May The Farce Be With You
A group of eight friends, operating out of a garage in Britain, are filming spoofs of the Star Wars films that rival the originals in quality. They're doing it for a song, too, with production costs of around £3,000 to produce the two they have made so far: The Empire Strikes Backyard and The Emperor's New Clones.
The films have been made by Backyard Productions, who have spoofed two of the six Star Wars movies, calling them The Empire Strikes Backyard and the newest offering: Star Wars - The Emperor’s New Clones.
Darren Scales, who co-founded Backyard Productions, said they transformed everyday objects into unlikely, realistic space-age props.
He said: “We have got bubble wrap on the ceiling, we’ve got bottle tops and yoghurt pots on the walls along with tubes from the centre of rolls of carpets.
"The blasters are water pistols, we just stuck a few bits of lids on, add a bit of spray paint and then you have a blaster.
"You take a hard hat, put an Imperial sticker on it and suddenly it’s an Imperial work helmet for someone building the Death Star - it’s not rocket science.
"It’s the same with the light sabres. Up close they look awful but you put a stick in it, you hold it and on screen you can’t tell the difference.”
The amateur company, which has an eight-strong team, shot their first short sketches in 1993 but have gone on to spoof some major Hollywood films, including Jurassic Park (entitled “Geriatric Park”) and the Indiana Jones Films (called “Doom Raiders”).
Obviously home videos to begin with, the birth of modern technology has seen the latest films take on a far more professional look, so much so they are hard at first glance to tell apart from the real thing.
You can judge for yourself by watching the trailer for The Empire Strikes Backyard. They actually have some nicely done special effects.
It cost George Lucas millions to do what these guys can now do in a garage. Isn't technology wonderful?
Media, Technology, Video | Gaius Thursday, 3 January , 2008
By feeblemind, Thursday, 3 January , 2008 @ 1:47 pm
Maybe they could do a spoof(!) of ‘Plan 9 from Outer Space’ next?
By Maggie, Thursday, 3 January , 2008 @ 8:37 pm
feeblemind -
I’d settle for bringing back the BBC’s “Red Dwarf” …
Gawd! How I miss “Cat”!