Star Wars as Silent Film

You know George Lucas’ clas­sic, The Empire Strikes Back. Now roll it back a good 60 years and imag­ine the silent ver­sion. It works unex­pect­ed­ly well.

H/T to @wesalwan. And don’t miss many land­mark silent films in our col­lec­tion of Free Movies Online. Chap­lin, ear­ly Hitch­cock, Fritz Lang, the first sci-fi and west­ern films — they’re all there. Find them at the bot­tom of the page…

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Comments (12)
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  • sagodjur says:

    Star Wars was released in 1977, not 1979 and the footage in this video is actu­al­ly from The Empire Strikes Back, which was released in 1980.

    /geek

  • Jake says:

    I sec­ond that /geekmotion.

  • Johnny Kerr says:

    This is great! Lucas has always said that the SW movies should work as silent films. Good job — love the music!

  • jake storm says:

    it seemed like this was the end of star­wars episode 6 but then i real­ized it was star­wars 5

  • Seoulman says:

    Enjoyed it a lot, the ONLY thing I would’ve changed styl­is­ti­cal­ly would’ve been using the Impe­r­i­al logo for Vader’s dia­logue and the Alliance Rogue Squadron phoenix logo for Luke’s. Would love to see more!

  • college guy says:

    BRILLIANT! SW in any form,in any avatar, is a masterpiece,hell id applaud it even if it had only the sound­track and no video!!

  • Susan says:

    @college guy: I total­ly agree. John Williams’ music for these movies is amaz­ing. I love Star Wars.

  • Alan Keith Simpson says:

    There’s an unfor­tu­nate typo at 2:23. It should read “… you can destroy…” not “… youR can destroy…” Oth­er­wise, very well done.

  • Ed Muller Jr. says:

    That was so cool…different

  • daniel rodriguez says:

    Very clever. Why tack on the sil­ly joke at the end?

  • Gearbreaker says:

    it’s not George Lucas’ Clas­sic… Irvin Ker­sh­n­er direct­ed “The Empire Strikes Back” (you can see it by the know fact, that the movie was direct­ed well ;-) )
    Despite that — fun­ny video!

  • Uncle Facts (@unclefacts) says:

    admit it, even though it’s silent, every one of you read Vader’s lines in his voice…

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