Star Wars Uncut, if you haven’t heard about it, is a remake of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in which they asked people all over the world to contribute their version of scenes in 15 second increments. The interpretations could be in any visual style or with any tools that they had to do so. Some clips are using Legos, others are using anime action figures of the Star Wars characters. There is live action, animation, and a whole lot of other techniques.
Casey Pugh, who worked for Vimeo, had the idea of crowdsourcing as he calls it. That is to take something that the world already enjoys and get volunteers to create something wonderful. And since Star Wars is one of the best known and most interactive of all the movies, it seemed like the logical place to start his Uncut series. So with the help of thousands, he and his crew took in submissions via a website for 15 second scenes, for which A New Hope was divided up. One could then take the scene and make it their own, do whatever they wanted. Then the public was asked to rate them, making sure that the cream rose to the top. Once there was a decided scene for the entire film, they turned it into a movie.
Their Emmy was actually more for how the movie was displayed and put together than for its content, but still an Emmy is an Emmy and they deserved it for this unique concept.
How does Lucas feel about this? They were actually really impressed and even called Pugh in to talk to him about possible distribution, but due to all the product placement and such, being able to do so would be a major issue. But then selling for profit wasn’t the project’s intent to begin with, but getting by the George Lucas legal machine was certainly a big step forward for the fan based remake.
Pugh and his team appeared at the South by Southwest Convention in which they showed 15 minutes of the movie to adoring crowds, as well as explaining how they went about marketing the idea to the public and how the film was put together in a very lively panel discussion. Below is the preview of Star Wars Uncut. It’s pretty ingenius, a little manic, and mostly a whole lot of fun. Enjoy. If you would like to read more about this, see the whole film and perhaps even be considered for future Uncut films, keep checking StarWarsUncut.com for details and announcements. Here is hoping they start with Empire Strikes Back soon.
