Next year, George Lucas’ original Star Wars turns 50 years old. And to this day, no single movie has had as much of an impact on Hollywood as that film. It’s been copied and parodied endlessly since first blasting its way into theaters in 1977. So many parodies exist now, there’s enough to stitch together to make a version of A New Hope made entirely of references. But just when you think they’ve run out of ways to parody Star Wars, one arrives that blows the rest away. YouTuber Zach King has recreated A New Hope, pretty much from start to finish. Only with sets, spaceships, and Death Stars all made entirely out of cardboard. Yes, we even have a Millennium Falcon constructed from pizza boxes. You can watch King’s full (nearly one hour) hilarious fan film Cardboard Wars down below:
King enlisted his friends and kids to lovingly parody every iconic scene from A New Hope for Cardboard Wars. It’s all there, from the opening Fox fanfare, to the Death Star battle, to the Yavin IV base awards ceremony. We definitely think the choice of casting his young son Liam King as Darth Vader was a stroke of genius. And so was using a dog named Manny as Chewbacca. The actual Chewie was based on George Lucas’ own dog, Indiana, so we think it’s only fitting. And yes, that’s MCU actor Randall Park as Red Leader of the X-Wing squadron, seemingly having a blast.
This fan film’s runtime is about an hour shorter than the actual Star Wars. However, King still managed to hit about every major story beat. And just about everything except clothing and some alien masks is indeed made out of cardboard. We’re not entirely sure how long it took to make every set and prop for Cardboard Wars. But clearly, the final result was worth the time and effort. Any new Star Wars parody fan film that emerges next (and there’s always another on the horizon), they’re going to have their work cut out for them to outdo Cardboard Wars.
You can watch Zach King’s other videos on his YouTube channel.