Trailer spoof brings smiles, riles some
In a time not that long ago, in a galaxy sorta far away (the sleepy town of McComb, Miss.), Todd Bullock wasn’t the most successful Storm Trooper around.
He spent two years at Southwest Community College in Summit, Miss., then dropped out of the University of Southern Mississippi after one year. He was the lead singer of a local rock band named Mad As Helen. He lived at home with his parents and freelanced as a computer repairman (actually, he still does).
“I’m a nobody,” says Bullock, “from a redneck town.”
Yet like Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher before him, Bullock has been drawn into the “Star Wars” vortex.
With the final installment in the six-part movie series – “Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” – set to open May 19, “Star Wars” tributes, gossip and merchandise have begun to flood the Internet.
Few, however, have received the attention of Bullock’s six-minute, 36-second “Star Wars” trailer spoof, titled “Episode III: A Lost Hope” and playing on his Web site, www.sequentialpictures.com.
The segment, which stars the 27-year-old Bullock as Anakin and features a cast that includes his brother and girlfriend, has received nearly 500,000 first-time hits on Bullock’s site since late January.
It’s been swiped repeatedly and carried across cyberspace on a wave of teenage instant-message buzz.
There is a reason for this – the film is hilarious. From Obi Wan Kaboozie’s omnipresent flask to Anakin’s nonstop whining to the gratingly annoying Jar Jar Binks besieged by dozens of poisonous darts, Bullock mocks with abandon. (He even uses green-screen technology to have the scenes take place in front of authentic backgrounds from the films.)
This isn’t his first video swipe at the series. He made a parody of an earlier “Star Wars” sequel, as well as one of “The Matrix.”
“You couldn’t do this if the most recent ‘Star Wars’ movies were even remotely good,” says Bullock, an aspiring filmmaker. “But a lot of the hard-core fans feel a ton of animosity about the recent work. So we took that animosity and ran with it.”
Several sites approach the new George Lucas film with skepticism. One of the best is www.cartoonsolutions.com, where animator Ryan Simmons doodles the movie’s past heroes in myriad humiliating situations: Darth Vader being popped in the head, an Ewok crashing into a Storm Trooper and being ground into the dirt.
“Some of the more serious fans said to me, ‘You killed an Ewok – that’s not funny,’ ” says Simmons, who lives in Provo, Utah. “But the movies have been so flawed lately that you can’t help but make fun.”