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Star Wars retold by someone who hasn't seen it

Cory Doctorow at 9:58 pm Wed, Jan 14, 2009

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Bonnie sez, "Everyone has at least one friend who has seen parts of the Star Wars original trilogy but can’t quite tell you every plot point in order. Joe Nicolosi recorded his friend Amanda as she retells the story from the tiny amount she’s seen with hilarious results."

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) (Thanks, Bonnie!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE:  Copyfight • Funny

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  • Wally B

    That was made entirely of win.

  • auilix

    My friend hasn’t seen Star Wars AT ALL – and she informed me she “knew what happened” anyway from playing the old SNES video games, so I drew a comic about the results-
    not a SW spoiler

  • billyrageguy

    Ha the best part was when she said:

    and there’s this new bad guy in town and he is Darth Vader

    http://www.entertonement.com/clips/59222/There%27s-this-new-bad-guy-in-town

  • MacD

    :)

    I like these kinds of ‘re-tellings’. Best I ever heard was a dutch comic, Hans Teeuwen, playing a sweetly dumb character retelling the whole bible in a couple of minutes. The part where “[...and then] they nailed this guy jesus’ hands to his crotch* because he gave everyone a loaf of fish” had me gasping for breath, especially after the great lead up.

    *(cross being ‘kruis’ in dutch, a synonym for groin).

    /checks out the drunk history vids

  • trr

    I laughed, I cried. Best part for me was George Lucas under the Darth Vader helmet.

  • Takuan

    not so long ago, perhaps even today, you could go to a remote Greek village and find someone able to recite the entire Iliad and Odyssey. In the original.

  • EnglishNerd

    I was crying I was laughing so hard. I have to share this with all my friends who treat Star Wars as religion. She’s apparently been very exposed to the story. I’m so glad that they animated that and posted it for everyone to see!

  • midknyte

    more star wars humor that must be seen

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZBevXohCI

  • know_iknow_iknow

    Loved it! Here’s another funny one:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E

  • midknyte

    quality stuff

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zYOw7v6TFE

  • Anonymous

    The simple “carbon-copy” – generic plot we see every damn movie out these days. Movies are now all about the sexiest stars (cast) and the best special effects.. and sometimes the music sound track.. They are all “video” DJ remixes of the old.

  • alisong76

    15 and 16, you BOTH beat me, but I still got one to post, ha!

    http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=5blbv4WFriM&feature=related

  • Anonymous

    She did pretty well for what she got out of all that. And she looks and sound so damm cute. I’d date a girl like that. Any girl who can have fun like that is a keeper.

  • idoru45

    Absolutely brilliant. I doubt I could have done it better, and I’ve seen them all more times than Hans has had hot Twi’leks.

  • codereduk

    I wasn’t expecting that to be as funny as it was, great job. And props for using the movie poster for The Stuff, am I the only one in the world who has seen that movie?

    HERE is my pick for my favourite Star Wars humour, NSFW because of language.

  • BadKittyM

    Just about the funniest thing I’ve seen on the intardnet for a very long time. This made my day.
    “A planet populated with…Brown muppets.”

  • shiva7663

    I’d like to hear her retell the story of Lost.

  • Evil Jim

    The animations for this retelling killed me. Nice work that was.

    Hey guys, thanks for all the additional Star Wars related videos. They kept me up later than I wanted but also kept me laughing :)

  • Hanglyman

    Codereduk- Nope.

    We all have to eat shaving cream, once in a while.

  • Anonymous

    And for an encore… I hope she hasn’t seen Harry Potter.

  • robulus

    Sorry, but this isn’t funny at all. I find the idea that Chewie is a “deformed Ewok” deeply offensive to both Ewok and Wookie-kind alike.

  • VICTOR JIMENEZ

    Brown muppets… that killed me.
    Pure gold!!

  • jackie31337

    This video seriously needs to be accompanied by a warning about HOW hilarious it is. I made the mistake of thinking I could discreetly watch it at work. Do you have any idea how hard it is to laugh one’s ass off silently?

  • pentomino

    It reminds me of those videos of a drunk guy telling stories about Benjamin Franklin’s life. And they got Jack Black to act out the story and edited it in.

    (can’t link to it, at work)

  • Mitch Wagner

    Hilarious! Who was the crusty old guy, though?

  • Anonymous

    Oh my. So funny! Thanks for making this!

  • palindromic

    that darth vader is feeling blue thing was hilarious hahaha

  • arkizzle

    Mitch: this one?

  • Jeff

    Note to George Lucas: Hire this woman so as to improve the quality of writing on your next project. Very nice work.

  • Boba Fett Diop

    So…like, the Greeks are all camped out at Illium because, I think, Menelaus was mad at Paris for stealing his girlfriend, but then Achilles was mad at Menelaus because he was already dating this other girl, who was like the daughter of some priest or something. So Menelaus says to Achilles, you know, “what’s your problem, you don’t even like women,” and Achilles gets even madder and says “well, if that’s the way you’re going to be, I’m going to go home.”

    So Achilles takes off, but then he gets lost on the way and meets Odysseus, and they both go to this island where, I think, they meet Merlin, who turns them into sheep or something…

  • Anonymous

    I can’t beleive Lando dies in the second one, thats such a bummer! :-)

  • powellb

    Frickkin hilarious!

  • obscurica

    That’s pretty funny. Fans of this really ought to check out “Stacy” as “Pink Five”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW11ly5Urts&feature=related

    Also, I remember about 5-7 years ago, crying from laughter over a commentary parody in the style of MST3k called “A New Fangled Hope” but now I can’t find it anywhere. Help?

  • proscriptus

    George Lucas could hire my cat and it would improve the quality of writing on his next project. Nothing he does will ever be as good as this. I might pay for a transcript.

  • lumpi

    Man, could you really explain those three moviews any better from the back of your head? I know I couldn’t.

    This reminds me, btw, of the hilarious caption of the Battlestar Galactica DVD cover over at PhotoshopDisasters: http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/2009/01/battlestar-galactica-fracking-rack.html

  • Spoon Armada

    The “crusty old white guy” bit makes me think that Hooper’s rant in Chasing Amy is a major source of her information.

    What’s a Nubian?

  • pewma

    Hans?

    Hilarious! and Leya in a gold suit…

  • zuzu

    Proving the timeless value of Joseph Campbell‘s monomyth.

    …or something.

  • franko

    “crusty old white guy”… the reveal made me choke on my morning coffee. awesome. speaking as a first-gen, to-this-day star wars fan, this is pure GOLD.

  • Takuan

    Ian starting out.

  • Ryan Waddell

    OMG… That’s awesome. The… counselor? Bahahahaha

  • Rezpect

    I’m betting that this woman “claims to have never seen” these films because she actually did watch them with a boyfriend but wasn’t really paying attention, just a little.

  • Bonnie

    I love her version especially with the Hanz Solo bit. I’m calling him that from now on.

  • Anonymous

    Good job guys! Ha! :-D
    - Heather

  • arkizzle

    P E R F E C T ! !

    And the animated puncuation adds so much.

  • Lemon

    The guy put it up on youtube as well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb2GmBkkaTU just in case anyone want to save it with their favourites.

  • Anonymous

    Loved it!!

    Thanks for that

  • Bender

    love it. wonderful.

  • Mitch Wagner

    Arkizzle (#16): Thanks! That’s fantastic!

  • bassemb

    I love this. I only watched the Star Wars films (except for ep. III) last year. Amanda is very cute. And she knows some peculiar details, like Lando’s full name!

  • Anonymous

    I have tears running down my face from laughing so hard. Too funny.

  • yrogerg

    ::is confused about the copyfight tag on this:: is it because of the collaged animation??

  • SeeChao

    That was great… amazing how much people manage to pick up from pop culture even if they haven’t experienced it themselves.
    Also, Amanda is damn cute… Can I get her number?

  • TheBlessedBlogger

    I seriously just peed a little. I think I may like her version better than the original.

  • ill lich

    I have a friend who at this point WILL NOT go see any of the Star Wars films because he has remained “pure” for so long and wants to stay that way as some kind of weird badge of honor.

    “The grave’s a fine and private place. . . but none I think do there use the Force.”

  • ridl

    Laughed too hard. Abs now sore.

  • chip

    This is absolutely incredible. This certainly beats the “remastered” version. Extra points for liberal use of the Wilhelm Scream.

  • dragonfrog

    I’d go see that version in theatres.

  • zuzu

    I’d like to hear her retell the story of Lost.

    Or Dune!

  • David Carroll

    Why thank you Joe and Amanda! You just saved me $100. You guys should get a job at Coles notes.

    Now could you explain Heroes to me?

  • David Pescovitz

    APPLAUSE!!! This is fantastic.

  • Kabur Naj

    Awesome. The banter alone is cute, but with the animation: pure gold!

    I’m impressed with just how many details she’d managed to absorb (and remember!) while still not catching enough of the films to get the underlying chronology.

    “Olo. Hans Olo.”

  • Dan Freeman

    AHA! Did no one (re) post “Coming to Alderaan”? I’m shocked!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utGXF5orynk

  • axl456

    Awesome.. Better than the real thing..

  • ornith

    It’s like the Mr. Potato Head of Star Wars: all the right pieces, but arranged ALL WRONG.

  • Toma

    I can relate with her. For one of the performances my improv group did in high school, we had to perform the entire Star Wars series in 90 seconds or less, as requested by an audience member. I had never seen anything more than snippets of a Star Wars movie. Worse yet, neither had a few of my partners onstage. Most – no, all – of the laughter came at our expense.

  • styrofoam

    I loved the fact that she dwelled on the wookie/ewok connection for so long, especially since a concious decision was made to populate Endor with half wookies, if you will.
    Half of Wookie = Ewok

    She picked up on the not so subtle nature of this substitution, even without the linguistic clue. that’s hilarious.

  • karenrani

    That was so funny – tears streaming down my face especially after the Han Solo part…

  • mrsomuch

    @19 – thanks for that, Izzard is brilliant

    Amanda has it nailed and is very cute, She should do a segment retelling great movies. it would be superb.

  • Jeff

    ZuZu: boy meets worm. Boy rides worm. Boy becomes emperor of the Known Universe.

  • grimc

    I love the illustrated ignorance (for lack of a better phrase) genre. The Drunk History vids are classic:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V_DsL1x1uY

  • Anonymous

    Hasn’t seen it? She described it pretty well. Probably as well as I would, and I’ve “seen” it.

    If she hadn’t seen any of it then she wouldn’t been able to give ANY rundown of it, especially not 2+ minutes…

    For example, I could not tell you a THING about “Lord of the Rings” except Elijah Wood and the guy from LOST are in it.

    There’s your retelling.