TheForce.Net

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**TheForce.net**
URL	www.theforce.net
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Star Wars fan community/Star Wars Fanfiction and Fanfilm hosting site
Registration	Optional
Owner	part-owned by Philip Wise
Created by	Scott Chitwood and Darin Smith

TheForce.Net is "perhaps the ultimate" ^[1] Star Wars fan site and the largest unofficial fan site^[2]. It has material from the movies and associated games, comics and books (the "Expanded Universe").

It originally began in 1996 as the "Star Wars Site At Texas A & M", founded by Scott Chitwood and Darin Smith. Its message board, the Jedi Council Forums, aims to provide detailed information on a wide variety of Star Wars-related topics. As of 2006, this forum is among the 20 largest on the Web.^[3] TheForce.Net is also the home to FanForce.Net, a Star Wars fan community that brings together Star Wars fans from different cities around the world. Additionally, it hosts the Star Wars Technical Commentaries and FanFilms.com.

The site has hosted a number of videos that are important to the Star Wars fandom. In the summer of 2000, the site hosted a fake movie trailer for Star Wars: Episode II that included actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Hayden Christansen. The trailer surpassed one million downloads and generated favorable publicity for the movie itself.^[4] The following year, the site hosted leaked production footage of Episode II. The footage, taken at an awards ceremony against Lucasfilm's wishes, was taken down within a few hours.^[5]

TFN, officially TheForce.Net, LLC, is currently part-owned by Philip Wise, who also runs the Star Wars collecting news site, Rebelscum.com.