I finally downloaded and saw The Dark Redemption, a Star Wars-based fan movie, and I thought I'd write a bit about Star Wars-based fan movies. A good web site for Star Wars Fan Films (SWFF) is The Mos Eisley Multiplex. Like every other web site out there except mine, it's gone through a couple of face changes to make it look more graphical and hip.

The first SWFF I saw was Troops, probably the film that started this whole fad. I think Steve showed it to me and Dave. It's a well done and produced Cops-style treatment of Stormtroopers on patrol on Tatooine. It's a funny parody of Cops and also ties into some of the unseen backstory of the original Star Wars. It's about 10 minutes long and is in QuickTime 3 format, recompressed so it's now less than 27 MB. Definitely the one to watch, if you're only going to see one, and probably still the best one out there.

The other good live-action SWFF is The Dark Redemption, which was finished somewhat recently. Made in Australia and some 25 minutes long, it is not quite as polished as Troops, especially in the fight scenes. But it also has a good storyline and shows some of the backstory just previous to the first Star Wars film. This one is about Mara Jade, rebel operative captured by the Empire. She has the Death Star plans and needs to escape before the Imperials discover her secret. Some 75 MB total.

I'm not too impressed by the other live action films. Troops and TDR were made by professionals working on their off time. Most other films are class projects and such, done by people without that much film experience. Still, some of the stories are good, but the acting and production value is usually not there. Trooper Clerks is probably the best of that bunch, and maybe shouldn't be put with the other films, as it's done by adults, though not film professionals. It's a scene by scene duplicate of the Clerks trailer, but done with various personnel on the Death Star. It's 13.6 MB and 1.75 minutes long.

A good computer generated movie is Tripping the Rift. It's rated R material but has great graphics and it's funny. Doesn't have much of anything to do with Star Wars other than characters who are vaguely similar-looking. It's a 28 MB MPEG that takes some 5.75 minutes to run. Steve showed me this movie, although the current version has credits and a bit of extra material. Other computer aren't anywhere near this good.

The animated films are not as impressive. Pulp Wars which is Pulp Fiction with Star Wars characters. It's done in Flash, which although it's nice for a static cartoon, it's rather behind the times. Flash reminds of nothing so much as the old tv marvel comics cartoons where the only animation is a picture of Spiderman swinging from one side of the frame to the other. The pictures move, the body parts don't. Sure, Flash has sharper graphics and more vivid colors, but it's still rather primitive looking to me.

Other animated films include Park Wars, which are recreated Phantom Menace trailers done using South Park characters. Those are ok. Star Wars, ASCII Edition is quite good, keeping in mind it's ASCII. Harkens back to the good old days when someone sent me an e-mail ASCII animation of a Thanksgiving turkey being put into an oven. It depended on running on a VT100 terminal so the animation would work.

There are a couple of works in progress that look interesting. The Hidden Jedi is live action, with a good trailer. Three Jedi trying to hide from the Empire. KnightQuest also looks promising, with a similar concept. I tend to like the films that are set in the Universe rather than the ones that merely parody Star Wars or mix and match between Star Wars and some other story.

So that's a quick overview of some of the better Star Wars Fan Films around. Check them out if you have the time and the bandwidth.