Star Wars Downunder is here and strewth it’s beaut
Star Wars Downunder, directed by Michael Cox, is finally online. I loved the trailer for this short film which takes a Star Wars theme and makes it deeply Australian. Storm troopers wear Ned Kelly helmets, there are light boomerangs, it’s just a lot of fun. My favourite scene is when a droid’s head opens and a mechanism unfolds to create a ring of corks to keep the flies off its face. The film is entertaining and amusing in equal measure – it’s certainly worth watching. The background is interesting too.
The film started as an entry into the Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards where “…we thought we would simply enter the competition and then get on with our lives. On completion of the film 10 years later, it was disappointing to discover that the competition no longer existed. However, the internet is now a vastly different place to when we first started and the audience that can now be reached far exceeds what would have been possible back then.”
What I find amazing is that this fan film has special effects that put the original Star Wars to shame. It just shows how far things have come in a few years when a group of enthusiasts can produce something so polished.
Michael Cox has pointed out that “There are even subtitles to translate the Australian into English for those who need it.” I encourage you to turn them on because watching the film with the sub-titles providing a ‘proper’ English version is a joy.