STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE Opening Gets CLONE WARS-Style Makeover

For most of you reading this, your introduction to the Star Wars saga was likely one of the films. You could have been there in ’77,Opens in a new tab when the saga first arrived. Or maybe it was the Special EditionsOpens in a new tab or the prequels that brought you in. But for many younger folks, they fell in love with Star Wars thanks to the Clone WarsOpens in a new tab animated series, which ran from 2008 to 2013. The style of that series always opened in the middle of the action, with bombastic World War II newsreel-inspired narration explaining each episode’s plot.

Now, a fan using the Twitter handle Ben CatnobiOpens in a new tab has recreated the opening of A New Hope, done in Clone Wars style. Instead of the traditional text crawl, they’ve gone and done a spoken word version, just as in the cartoon. And it’s in the “1930s announcer guyOpens in a new tab” voice of actor Tom Kane, who also voiced Yoda on the show. The visuals are all from the events of Rogue OneOpens in a new tab, bleeding into the opening of Episode IV. You can watch the full video above.

This A New Hope opening video is a perfect approximation of how Clone Wars always presented story information in each episode. And George Lucas’ influences are all over it. All things pertaining to World War II battlesOpens in a new tab absolutely enamored Lucas from the time he was a kid. Old WWII films deeply inspired the dogfights between the X-Wings and the TIE fighters from the original trilogy.

Lucas and his Clone Wars co-creator Dave FiloniOpens in a new tab also had a deep affection for World War I history, as the Naboo fighter pilots often looked very similar to pilots of that era. And if we started on the Empire/fascist comparisons, we’ll be here all day. George Lucas and Dave Filoni exemplified all these influences most on Clone Wars. And we have a feeling they’d get a real kick out of this fan-made video.