Brow Beat

The Star Wars Uncut Saga Continues

A scene from Empire Uncut
The child who should play Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode VII

Still from Empire Uncut on Vimeo

Last year on Brow Beat we posted Star Wars Uncut, a feature-length crowdsourced remake of the original Star Wars. (You can still watch the two-hour feature for free on YouTube.) Now, after the success of that project, which attracted millions of views, the Uncut team has moved onto the next and greatest of the Star Wars sequels, The Empire Strikes Back.

I have to admit that, when I first heard of this new project from the Uncut team, I wondered what new territory might be left for it. After all, hadn’t the hundreds of participants who helped out with the first film already used everything from stop-motion animation to drawn animation to Toy Story action figures to the family dog? But all this proved irrelevant about 30 seconds into the new trailer, when I watched a child scream Luke Skywalker’s famous “That’s impossible!” with as much heartfelt terror as anyone since Mark Hamill. (That scene still seems to hit hard with young kids.)

That kid is just one of the more than 1,500 collaborators taking part in the sequel, according to the team’s Vimeo page, and the trailer also shows everything from lots more dogs to an amateur Wes Anderson-style Star Wars parody that’s as fully realized as Conan’s from a few months back. For those who would like to participate, you still have until May 1 to claim a scene to remake. To check out which scenes are finished and which are still up for grabs, head to the Empire Uncut website.