliciously. He senses great potential in them and offers them places at the Doughnut academy, where they would train to become Galactic peacekeepers. Alan Shoestalker agrees immediately but Hobo-Ka only agrees after the alien man promises them food and clean water in exchange.

There is a brief montage that is intercut with scenes inside the training facility, where they meet their master, a Doughnut named Bon-Bon Gin, and a fellow Doughnut trainee, Clawford, who offers them and Bon-Bon Gin drinks. At the bar, Clawford explains that he is worried about the Weenie Council, the rulers the Weenie Galaxy, who have been issuing strange commands recently, such as asking the Doughnuts to kill prominent threats to their government. Soon after this Clawford disappears mysteriously. The training continues as normal without Clawford, until a Weenie enters the training facility and everyone becomes silent. The Weenie announces that they are at war with the nearby Cookie Empire. Almost immediately after he leaves, they hear an explosion. The group run outside of the and see the first signs of this war, as a large Doughnut ship crashes to the ground outside. An imperial fighter cone down from the sky and begins shooting at them. They are chased until they take refuge inside the Council building for the Weenie Masters, all clones of the Weenie President. They enlist Alan, Hobo-Ka and Bon Bon Gin to help them retrieve the princess of their planet's royal family, Princess Fatmé Pregnadala, who had flown off to fight in the war without permission. They take Bon-Bon's fighter ship and fly away.

They take off for the Cookie Empire's Death Cookie, a space station made entirely of super-strong dough, where they kept their armies On the journey Hobo-Ka Bobo admits that he hates the Cookie Empire, but Bon-Bon Gin explains that a Doughnut must not let himself hold on to hate. Alan Shoestalker says that he doesn't think he's ready for combat and the others try to console him. Before they reach the Death Cookie, they are caught in the middle of a large dogfight, and soon after an asteroid field. By the time they make it to the Death Cookie, their ship is no longer flyable. They make their way through through the Death Cookie to the creamy centre, taking out many Cookie soldiers and robots on the way. Once in the centre, they find that the princess had been captured by none other than Clawford, who renounced peace and pledged allegiance to the Cookie Empire, calling himself the "Dark Claw". He is standing on a bridge over a seemingly bottomless pit, and behind him is the Princess. Alan and Hobo-Ka stall him during an intense battle and question why he would betray the Weenies while Bon Bon Gin runs to help Princess Pregnadala who is trapped behind a force field. Dark Claw tells them that he thinks the Weenie Council is using the Doughnuts to fuel their own craving for power. Bon-Bon Gin disables the force field trapping Pregnadala with a quick jab from his light stick. They hurry back to where Alan and Hobo-Ka are battling Dark Claw and sees a chance to strike him in the back. He runs towards him but at the last second Dark Claw turns and cuts Bon Bon Gin in half, killing him. Hobo-Ka is so shocked by this that he is frozen for a second, which Dark Claw uses to his advantage to cut off Hobo-Ka's hand, and his light stick drops into the pit. Alan Shoestalker is forced to fight Dark Claw alone. He is still unydue of his ability, but Hobo-Ka tells him just to believe, and suddenly Alan is able to defeat Dark Class easily. They steal a Cookie ship with Fatmé and return home, but surprisingly, they are bit attacked by Doughnuts on their way in. They exit the ship to find that their planet has been invaded by a Cookie Imperial legion...

Cast
Director - Leon Fox O' Brien

Writers - Rokas Valadka and Leon Fox O' Brien

Producer - Rokas Valadka

Alan Shoestalker - Leon Fox O' Brien

Hobo-Ka Bobo - Filipe Moore Simas

Bon Bon Gin - Cian Nolan

Weenie Clones & President - Rokas Valadka

Fatmé Pregnadala - Ciarán Graham

Dark Claw - Matthew Boyle

Cookie Soldier #2 - Asoo Azad

Production
When production began, director Leon Fox O' Brien and producer Rokas Valadka faced a problem with casting on who would play the princess. Eventually, they were forced to have an all-male cast, and Ciarán Graham landed his first job with Film Gate Studios. Cian Nolan, who played Bon Bon Gin was unaware that his character would die when he was offered the role, and anticipated to be a main character through the saga. Because of this, he insisted that his pay be raised from 4 million Roks to 5 million. Valadka and Fox O' Brien were initially unsure, but after several auditions, including Matthew Boyle, a well-known actor (who eventually was cast as antagonist Dark Claw) and Asoo Azad (who was later cast as an extra), the two decided Nolan was the only actor capable of pulling off the role and agreed to pay him an extra million Roks.

Valadka and Fox O' Brien had been contemplating the idea for a while after the success of their movie "The Superhero". With Valadka's comedic talent and Fox O' Brien's artistic vision, they were determined to make parodies of popular movies at the time. Their first project, a parody of Star Wars, titled "Space Wars", was a satirical take on the story of Star Wars: Episode One. Soon after the name was changed to Galaxy Wars, and although the final script still bore similarities to Episode One, the story was rewritten to less resemble it specifically and became more of a general parody of Star Wars, involving elements from Episodes One and Four in the Star Wars saga.

The scale of production and post-production in Galaxy Wars was larger than any Film Gate or LA!LA! movie before or since. It used seven actors, a huge step up from the four in The Superhero previously, however large casts soon became standard for Film Gate. Revolutionary CGI effects were created for the movie, but were never actually added, and practical effects were forced to be used. The dogfight scene was affected the most by this, but through clever use of sets the scene still managed to look great for the time.

Galaxy Wars was also a huge box-office hit, even compared to later movies, with an opening crowd of 15 people. It had soon become a staple of live performances, even after Valadka's split from Film Gate (causing extra actors to be brought in to play the Weenies), gaining crowds of sometimes up to 10 people at a time. Early viewers praised its storytelling, characters, effects and scale, which had never been seen before.

Sequels and Spin-offs
Galaxy Wars was extremely successful, and in 2009, shortly before Rokas Valadka sold Film Gate over to Ciaran Graham and left, a sequel was produced called Galaxy Wars 2: The Weenies Strike Back. It was written by Ciaran Graham, now an established writer, who also reprised his role as Princess Fatmé Pregnadala. Leon Fox O' Brien and Rokas Valadka also returned as Alan Shoestalker and multiple Weenie clones. Filipe Simas returned initially to play Hobo-Ka Bobo, however he left the cast halfway through production to pursue a career in football, and the role was given to Cian Nolan, who had played Bob Bon Gin in the first movie. This caused some confusion with audiences, but Hobo-Ka's role in the story was diminished greatly as a result of Simas' leave. Simas did return during certain live performances of both the first and second movies. To this day, Simas is still remembered as the face of Hobo-Ka Bobo.

Because of the success of Galaxy Wars as a series, it spawned many video game adaptations and spin-offs, mostly for the GamePortal series of handheld consoles, including Galaxy Wars: The Video Game in 2008 on the GamePortal, and a completely unrelated PC game with the same title in 2011. Alan Shoestalker and Hobo-Ka Bobo also appeared as playable characters in the LA!LA! Kart games on GamePortal+, GamePortal Pro and GamePortal Ultra. They were absent, however, in the unreleased LA!LA! Kart 4 for the GamePortal AER, which never made it past the prototype stages.