Arendos

Here's the deal: Me and some of my friends want to make a movie - a silly one, mostly based on inside jokes between us. It's kind of a Star Wars spinoff, in the same universe but the characters are different. Namely we're members of Bimberium (We're polish and Bimber is a polish word for amateur-made potato vodka ), we're evil, we shoot lightinings from our fingers (and toes! ).

And I'm the one in charge of special effects.
I already learned to make lightsabers in Sony Vegas Pro, and i'm learning Particle Illusion for explosions and hadoukens (don't ask, this is one of those inside jokes ).
So, what software will i also need? Any suggestions? And is there some nice way of computer-creating battles, spaceships and things like that so they don't look awful, or would we need a real studio and crew for that?