A Long, Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away, in a Manner Very, Very Bizarre ...
April 12, 2010 4:51 PM   Subscribe

Screw Lucas' plans for a 3-D rerelease! I can guarantee you've never seen the Millennium Falcon escape the Death Star in Star Wars like this.
posted by WCityMike (61 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup



 
ughh, I was a little intrigued about the remake (actually demake) when I first heard of it, but I could never sit through the whole movie like this. I could barely watch the trailer.

It's just not appeasing to me. I might as well act out the movie with my friends. (which is actually what it looks like most people did)
posted by DoublePlus at 5:00 PM on April 12, 2010


I loved that SO MUCH.
SPOILERS...DO NOT READ>
My favorites: the little kids, climbing down the ladder, the part where it got really weird and 3cpo and r2 are now represented by a tea pot and a fire extinguisher, Leia and Chewiee.

I really loved everything about this. I wish I had something more critical to say about it. I'm just concerned that it'll be sustainably funny over a full length movie, I don't know. I would have to see it.
posted by amethysts at 5:00 PM on April 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I'm so excited about the movie actually coming out, and not just because I'm in a couple of scenes. When I saw this earlier today, I was ten again (the magical age when I saw Star Wars) and my critical brain just turned off.

I hope it comes to Austin because I'd love to have the experience of seeing it live, with friends and fellow Star Wars lovers, and not just on DVD/internet/at home.
posted by immlass at 5:03 PM on April 12, 2010


crowd sourced sweding at its best
posted by idiopath at 5:03 PM on April 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


This is great, and also the most perfect encapsulation of my definition of the Internet: lots and lots of people with too much free time.
posted by yiftach at 5:06 PM on April 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


I hope it comes to Austin because I'd love to have the experience of seeing it live, with friends and fellow Star Wars lovers, and not just on DVD/internet/at home.

Seeing that in the theater would be surreal. And awesome.
posted by graventy at 5:06 PM on April 12, 2010


I predict an upcoming spike in LSD consumption.
posted by CynicalKnight at 5:10 PM on April 12, 2010


Thirty seconds in, I was shrugging. By about the two-minute mark I was laughing out loud. Absolutely a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts situation; I think this will have to go on my Shit To Watch With Friends pile along with Wizard People, Dear Reader and The Room.
posted by cortex at 5:12 PM on April 12, 2010 [4 favorites]


That was pure, uncut silliness.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:14 PM on April 12, 2010


I might as well act out the movie with my friends. (which is actually what it looks like most people did)

that is kind of the point
posted by empath at 5:14 PM on April 12, 2010 [5 favorites]


I had a couple of "hey, I know that guy!" moments. Wish there were easy-to-find credits to confirm.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 5:15 PM on April 12, 2010


You know, when me and my friends made our own crappy horror movies as kids, yeah everything was made out of cardboard tubes and styrofoam, but we at least TRIED to make them look as good as we could. There's something disingenuous about this new trend of filmmaker kids armed with Final Cut and After Effects and digital geegaws out the hoo-ha intentionally making their movies look crappy because it's (ostensibly) funny. It's like, yeah, I get it, you made the Millenium Falcon set out of cardboard... right after the little CGI sequence that would have been impossible even with all the computing power on Earth at the time of the original Star Wars. I'm not buying it.
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:15 PM on April 12, 2010 [3 favorites]


This turned out really wonderful. I hope I get to see the thing. Wow!
posted by grobstein at 5:18 PM on April 12, 2010


(Facepalm) Apparently this was stitched together out of a bunch of clips made by DIFFERENT PEOPLE. Man, I feel like a moron. Forget I typed all that.
posted by DecemberBoy at 5:19 PM on April 12, 2010 [9 favorites]


Also: Star Wars is way faster-paced than I remember. Every 15-seconds is packed full!
posted by grobstein at 5:19 PM on April 12, 2010


The bit with the dudes holding up the samplers to serve as the random lit buttons made it for me. This is awesome, thanks for posting.
posted by drezdn at 5:25 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


this gets 1000 thumbs up
posted by rebent at 5:36 PM on April 12, 2010


that is kind of the point

I phrased my post wrong. I realized what the point of this movie was, I'm just saying it doesn't really interest me. Watching someone act out Star Wars is like watching someone play videogames in my opinion. It's something I could do myself, so I don't really see the point.
posted by DoublePlus at 5:36 PM on April 12, 2010


As someone who doesn't have any friends who've even seen star wars (or maybe like, once in the 80s and they barely remember it), much less geeky enough to actually act it out with props and stuff, it could be that I enjoy it because living vicariously through it. I didn't think of it that way before.
posted by amethysts at 5:40 PM on April 12, 2010


I can dig how it wouldn't be for everyone, DoublePlus. But what I see of value in it, and what had me laughing so loud and has me excited to see the whole thing, is not "watching someone act out Star Wars" (two hours of which from one small group of amateurs I would no doubt find dull) but the net effect of so many differing approaches to the process stacked up in sequence.

That juxtaposition of styles, the tiny slivers of different conceptualizations of this common cultural touchstone, the little moments of lo-fi brilliance in regurgitating these long-familiar images, the aggressive eclecticism of the constant transitions—that's a wonderfully appealing thing to me, as annoying and dizzying as it may in some respects be to behold. Certainly that kind of collage is not for everyone, but man oh man is it for me.
posted by cortex at 5:42 PM on April 12, 2010 [8 favorites]


I remember hearing about this a while back and had (of course) forgotten all about it.

Also: Star Wars is way faster-paced than I remember. Every 15-seconds is packed full!

Yeah, this. About halfway through the battle scene I wasn't able to keep track of where one version ended and the next began, and just let the confusion and action and confusion wash over me.
posted by shakespeherian at 5:45 PM on April 12, 2010


This is great, but it is a little overwhelming... I can only watch in 2-minute chunks.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:47 PM on April 12, 2010


That's heavy. I can't wait to watch the whole thing, though. My favorite type of project is the sort of idea that's funny in a small amount, then gets worse as it gets longer, then suddenly is amazing again for its sheer endurance and commitment. This seems to fit that pattern pretty damn well.
posted by potch at 5:51 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Yeah, i can tell you right now that this is going into every vj's playlist for use at bars and clubs.
posted by empath at 5:53 PM on April 12, 2010


Apparently this was stitched together out of a bunch of clips made by DIFFERENT PEOPLE.

Took me a little while to catch on to that too.

I enjoyed this much more than I expected to. Thank you, it was good fun.
posted by marxchivist at 5:54 PM on April 12, 2010


Definitely reminds me of Wizard People, Dear Reader. You need to be in the right mood to watch it, but when you are it's fantastic.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 6:24 PM on April 12, 2010


I thought it was great. I kept watching to see what surprise I would get next.
posted by maxwelton at 6:35 PM on April 12, 2010


i'm really upset that Brad Neely only did one movie :(
posted by empath at 6:36 PM on April 12, 2010


Thanks to Family Guy, I can no longer watch the Tie Fighter shoot-out scene without going "Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, dun-dun-dun, DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN!" to myself.
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:37 PM on April 12, 2010


The end sealed it for me.
posted by cleancut at 6:37 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Does anyone else remember Hardware Wars? Hilarious!
posted by Daddy-O at 6:39 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


Solon and Thanks: "Definitely reminds me of Wizard People"

I had the good fortune to see Wizard People performed live, and it was worth every dollar of the admission.

The difference though is that Wizard People was put together by one guy, so he could have a rhythm to it - the intense joke every second sections and the longer, drier segments that lead up to a bigger payoff later.

With this, nothing builds on anything else. except in the statistical aggregate. There is no composition tying it together other than the rules of the procedure for allocating segments to volunteers. It is still remarkable to see, but it is much less traditional, and a very different experience. This remake is coming from everywhere, it acts as a meta-commentary because what you get from it is a sampling of what we have all made of Star Wars since seeing it - this is much more of an experiment, a bit disconnected from the romantic notion of The Author, and requires a much different way of viewing. If done right it could be a showpiece of what it means to be a no longer passive audience (I would have to see more than this clip to really know whether it accomplishes this, and yes I know that they were not aiming at anything so pretentious sounding or grandiose).
posted by idiopath at 6:46 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I was hooked when I saw the Patty Hearst stormtrooper (about 36" in). A little short for a Symbionese Liberationist revolutionary, aren't you?
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 6:59 PM on April 12, 2010


Also, I knew I had seen this here before - previously. It does appear that the editors had a number of choices of representations of each scene, which gives more room for authorial intention and larger scale composition of the work. I am excited to see how the longer piece holds up.
posted by idiopath at 7:03 PM on April 12, 2010


I really thought that this was one of those "I applaud the concept but could not imagine actually watching it" things, but based on that snippet, it appears to be strangely watchable. It might get a bit tiring, but I'm looking forward to giving it a try.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:21 PM on April 12, 2010


Next up for the uncut treatment: Andy Warhol's Empire. I call dibs on the 6:14:45 segment.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:27 PM on April 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


That was a ball of awesome. I wish I'd participated.
posted by dogwelder at 7:34 PM on April 12, 2010


My favorites: the little kids, climbing down the ladder, the part where it got really weird and 3cpo and r2 are now represented by a tea pot and a fire extinguisher, Leia and Chewiee.

I think I just saw the distant future. A litany of horrible catastrophe has laid low the world that we know and centuries of barbarism have ensued. Yet eventually, from the ruins, future generations discover small and puzzling pieces of what once was, among them not a single frame from the original Star Wars movies ... but all the Screw Lucas stuff does survive.

And from this they, our children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children's children, begin to draw a very accurate picture of all that was wonderful about our time.
posted by philip-random at 7:49 PM on April 12, 2010


That was great -- a truly psychedelic dive into a weird cul-de-sac of popular culture that's become an essential part of the contemporary collective unconscious. I would really love to see something similar, but acting out something "gravely serious" like religious myths.

Also, found this linked in the comments.
posted by treepour at 7:53 PM on April 12, 2010


Me too, dogwelder. If they do The Empire Strikes Back, I'm doing a segment.

And if you're into this sort of thing, seek out Raiders: The Adaptation.
posted by vibrotronica at 7:57 PM on April 12, 2010 [1 favorite]


I would really love to see something similar, but acting out something "gravely serious" like religious myths.

That's a great idea. Or classic literature, maybe.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:17 PM on April 12, 2010


Meh! I applied for my very own 15 seconds but was (narrowly) too late. It's looking positively wonderful.
posted by Monkeymoo at 8:25 PM on April 12, 2010


Wizard of Oz
Pulp Fiction
Citizen Cane
Poltergeist
Rocky Horror Picture Show
posted by empath at 8:29 PM on April 12, 2010


omg 'Kane'.. i knew that
posted by empath at 8:30 PM on April 12, 2010


Psychedelic. It's like a doobie without the pot.

I can see how watching this in a chemically-altered state could make someone really, really paranoid.

Horse-head Chewbacca or paper bag Princess Leia would have triggered my panic attack.

The hamburger Millennium Falcon would have me running for the fridge.

The last scene would have me running to hug my dog.

Damn. I wish I had a doobie.

Damn! I wish I had a dog.
posted by stringbean at 8:30 PM on April 12, 2010


that was all kinds of awesome. please come to seattle, please come to seattle, please come!!!!
posted by Glibpaxman at 9:14 PM on April 12, 2010


That was pretty fun, but Amanda's version is still the high water mark for Star Wars remakes.
posted by chairface at 9:54 PM on April 12, 2010 [2 favorites]


I would watch the entire film like this. It looks like something which would be pretty mindwarping by the end.
posted by hippybear at 11:20 PM on April 12, 2010


There were times when the switch was not readily apparent (hamburger-Millennium Falcon was a pure wa-Wah? moment) as continuing the action. That was a big bonus. I'll totally watch this. I do wonder how the rhythm of the entire movie will feel.
posted by From Bklyn at 12:23 AM on April 13, 2010


I don't know - sometimes watching other people having so much fun... IS FUN!
posted by zoinks at 3:13 AM on April 13, 2010


Chewbacca is definitely more hilarious in translation.
posted by philip-random at 3:38 AM on April 13, 2010


That was Great. I agree with odinsdream-- I didn't think they needed clips from the real movie. Hopefully in the full-length version there won't be any real Star Wars clips.

That was incredibly trippy. I started off thinking 'oh yeah, whatever-- Star Wars Lego, Robot Chicken did it already-- wait, what? What The Hell? Wh--' and then I was laughing with delight.

I loved the people making the lazer sound effects with their mouths, just like we all did when we were little.
posted by Fuzzy Monster at 6:53 AM on April 13, 2010


^tear^ That was just beautiful.
posted by psylosyren at 7:23 AM on April 13, 2010


Metafilter: crowd sourced sweding at its best
posted by djrock3k at 8:35 AM on April 13, 2010


Count me on the LOL side. This is so good.

And really interesting at some kind of meta semiotic level that I lack words to describe. What kind of symbolic sleight of hand can make an entire audience replace "cheeseburger" with "Millennium Falcon"? What the hell did my brain just do to make that experience intelligible?
posted by otherthings_ at 8:42 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


And if you're into this sort of thing, seek out Raiders: The Adaptation.
posted by vibrotronica


Seconded. I saw this two years ago and it was pretty incredible how close to the original they got. A Q&A session with the creators afterwards had the stories of the plaster cast (for Belloq's exploding head a the end) that cost one of the boys his eyebrows (and almost his eyelids), the burning bar scene that filmed in their basement (!) that had one of their mothers putting a temporary kibosh on the movie, the creation of several different boulders until they found the right way to do it...
and their dog playing the part of the "bad dates" monkey was adorable.
posted by blueberry at 10:34 AM on April 13, 2010


That was Great. I agree with odinsdream-- I didn't think they needed clips from the real movie. Hopefully in the full-length version there won't be any real Star Wars clips.

I think some clips here and there might help orient you somewhat.
posted by empath at 10:48 AM on April 13, 2010


I think some clips here and there might help orient you somewhat.

Nah, orientation is for the timid. This is our culture at it's most errrr ... cultured. That is, teaming with bacteria, alchemizing in all manner of organic yet weird directions, tangents, permutations ..... and it's nutritious, he said, completing the yogurt analogy before going off to serve himself some for a late west coast breakfast (with fruit and granola, of course).
posted by philip-random at 10:54 AM on April 13, 2010 [1 favorite]


MetaFilter: Forget I typed all that.
posted by discountfortunecookie at 10:56 AM on April 13, 2010


What kind of symbolic sleight of hand can make an entire audience replace "cheeseburger" with "Millennium Falcon"? What the hell did my brain just do to make that experience intelligible?

"According to Star Wars creator George Lucas, the Falcon's design is inspired by a hamburger, with the cockpit being an olive on the side."
posted by ludwig_van at 2:58 PM on April 13, 2010


Hilarious and very creative! I'd love to see the whole movie done like this.
posted by Ryogen at 10:20 PM on April 22, 2010


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