From Issue 18 (Feb 2012)<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\n
EVERY NOW AND THEN a sci-fi geek needs a little reassurance that the path he\u2019s chosen is a righteous one. While it\u2019s true that there\u2019s a certain portion of them \u2013 sorry, us<\/em> \u2013 that are completely immune to any ridicule being slung their way (for they know their detractors could be silenced with but a wave of the hand and the utterance of a level four banishment spell), there\u2019s a number of geek guys \u2013 and girls, of course \u2013 who, every now and then, wonder if they\u2019re not just a wee<\/em> bit old to be learning Klingon, or creating a mini-army of daleks in their basement, or preparing for the day they\u2019ll be picked up by the Xyrilian mothership they\u2019ve been signalling to for the past decade.<\/p>\nI myself am about to face yet another<\/em> birthday, and so I find myself, somewhat involuntarily, doing a little soul-searching\u2026 is it still okay to be a sci-fi geek, or should I buckle down and get back to the \u2018real\u2019 world? Send me a sign, oh Universe\u2026<\/p>\nWell, a sign I wanted, and by golly, a sign I received: Star Wars Uncut.<\/p>\n
For those who haven\u2019t yet had the pleasure, I\u2019ll quickly explain. Star Wars Uncut (SWU) is the brainchild of one Casey Pugh, who in 2009 called on Star Wars fans the world over to select a fifteen-second section of Episode IV: A New Hope<\/em>, recreate it in any way they liked \u2013 any way at all \u2013 and send it to him so that he could edit it into a full \u2018remake\u2019 of the whole film that would be made freely available online. That\u2019s 473 snippets in total, and the scope of imagination, talent and creativity that went into all of them just completely blew me away.<\/p>\nI don\u2019t know where to start when it comes to describing the good things about this project, and what it represents. Everything\u2019s<\/em> good about it. Even the \u2018bad\u2019 clips are good, but these are in the minority. It really can be as easy or as complicated as you want to make it. Some of the clips were no doubt shot in a couple of hours, yet some of the animation scenes must have taken ages. Some people scrutinized every pixel of the original to produce some pretty eye-popping backgrounds for their live-action scenes (the shootout before going into the trash compactor immediately springs to mind), and yet a simple office corridor doubles effortlessly for the Storm Trooper attack on the Tantive IV.<\/em><\/p>\nThe only rule that seemed to govern the whole project was this: there are no rules. The majority of the movie sticks close to the original \u2013 sometimes with truly admirable results \u2013 but every now and then a section will veer off into abject silliness, such as during the holochess game on the Falcon\u2026 Divine is apparently alive and well, ladies and gentlemen. There are dozens of \u2018blink-and-you\u2019ll-miss-them\u2019 cameos by characters such as Robocop, Captain Kirk, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Teletubbies, and several Indiana Joneses (for obvious reasons), not to mention homages to other films that are too numerous to fit in here \u2013 besides, I really don\u2019t want to spoil it for you. If, from my description so far, it sounds like an unholy mess, then I apologise \u2013 but I can assure that the whole thing has been put together superbly, and completely deserved the accolades it received, namely four Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Pugh and his three co-producers.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s safe to say that the more times you\u2019ve watched the original Episode IV<\/em>, the more you\u2019re going to enjoy this version, as most of the snippets carefully recreate the small things that we love to look out for (sadly, we don\u2019t get the Storm Trooper fracturing his skull on the door in the Death Star, but there are plenty of other great moments).<\/p>\nQuite a few times I found myself thinking ahead to certain scenes (like the Mos Eisley Cantina) and wondering \u2018how are they going to do that?\u2019 and then watching with delight as a handful of wildly different styles came together to bring it all about. During some of the more technical scenes (a great example is the TIE dogfight after escaping the Death Star), I realised that essentially there was little difference between these \u2018ordinary Joes\u2019 putting it all together with vacuum cleaners and computer software, and Lucas\u2019 fledgling ILM team, back in \u201975 and \u201976 (budget notwithstanding, obviously). Every day they faced challenges that started with the question \u2018How are we going to make this work?\u2019 and somehow found a way to bring it to screen. All of the SWU contributors have arguably done the same, only in miniature \u2013 but that\u2019s not to say that their creativity and passion were any less.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s now well known that with the increasing availability of simple film-making equipment, and its user-friendliness, just about anyone<\/em> can make a movie, and SWU is the epitome of that concept. There\u2019s really no excuse anymore \u2013 if there are people out there who can rope in a business of ferrets for the trash compactor scene, and still make it as enjoyable as the rest of the movie, then nobody at all can say they don\u2019t have the resources. One guy used a French loaf for a lightsabre, for Christ\u2019s sake.<\/p>\nYet another marvel about this movie is the number of kids involved, speaking dialogue that was written when their own moms and dads were their age. These kids are truly lucky to have parents cool enough to be Star Wars fans, and you know they\u2019ve got plenty to look forward to in life. Sometimes, you just need to hear the words \u201cGreat, kid! Don\u2019t get cocky!\u201d spoken by a twelve-year-old to truly appreciate their impact.<\/p>\n
Please, do yourself a favour and watch this project. You may not enjoy every second of it; you\u2019ll probably think some of the acting stinks, or that the Lego version of General Motti didn\u2019t fully convince us that he was being choked by Vader. And if you think that some of the sets look like a ten-year-old made them, keep in mind that that\u2019s probably the case. Remember, these people aren\u2019t actors, or set designers, or directors\u2026 yet. I wonder, possibly in as little as ten or twelve years\u2019 time, how many wunderkind<\/em> filmmakers are going to burst onto the scene with the next Matrix<\/em> or District 9<\/em> and tell us in their first interview that the reason they got into filmmaking in the first place was because they had so much fun making a fifteen-second clip for SWU? Bets are on.<\/p>\nAnd soon the scramble will start, to claim a precious snippet of the magnificence that is Episode V<\/em>, because it\u2019s only a matter of time before Casey Pugh confirms that he\u2019s going ahead with his next venture (and wouldn\u2019t you, if your efforts had won you a freakin\u2019 Emmy?). But with the first movie approaching two million views on YouTube at the time of writing, I predict that there are going to be a lot of disappointed people out there who\u2019ll just have to wait yet another year, for when Episode VI<\/em> goes up for grabs. Just don\u2019t be surprised if Phantom Menace<\/em> gets the same treatment, and there\u2019s a distinct dip in enthusiasm\u2026 the Force ain\u2019t so strong with that one.<\/p>\nFor more information on this project, go to www.starwarsuncut.com<\/a>, or watch the movie in its entirety at http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=7ezeYJUz-84<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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