Just when you thought you’d seen the last new Star Wars movie in theaters, along comes this week’s announcement from LucasFilm that come August 15, fans all over North America can check out the feature-length CGI feature, Star Wars: The Clone Wars.
“I felt there were a lot more Star Wars stories left to tell,” said George Lucas, executive producer of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of animation forward.”
Oh, what joy technology hath wrought. We suppose that it was only a matter of time before someone decided that Sir Mix-A-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” would be such a nice stylistic match for Gilbert & Sullivan’s oft-performed “The Pirates Of Penzance.” That someone was Mike Hightower, a Chicago Renaissance guy with a penchant for parody. He took the goofy 1990’s pop staple and recorded it in the style of Sirs Gilbert & Sullivan, and cleverly edited it with footage from the 1983 film version starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. The visual element makes it funnier than Jonathan Coulton’s snarky riff on the song, and the cutting is almost as perfect as Todd Washburn’s videos made from songs from the brilliant Star Wars: The Musical. Watch Hightower’s video here. –Robert Newton
The thing that wouldn’t leave
30 years later, this crazy
Star Wars is still around
By Robert Newton
Like it or not, this generation that grew up in George Lucas’s golden empire will mark its early days in much the same way that our parents did with the assassination of JFK. Granted, events far more calamitous have come since, but forever the Force shall remain, for better or for worse. While some may embrace their inner Star child (read our fan films feature), others are keen to distance themselves from what they perceive as a silly remnant of childhood, and others still are keen to openly belittle those who live the Force. This, also, is really too bad, as everyone has to love something, and such disdain can be better applied to something much more sinister and far-reaching, like war, hunger or Jimmy Buffett.
We invite readers of all stripes to share their thoughts and memories. Tell us about the lightsaber duels you’d have with your little brother with wrapping paper rolls, or how your cardboard box Millennium Falcon could navigate the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Share how you dressed up your Saint Bernard like a Bantha, or, if you must, equate the exact moment your puberty started with seeing Carrie Fisher sporting the gold bikini on the deck of Jabba’s sand skiff in Return of the Jedi. We want to know, even if you feel you need to sign your post, “Biggie Darklighter” or “Darth Nader.”••• (Thanks, Cindi and Matt.)
“The enduring appeal of Star Wars,” says Tom Brokaw in the brand-new History Channel special, “Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed” [TV-PG], “is that it’s this vastly entertaining piece of cinema that also leaves you … with the idea that there are some real issues out there that we ought to be thinking about — good and evil, and right and wrong, and heroism. Generations of people a long time from now will be enthralled by it, just as we are enthralled by the story of Robin Hood or King Arthur’s Court or any of the Shakespearean tales.”
The two-hour special, which airs on the cable network starting Memorial Day at 9:00pm, seeks to illuminate the impact that George Lucas’s little agrarian space opera has had on the world since it arrived on Earth in 1977. It also explores the big ol’ serial’s roots in Greek mythology, American westerns, the Bible and even Vaudeville.
“It is bad guys versus good guys and everyone wants to see that story,” says filmmaker Kevin Smith, who spoofed the super-fan’s beloved Star Wars in the stoner road movie, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. “That story will never grow tired, never grow old.”
It is not all journalists and fanboys in the mix, either. The unlikely pairing of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi [Dem.] and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich [Rep.] actually agreed on the influence of Star Wars.
“The legacy of George Lucas fits very comfortably among the classics of all time, whether ancient or modern,” Pelosi said, with Gingrich quoted as saying, “The idea of the underdog who’s on the right side defeating the overdog who’s on the wrong side is a deeply American mythology.”
But it is a fanboy who sums it up best.
“You don’t even have to ask, ‘Will it stand the test of time?’” says Peter Jackson, who took his own love of another trilogy to a billion dollar box office and Oscar gold with Lord of the Rings. “It has and it will.”••• –Klaus Hummersumpf
It was supposed to be a big movie for fledgling studio The Weinstein Company. Then suddenly, just as fast you can say, “pull the ears off a Gondar,” it was gone. The movie is Fanboys, the Star Wars themed comedy about four guys from the Midwest who try to get their dying friend a preview of Episode I before its release (I thought you guys were my friends!), and it stars Sam Huntington (Superman Returns), Jay Baruchel (Knocked Up) and Kristen Bell of the likely-late “Veronica Mars.” Director Kyle Newman told Star Wars fan site TheForce.net, “We made Fanboys for under five million dollars. And the studio has given us the go-ahead to do the things to it that we couldn’t do with our initial limited schedule and budget. There are one or two hilarious things that I wanted to shoot and they are giving me the funds to do it.” The film is presently slated for a January 18, 2008 release. However, the studio will screen select scenes at this weekend Star Wars mega-event Celebration IV in Los Angeles this weekend, where it will also premiere a special prequel comic book. Another Star Wars themed comedy, 5-25-77, will debut at Celebration, but in its entirety. –Elizabeth Meyer
The fans have spoken
The Star Wars faithful pick up where George left off
By Robert Newton
Star Wars fans who think that they are limited to the six movies, the two crummy Ewoks TV adventures and their fourth-generation flea market bootleg of the infamous “Star Wars Holiday Special” from 1978 are in for a big surprise. While it is unlikely that George Lucas will sanction another trilogy as was his original plan (but he has been known to change his mind), the “fan film” — a fan-produced feature or short paying tribute to the fantasy worlds created by others — is not only filling in blanks, but is also creating some of the funniest homages ever.
While many attribute the rise in the Star Wars fan film’s popularity to Kevin Rubio’s hilarious pre-Menace “Cops” parody, Troops, there was a movie 20 years earlier that is the real grandfather of them all — the Ernie Fosselius mini-epic, Hardware Wars. While most fan films trade on characters and designs directly from the movies, Hardware Wars was a parody in the MAD Magazine tradition, with names
changed to protect the guilty. It was actually given a proper theatrical release (though most kids will remember seeing it at their local public library), earning $500,000 — over 60 times its roughly $8,000 budget. It is Trey Stokes’s brilliant and brief Pink Five series that is the funniest of them all, though. His own trilogy features Valley Girl Stacey (Amy Earhart) bumbling through the greatest scenes from the original trilogy, including the run on the Death Star in which she chats up an off-screen Han Solo, Bob Newhart-style, to get him to get a pesky T.I.E. fighter off her tail.
While movies like Hardware Wars and the sweet tribute George Lucas In Love are available commercially on DVD, most fan films are not, and can only be found online. It is an unspoken agreement between copyright holder like Lucas and the filmmakers that they can use studio copyrights all they want, as long as they are not disparaging and do not make a profit. It is this second part that makes the fan film the purest form of filmmaking, in which it is done simply “for the love of the thing” (though a good fan film makes a fine calling card.)
One of the best Star Wars fan films ever is called Revelations, an under-$20K 47-minute marvel by Virginia native Shane Felux. It takes place between Episode III and Episode IV, and features a story about the last of the Jedi being hunted down by the Empire. Its slightly campy tone and impressive visual effects help it fit in perfectly, as if George himself had conceived it. Felux, who won an iFilm award for his short comedy, Pitching Lucas, is hosting free downloads of the film on his site. Chris Bouchard’s score for Revelations, based on John Williams’ immortal themes, is available free on Bouchard’s official site.
Many fan films, for all their good intentions, fall short, either due to really bad acting, a script too inside or crippled by Favorite Scene Syndrome or just all-around inexperience. Some, however, overcome all of that and just give viewers cold, hard action. Ryan vs. Dorkman and its sequel, Ryan Vs. Dorkman II are great examples of that. The story? There is none — just roughly 10 minutes of best buddies Ryan Weiber and Michael Scott beating the bag of each other. Their fight choreography is incredible, their SFX seamless and their editing beat-perfect. They even got Behind The Mask composer Gordy Haab to score the second film for them. It is inspiring to see what two kids with some off-the-shelf equipment and software can do with a couple weekends and a love for Lucas’s galaxy far, far away.
And that’s the thing — anyone can do it, and web sites like FanFilms.com not only archive the best of them, but also offer how-to guides so that the daring among us can attempt their own. It’s also something the fans need to see more of, especially considering that the Star Wars TV series proposed for 2009 still seems to be but vaporware, with the search for that myth sounding like a Star Wars fan film in itself…•••
