The Force (and a Lenient Disney) Is With ‘Star Wars’ Fan Filmmakers
For the first time in half a decade, a year has gone by without a new “Star Wars” film, a planned pause that happened to coincide with the pandemic. But across YouTube, there are plenty of movies set in a galaxy far, far away: those made by fans. Instead of the sci-fi saga’s familiar title crawl and brassy score, though, their work usually begins with notices affirming that rights to the story belong to Lucasfilm.
Such films have existed almost as long as the franchise itself. Early examples were spoofs, like the 1978 short “
Hardware Wars” and a 1997 Stormtrooper-centric sendup of
“Cops” called “
Troops.” Lucasfilm held annual fan-movie contests in the decade before Disney
acquired the company in 2012. But Disney’s stewardship, coupled with the wide availability of higher-quality moviemaking tools, has inaugurated a new era of fan creativity.