The awesomeness of Troops

 

 

This is by no means a new video.  Troops originally came out way back in 1997, so I'm sure every geek has either seen or heard of this film at some point.  It really is THE first great Star Wars fan film.  It set the bar for everything else that followed.  This came out before the days of youtube and bit torrent sites. 

 

I remember hearing about this film through message boards back in the day, and then being super stoked when I found a bootleg copy of the film at Comic Con...on VHS.  I bought it and then took great pleasure sharing the film with all of my friends.  You kids today with your fancy youtubes and internets don't know how lucky you have it.

 

Anyways, what made me decide to post this video this morning was an article over at Scifi.com about nine great Star Wars spoofs.  Troops obviously made the list.  Seeing it on the list reminded me of it's greatness (I hadin't thought of the film in forever) and it made me think of the Clone Wars film out in theaters now.  It's pretty sad when a bunch of fans with a zero dollar budget and using a decade old software to make special effects can create a more entertaining and more likeable Star Wars film than Lucasfilm can with a multi-million dollar budget and the latest in high end computer graphics software.

 

For the two or three of you out there who may have never seen the film before, Troops is a mash up of Star Wars and the reality show Cops.  The film follows a group of Stormtroopers on Tattooine as they answer calls about stolen droids and a domestic disturbance call.  It's a spot-on perfect spoof of cops, and the Stormtroopers actually come out as likeable guys.

 

Fun things to look out for while watching the video:

• One of the Stormtroopers referring to Tattooine as the "ass end of space"


• One of the droids the Jawas are stealing is Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000.


• We find out what really happened to Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru


• Watch as a Jawa's head catches on fire after being shot.