One of the best ways of working out how big a movie or TV release is these days is seeing if it receives the LEGO treatment and in what kind of timeframe.
The quicker the LEGO-isation, and yes that is now a word, the higher your pop culture phenomenon stocks rise, especially since The LEGO Movie made the Danish plastic brick makers the go-to way of showing your love and dedication to your favourite franchise.
By that yardstick, the newly-released teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens is in a league of its own with Star Wars superfan and YouTube user Snooperking managing to craft a beautifully-realised, and humourous (“Crap! The Oven!”) LEGO-fied faithful frame-by-frame tribute to the teaser trailer in under 24 hours, according to Mashable.
That’s some serious fan lovin’ and impressive creative under pressure.
The creative Force is strong with this one, yes!
But LEGO is not the only way of course of showing your commitment to Star Wars, or quite possibly making a sly commentary on what its creator George Lucas, who sold the franchise to Disney kicking off a bevy of new films, has done to the films since their release in the late ’70s and early ’80s, using rapidly advancing CGI technology.
Not everyone has been enamoured with all this digitally tinkering believing that there is such a thing as too much CGI.
One of these people, according to Den of Geek, is talented filmmaker Michael Shanks, who has produced what he calls The George Lucas Special Edition trailer which, as Den of Geek, mischievously points out is packed to the two moons of Tatooine with pretty much everything Star Wars you can think of, and then some:
“Gratuitous Dewbacks lumbering into view? Check. Banthas? Yes. Dozens of Tie Fighters where two previously sufficed? Of course.
Absolutely stuffed full of in-jokes and visual references for Star Wars fans to enjoy – particularly those who were increasingly mystified at the additions Lucas made to his Original Trilogy back in the 90s – it’s a bit of a treat from start to finish.”
It’s hilariously, perfectly over the top, giving you more Star Wars per frame than you could poke a Bantha at.
And as we all learnt in the Cantina way back in Star wars: A New Hope music is as essential to the Star Wars experience as anything else.
Musicavita has revealed that YouTube user Pharis Official has created a house remix of the Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser trailer which means you don’t just have to watch this first taste of the J.J. Abrams take on the franchise, you can dance to it!
Oh, and should you get peckish after that all dancing, why not grab a sugary snack out of your new Hallmark R2-D2 cookie jar, which whistles out renditions of “Jingle Bells,” “Deck the Halls” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”?
These are the baked goods you’ve been looking for …
But hark, I hear you say, and trust me I’d notice you saying “hark” since who says that ordinarily except at Christmas, what if you were to combine the teaser trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens with The Guardians of the Galaxy?
Would it be the most perfect combination of inter-galactic space adventuring ever?
Why yes, yes it would as Anthony Domanico at c|net makes clear:
“Brazil-based filmmaker Renato Gaiarsa took the footage from the original trailer and added music and styling from the Marvel trailers. Gaiarsa added pieces of textual information about the “Star Wars” film to the trailer, just like they did in the “Guardians” trailers, and set the whole video to Norman Greenbaum’s 1969 hit “Spirit in the Sky.”
The final entry in these fantastically clever re-imaginings of the trailer is from Jonah Feingold who rightly asked himself what master auteur Wes Anderson, a man beloved of delightfully kitschy retro flourishes, obscure French language soundtracks and quirky titling would make of it?
And as Hollywood Reporter rightly notes “daddy issues, this time involving one of the Stormtroopers.”
Thank goodness he did because the Wes Anderson-ed version is a delight, and exactly how I imagine the man who brought us the sublime wonder of The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel treating this most venerable of franchises.
And finally, as we all know (since it was mentioned earlier in the post; ah but were you actually paying attention?), the Star Wars franchise is now owned by the Mouse House and while they have a great track record of being quite hands-off with their various properties as Marvel and Pixar show only too well, a Melbourne, Australia-based freelance artist Darren Wallace wondered what would happen if they were little more OCD about what J.J. Abrams was up to with their precious multi-billion dollar franchise?
Well, it’s all quite Goofy and a whole lot of Disney-influenced fun … a WHOLE LOT!
(source: Laughing Squid)