After a long time without even thinking about reviewing movies, I was suddenly, blessed with watching one of the best masterpieces I have ever seen. Star Wars Uncut is fan based remake of the massive hit “Star Wars: A New Hope” in which contributers from all over the world, recorded short 15 second segments which were expertly stitched together to form the final gem. The brainchild of Casey Pugh, this project of epic proportion took only a year to create and with a simply mind blowing budget of $0 what has been achieved is simply mind blowing.
For those of you who have just crawled out from under your rock, let me remind you of the basic story of Star Wars. Big war, good vs bad. Young hero thrust into the heart of the action with two witty android sidekicks. Avenging the death of his close family members and fighting for good he leads the team to victory in the epic finale. Boy becomes hero, shares a kiss with his (unknown until the next movie) twin sister and the good guys all live happily ever after (until the next film). It was the masterpiece of a certain George Lucas and lets be honest if you don’t know of this tale then chances are you wont be reading this.
Now that thats out of the way, back to the “Uncut” version. At two hours long, this release is by no means a half hearted fan spoof. The direction is at times genius and at times well crazy. The lighting is shoddy, the acting is poor and the sound is sometimes painful. The script is at times improvised and the story occasionally delves into a random tangent. Sets are poorly made, props are often made of junk and the characters seem to change size, shape, colour and even species sporadically. Having said this, who cares. The though and effort put in is second to none. With a cast of literally thousands, personalities, charms, jokes and wit are shared in tiny segments throughout the film and while there are genuinely passionate scenes, they are often immediately met with hilarity just seconds later. This film is, dare I say it, perfect.
On a more technical side, the efforts of the behind the scenes crew are simply outstanding. Faced with thousands of entries, each scene was hand picked and stitched together to form a seamless passage through the epic tale. Sound flows from one scene to another and although each clip is short, the motion never seems jerky or awkward. The background music is perfect ad to my recollection no scene is missed out. How such a fine outcome is achieved should be an inspiration to all underground film makers.
Needless to say, I think my opinion on this one is clear. If this were ever to be released on DVD, i would highly recommend buying it but for now, thankfully it can be viewed online at Youtube or Vimeo. If you have a spare 2 hours, I urge you to watch this. So, after a rather short but to the point review, it gives me great honour to welcome “Star Wars Uncut” into the Epic-Reviews hall of fame with a perfect score. Mr Lucas, take note!
Final Verdict: Epic Win
