George Lucas Star Wars It is one of the defining film franchises of the last 50 years. At that level of popularity, the series was meant to inspire jokes and skits. Lucas himself has expressed his admiration for some of these parodies.
Star Wars It has been parodied by everyone from Seth MacFarlane to “Weird Al” Yankovic. It has been parodied in movies, television, music, and even paintings. This begs an interesting question: Did Lucas ever single out a parody as his favorite?
From parodying ‘Star Wars’ to being part of it
The original Star Wars the film was released in 1977. The following year, the world got its first notable satire from the Lucas film: Hardware wars. While Lucas’s magnum opus amazed the world with its special effects, Hardware wars It looks ridiculously cheap and derives much of its humor from its low-budget aesthetic.
For example, Princess Leia’s home planet is replaced by a basketball. Chewbacca is replaced with Chewchilla, the Wookiee Monster, a character who is clearly a puppet of the Cookie Monster dyed a different color. In a similar vein, Luke Skywalker’s Dirt Slider is an old clunker.
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According to AllMovie, the 13-minute movie was directed by Ernie Fosselius. HuffPost reports Hardware wars would play together The Rocky Horror Picture Show in cult movie theaters. Hardware wars It cost just $ 8,000 but went on to raise around $ 500,000 over the course of a year.
Fosselio went from impersonating Star Wars to be part of it. After the launch of Hardware wars, voiced characters for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. She also helped organize a piece of music for the latest film.
How George Lucas and Others Reacted to ‘Hardware Wars’
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The film’s producer Michael Wiese told SF Weekly: “We brought it in to Industrial Light and Magic and all those guys were laughing out loud about it, and they told their friends about it. We sent Lucas an impression and he saw it, supported it and got me a meeting at 20th Century Fox with the president. We hoped they would show it as a theatrical short with their movies, which they didn’t. They didn’t think it was that much fun. “
According to the book Star Wars FAQ: All that remains to be known about the trilogy that changed the movies, Lucas said Hardware wars was his favorite Star Wars parody in a 1999 interview. To put this in context, Lucas said Hardware wars was his favorite Star Wars parody after some of the best known satires of the Star Wars saga were released (for example Space balls, “Yoda” by Weird Al ‘Yankovic), but before some of the more recent series came to light (for example Family man episode “Blue Harvest”). Lucas might prefer some of these parodies after Hardware wars but he has never said it publicly. In any case, Fosselius and his company accomplished something important by making a Star Wars parody that Lucas enjoyed.
See also: ‘Star Wars’: why George Lucas once said that dialogue is not ‘important’
