It’s fair to say that the original Star Wars is the most influential film of all time. It created the template for the modern sci-fi and fantasy blockbuster, and the modern cinema landscape wouldn’t be the same without it. And no movie has received the parody treatment as much as this one. So much so, that if all copies of A New Hope suddenly vanished, we could more or less recreate the film beat-by-beat, using other media. In fact, someone has just done that very thing.
Via Boing Boing, we’ve learned about Paulogia, a YouTuber who has meticulously reconstructed George Lucas’ original classic using bits and moments from other films and TV shows which have parodied or referenced it over the past forty-four years. As part of this project, nothing used could be official Lucasfilm material. You can see the full result of his effort in the video down below:
Now, a lot of the heavy lifting for this video experiment comes from the Family Guy parody from the mid-2000s. Seth MacFarlane did a version of the entire movie using his characters. And Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs was essential as well, as was Robot Chicken. Memorable Star Wars parodies from Animaniacs and Muppet Babies get shout outs too. But there are a ton of others here you might not remember. Shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost, and movies like Boogie Nights.
Paulogia
The original basis for this video came from another one made by Paulogia. He attempted to see if they could reconstruct the New Testament portion of the Bible using outside references. As it turned out, the Star Wars one was a little bit easier to accomplish. And hey, Star Wars is like a religion for some folks, so one can see how he went from point A to point B. And there are lots of deserts in both stories too. But we digress.
Would another Star Wars movie be able to get “reconstructed” in the same way? Or is A New Hope simply the most referenced and influential? And thus, the easiest to accomplish? We think there’s a good chance that The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi could get similar treatment. But maybe because the original was the template for all of Star Wars going forward, it remained the template for all parodies as well.
Love them or hate them, neither the prequels nor the sequels left the same cultural footprint. Parts of them get referenced here and there. Hearing characters in shows say “my young padawan” is a prequels reference, as the original films never use that term. But in terms of folks knowing every beat and line from a film, nothing beats the original.
