The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary

The story of how Damon Packard went broke making his movies and distributing thousands of DVD's for free is legendary. He not only left piles of them on top of ATM machines, he not only hired the homeless to hand them out to people at conventions, he reportedly received restraining orders from celebrities to whom he mailed multiple copies. I wasn't lucky enough to get a freebie; I purchased this film twice, once on VHS (long lost) and once on DVD, along with his new film "SpaceDisco-1."

Packard is a die-hard nostalgic for films of the 1970's. On the same tape/DVD as this movie is a segment...I can't really call it a "short film" or a "featurette." I guess the best description of it is "noodling around." It's Packard inserting himself into the movie "Winning," with that film's magnificent main theme blasting away and footage of Formula One racing spliced in. I think in a way, Packard is saying he wished he had directed "Winning," in that era, and hates the fact that he's working outside the industry as an unappreciated independent filmmaker in the 21st Century.

And since the movie industry as it exists today was largely shaped by George Lucas, of course Packard hates Lucas. His criticism of Lucas - voiced by a character in the film - includes the charge that Lucas has never filmed a sex scene. Yes, eroticism and visual sex has pretty much disappeared from movies, but is that Lucas's fault or a change in society? (Or maybe because sex isn't so much a mystery to us any more?)

Packard does poke some important and needed holes in Star Wars and Lucas. Yes, Lucas has aggressively merchandised his films, and much about his film-making and authorship should be questioned. That's why I bought this film twice. But after multiple viewings, I can't shake the suspicion that Packard is simply expressing envy about Lucas and bitterness about his own place in the film industry.

It's about friggin time this found its way onto IMDb. Damon follows up his epic, Reflections of Evil, with perhaps the most unflattering "fan film" ever made. Damon makes another poke at Hollywood at George Lucas' expense. Much like with Reflections, Damon turns a director we all know and love/hate and turn him into something archetypal. In the case of Reflections it was Spielberg. Damon utilizes footage from the "making of" documentaries for Attack of the Clones, and portrays Lucas as a raving madman who is out of touch with reality.

I know Damon says that the mockumentary was all in good fun, but there's a fair amount of vitriol that is present that makes the piece that much more flabbergasting.

If you like Reflections of Evil, you owe it to yourself to track this down. It contains all the quirks and madness that made Reflections such a great film and moves it along at a brisk 40 minutes or so.

Deep Star Wars fans might find this release mildly offensive, but most of us will more likely die of laughter. I nearly did.

Where do you begin to describe this movie then? Its not very politically correct. Damon Packard has used behind-the-scenes material from the making of Star Wars, scenes from the SW movies, other movies and self-made material and edited it into a huge satire on George Lucas and Star Wars.

One sequence in particular stands out. The scene from Apocalypse Now where Marlon Brando's recordings of madness is put on play to the disturbed and scared face of Martin Sheen is replaced with a recording of George Lucas rambling along how he needs CGI- characters to tell the story of the movie he has in mind.

Other material has a more harmless nature. Damon Packard has edited himself into the making of Star Wars, arguing with Lucas and replacing CGI-models of monsters with small toy figures with raccoons and such. Also there's a very funny battle scene were dialog is replaced and inserted with all kinds of silly stuff. Basically, its amazingly funny.

You should definitely try and get it if you can, because its a highly inventive and funny movie.