{"id":27395,"date":"2018-01-19T06:39:56","date_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=27395"},"modified":"2018-01-19T06:40:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-19T11:40:51","slug":"the-bootleg-files-the-lost-starfighter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/19\/the-bootleg-files-the-lost-starfighter\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bootleg Files: The Lost Starfighter"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 622:<\/strong> \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d (2017 \u201cStar Wars\u201d fan film).<\/p>\n

LAST SEEN:<\/strong> It is on YouTube.<\/p>\n

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO:<\/strong> None.<\/p>\n

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS:<\/strong> Not unlike all fan films, it is based on an unauthorized use of copyright protected material.<\/p>\n

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE:<\/strong> Maybe in a galaxy far, far away, but not in this one.<\/p>\n

I have not seen the latest installment in the \u201cStar Wars\u201d saga, nor do I have any plans to watch it. For that matter, I have no plans to see any more films released under the \u201cStar Wars\u201d banner.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I recognize that this is a minority opinion, but I believe that the \u201cStar Wars\u201d franchise ran out of creative steam following \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back.\u201d The original 1977 classic was a rush of happy energy, while its 1980 follow-up was a brilliantly intense detour into mature territory. And, hey, even that loopy 1978 \u201cHoliday Special\u201d interlude was entertaining (albeit mostly for the wrong reasons). But beyond Carrie Fisher\u2019s slave girl costume, \u201cReturn of the Jedi\u201d had little to offer except a noisy, cutesy, frenetic effort to tie up the trilogy\u2019s flapping loose ends. The subsequent prequels and sequels never duplicated the jubilation of the original production or the intellectual menace of the second go-round \u2013 mostly, all they had was a surplus of special effects (with some not being very special) and a conspicuous lack of good acting and original writing. And, after a while, if you\u2019ve seen one light saber duel or spaceship chase, you\u2019ve seen them all.<\/p>\n

To its credit, the \u201cStar Wars\u201d series never lost its fans. These indefatigable masochists willingly put up with increasingly dismal productions with a fidelity not seen since Elvis Presley\u2019s fans tolerated his puerile movies in the 1960s. Some of the more enthusiastic devotees took their love one step further by creating their own fan films inspired by the \u201cStar Wars\u201d series. Mercifully for them, Lucasfilm \u2013 and, more recently, Disney \u2013 happily ignored the obvious copyright violation problems inherent in fan film production, thus allowing these home-made tributes to Luke Skywalker and company to flood the Internet.<\/p>\n

One of the newest \u201cStar Wars\u201d fan films to turn up is \u201cThe Lost Starfighter,\u201d an eight-minute endeavor that took two years to make. This short has the virtues of the \u201cStar Wars\u201d concept, along with the vices the ultimately burdened the franchise.<\/p>\n

The focus of \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d involves a team of young X-wing pilots known as the Blue Squadron. This group is on the last day of their training mission when something goes wrong for Blue Five, a young woman pilot \u2013 her spacecraft inexplicably veers away from her colleagues and goes off into unfamiliar territory. The cause of this problem is Blue Two, an obnoxious male pilot who programmed Blue Five\u2019s spacecraft with the wrong coordinates. Blue Two brags that he \u201cstar snapped\u201d his comrade while insisting, \u201cPranks like this help us grow like a team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Five quickly finds herself facing a Star Destroyer, and her presence is immediately detected by the enemies within that monster spaceship. Blue Five is able to turn around and rejoin her squadron, but the Star Destroyer follows her. Thus, the Blue Squadron needs to employ their still-new skills to meet and destroy the better prepared foe.<\/p>\n

On the plus side, \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d offers a special effects presentation that is as stylish as any intergalactic battle sequence from the \u201cStar Wars\u201d features. The filmmaking talent behind this work \u2013 directors Nick Murphy and Paul Richey, animation and visual effects master Samuel Hall and cinematographer Gino Varisano \u2013 have put forth a great-looking little film that was probably made on a budget equal to the cost of Daisy Ridley\u2019s bobby pins.<\/p>\n

Alas, this short makes the same mistakes as the \u201cStar Wars\u201d films that followed \u201cThe Empire Strikes Back\u201d: too much attention to effects while ignoring the story and the acting. Outside of the emetic Blue Two, none of the characters have personalities, and the lack of emotional response to Blue Two\u2019s irresponsible prank is bizarre. The weak jokey dialogue recalls the thudding attempts at lightheartedness that percolated in \u201cThe Phantom Menace\u201d and \u201cAttack of the Clones.\u201d And, I am sorry to say, nobody in this film seems to know how to act \u2013 which, of course, is in keeping with Episodes 1 to 3 and Episode 7 of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d (I assume the absence of acting continued in Episode 8 \u2013 after all, there is a very good reason why Mark Hamill\u2019s star diminished after 1983.) <\/p>\n

If anything, \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d offers a sterling calling card for the filmmakers if they are seeking to go further in the high-tech side of the business. But if they are hoping to sell screenplays and be trusted with A-list (or even B-list) actors, more work is required. Still, I am glad that I could see \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d for free on YouTube<\/a> with only an eight-minute investment of my time. I\u2019ll let the \u201cStar Wars\u201d fanatics enrich Disney\u2019s coffers in the theater.<\/p>\n

IMPORTANT NOTICE: While this weekly column acknowledges the presence of rare film and television productions through the so-called collector-to-collector market, this should not be seen as encouraging or condoning the unauthorized duplication and distribution of copyright-protected material, either through DVDs or Blu-ray discs or through postings on Internet video sites.<\/em><\/p>\n

Listen to \u201cThe Online Movie Show with Phil Hall<\/a>\u201d on SoundCloud, with new episodes every Monday.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BOOTLEG FILES 622: \u201cThe Lost Starfighter\u201d (2017 \u201cStar Wars\u201d fan film). LAST SEEN: It is on YouTube. AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None. REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Not unlike all fan films, it is based on an unauthorized use of copyright protected material. CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Maybe in a galaxy far, far away, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":27396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513],"tags":[345,980,1912],"class_list":["post-27395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bootleg-files","tag-fan-film","tag-star-wars","tag-the-lost-starfighter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27395"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27398,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27395\/revisions\/27398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}