Watch a New Star Wars Animation, Drawn in a Classic 80s Japanese Anime Style

It did­n’t take long for Star Wars (1977) to start spin­ning off fan films. Just a year after the space opera hit Amer­i­can cin­e­mas, Jonathan Crow tells us, “San Fran­cis­co film­mak­er Ernie Fos­selius had the brain­wave to make a spoof.” And, as it turns out, the 13-minute film, made for $8,000, “became a pre-inter­net viral hit and a sta­ple on the fes­ti­val cir­cuit, ulti­mate­ly earn­ing over $1,000,000 – an unheard of haul for a short film.” It’s called Hard­ware Wars, and you can find it in our archive.

Star Wars fan films have kept com­ing ever since. Right through today. The lat­est is TIE Fight­er (above). Drawn by Paul John­son over a four-year peri­od, the video adopts an ani­me style, made famous by the Japan­ese dur­ing the 1980s, and it tells the Star Wars sto­ry (or at least part of it), from the per­spec­tive of the Empire. A PDF of the sto­ry can be read online here. Find the offi­cial poster here.

via Boing Boing

Relat­ed Con­tent

Hard­ware Wars: The Moth­er of All Star Wars Fan Films (and the Most Prof­itable Short Film Ever Made)

Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mas­ter­piece Stalk­er Gets Adapt­ed into a Video Game

How Star Wars Bor­rowed From Aki­ra Kurosawa’s Great Samu­rai Films

Hun­dreds of Fans Col­lec­tive­ly Remade Star Wars; Now They Remake The Empire Strikes Back

Sovi­et Ani­ma­tions of Ray Brad­bury Sto­ries: ‘Here There Be Tygers’ & ‘There Will Comes Soft Rain’