“It’s true. All of it. The dark side. The Jedi. They’re real.” Those pause-filled words, from Harrison Ford’s magnificent bastard Han Solo, have been echoing in the heads of Star Wars fans everywhere since the trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens materialized a few days ago. The precious, scarce Force Awakens footage has already been studied, analyzed, and fetishized in every corner of the internet. But now, aspiring Michigan-born filmmaker Kris Sundberg, known on YouTube as SundbergKr, has crafted a remix trailer that marries audio from Force Awakens to clips of the original Star Wars trilogy. Not surprisingly, the combination of Star Wars and more Star Wars works pretty well.
Sundberg’s work has a Death Becomes Her-esque, age-reversing effect. Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, and Harrison Ford are all young again, looking exactly as they did in their prime. Darth Vader’s mask is well-polished and in tip-top shape, not like the burned-up relic seen in the Force Awakens trailer. Instead of that weird rolling thing, there is R2-D2, looking just as he should. And there’s the Death Star, looking as impressive as the day it was built. Luckily, since the much-viewed trailer is a mostly narrative-free onslaught of images, dialogue, music, and sound, Sundberg’s substitution of older footage does little damage its structural integrity. It’s just a cool, awe-inspiring thing for Star Wars fans to watch as they wait impatiently for December to arrive.