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Happy Star Wars Day! While most enthusiasts might prepare for the unofficial geek holiday of May 4th by rewatching a “Star Wars” movie, reading a pile of “Star Wars” comics, or playing a “Star Wars” video game, YouTuber Zach King unveiled “Cardboard Wars,” a spectacular “Star Wars” parody starring King alongside Randall Park, Michelle Khare, Airrack, and Bart Johnson.
But this is no ordinary tribute endeavor since King’s incredible one-hour project recreates 1977’s “Star Wars: A New Hope” entirely out of cardboard, and it simply must be seen to be believed! King graciously provided some exclusive comments on how this hilarious micro-budget miracle came about.
“‘Star Wars’ has truly inspired so many filmmakers and reshaped how movies are made,” King tells SPACE. “As a nod to how groundbreaking those films were, we asked ourselves, what if we made a version out of cardboard and shot it in just five days? That’s exactly what we ended up doing.”
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King first became hooked on the galaxy far, far away with the lead-up to the 1999 launch of “Star Wars: The Phantom Menace,” when Lucasfilm and 20th Century Fox re-released the original trilogy in theaters and the rest is history, as evidenced by his masterful “Cardboard Wars” which was beautifully directed by Josh Fapp.
“One of the funnier challenges was our cardboard stormtrooper costumes,” he recalls. “They were super stiff and hard to see out of, just like in the original films. That made moving around in tight shooting spaces pretty difficult. Also, shooting an entire movie in five days was a huge challenge. We made it work by filming primarily in one warehouse (aside from some desert exteriors), and running multiple cameras and scenes at the same time.”
“Cardboard Wars” even mimics the pioneering digital effects technology devised by legendary ILM names like John Dykstra, Alvah J. Miller, and Jerry Jeffress for their Dykstraflex camera.
“From the beginning, we wanted to film the ships the same way George Lucas did in the original trilogy,” King adds. “So we built miniature and even some ‘bigature’ versions of the ships and used motion control to recreate that classic look and feel.”
Our sincere congratulations and admiration to King and his entire cast and crew for creating one of the funniest, cleverest, and most inspired “Star Wars” spoofs since the vintage “Hardware Wars” short film from way back in 1978.
However and wherever you celebrate, a Happy Star Wars Day to all!!
