This is just amazing: a shot-for-shot recreation of the original Star Wars movie (well actually, the 1997 Special Edition), made by fans.
Star Wars Uncut was the brainchild of Casey Pugh, who created a crowdsourcing website where budding sci-fi moviemakers could select a 15-second clip to portray, and the best ones selected by the fans. (This LA Times article explains the background of the project.) The film was actually released in 2010 (and won a Creative Arts Emmy for Interative Fiction), but I'd never heard of it until this week, when it was released on YouTube. I've been watching it in 20-minute chunks after work, and it's amazing. Once you get over the fact that the actors, set and style changes every couple of shots, it's a great way to re-live the Star Wars experience while seeing some truly amazing creativity. The recreations range from fully-realized animations and professionally-produced performances, to little kids acting out the roles in their bedrooms with blankets for costumes. Kudos to the usually IP-protective Lucasfilm folks for allowing this project to happen and then be so freely available on the web -- this is truly what remixing is all about. (And by the way, if you haven't seen the Everything is a Remix series on Vimeo -- and you should -- this is exactly the kind of example of creativity that is so often stymied by restrictive IP rules.)
Star Wars Uncut: Episode IV: A New Hope
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