TAR TAR

review written 2/8/2007

One of the built-in aspects of Star Wars fan film discussion is the notion of context. When we discuss Star Wars fan films, we don't need to explain the history of the saga beforehand; we know what a Death Star is and what Qui-Gon ended up doing on Tatooine and all that, and thus can go into our review of the film without needing to discuss the "historical" context.

Would I have cast an eye over this film had it not been created by an ILM effects artist for a company contest? It's doubtful. I don't know how this film works if you don't know what the rules were in creating it, nor the history. A couple of neighborhood friends making a cheap-looking film is par for the course; an ILMer making a cheap-looking film is funny.

This little film tells the story of an abandoned Jar Jar stuck on Earth looking for a home, finding Lucasfilm's new HQ less than inviting. Our hero is played by a plastic toy, and all the miniatures work in the film is well-done; it has enough movement and believability to tell the story but still looks cheap enough to keep the comedy going. There are surreal moments where closeups try to imply that Jar Jar is six feet tall and talking to people eye-to-eye, but then a wider shot reveals he's merely plastic toy height. Kuleshov would be proud.

I laughed at Jar Jar's long, nonsensical busking sign, and his interaction with ordinary people whose performances are purposefully less than convincing. But I think what I liked best was the fact that he was clearly in a park or on a California street; I was put in mind of school-aged filmmakers desperately trying to pass off their local strip mall as Coruscant. And you gotta love that ugly Vader mask.

The aged, gritty Super 8 filmstrip look enhances the fun of the affair, although I would have liked to see the film skip a little more, perhaps some variation in how misaligned the reel was. (It's sort of touching to know that the grain elements were taken from some of Shafer's childhood filmmaking adventures!) Oddly—given Shafer's background—the only effects aspect I was disappointed in were certain digital touches, namely the opening crawl and titles, which look like they were done by amateur digital filmmakers rather than amateur old-fashioned filmmakers. I would have liked to have seen them look like they were shot in-camera somehow; when you get an amusing shot like Jar Jar and some fish toys clearly on wires in an aquarium, it ruins the illusion to see digital text pop up.

To tackle an unrelated tangent, this may be the first fan film to, consciously or not, pay homage to the recent suicide documentary The Bridge.

I absolutely enjoyed the faux-vintage feel of this project, and would actually love to see something more done with the concept; the Star Wars universe and the homemade 1970s aesthetic go together nicely. As a piece of entertainment, this doesn't quite hang together or tell much of a story of its own, and thus is only really funny if you know it's a sly wink from an ILMer. As a historical document, though, it makes for an interesting look at Star Wars from the inside, yet played from about as far outside as you can get.