If you could travel back a long time ago to a galaxy far, far away, what would you change about the past? Would you make sure the Jedi freed Shmi Skywalker from slavery? Stop Palpatine before he ever gained power? Or maybe kill him before his apprentice could join him as Darth Vader? Those are all good answers about how to alter Star Wars history. But instead what if you did something you never would have thought of? What if you convinced Anakin, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Mace Windu to start a rock & roll band? That’s what we might do after seeing this absurd blast from the past. Those Jedi are the stars of a 2004 animated music video for Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.”
Video Mods has re-shared a two-decades-old video that originally appeared at Star Wars‘ official website 20 years ago. Rather than relying on what it called “problematic” mocap technology at the time, eight employees made it (along with three other videos) in just three weeks. They did that using assets from (as it was known then) LucasArts’ video game Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith.
That’s why it features Anakin and his Master as they looked in the trilogy’s final film. Of course, we don’t remember Obi-Wan rocking out in that film while his Padawan sang lead, but we’ll rewatch it to double check. (We’re almost positive Mace Windu was in a band in Attack of the Clones, though.)
Video Mods says it animated this whole video “as a single performance with eight different cameras.” That allowed them to render everything “like a live action shoot,” which an editor then cut into the final product. To pull it all off, the company used Maya, Fusion, Lightwave, and Final Cut Pro software.
Plus we imagine they used the Force. How else could they get dancers to work with a guy who turned into Darth Vader while shooting?