Nearly 50,000 people logged on to Countingdown.com one day last month, hoping to get an early glimpse of the second trailer for "Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace." But instead of seeing new bad guy Darth Maul's double-edged light-saber they saw . . . Yoda holding a bag of Cheesy Poofs.
Welcome to the universe of "Star Wars" spoofs.
Instead of the trailer, what users had downloaded from the premier "Star Wars" fan site was "Park Wars: The Little Menace," a fully animated, shot-for-shot parody of the first "Phantom Menace" trailer, with "South Park" characters replacing the real cast--Stan is Obi-Wan, the Chef is Mace Windu, Cartman is Yoda, Kenny is Jar Jar (yes, he gets killed). The two-minute "Park Wars" parody is just one of a slew of "Star Wars" spoofs popping up on the Web as excitement builds for the release of "Phantom Menace" on May 19.
"Star Wars" parodies have been around for more than 20 years--most notably "Hardware Wars," a short film released in 1977, the same year as the original film. But the newer ones, which have been proliferating on the Web recently, feature the kind of digital special effects that would have been impossible to create even a few years ago.
These parodies, particularly "Park Wars," have become immensely popular with the "Star Wars"-crazed Internet audience--and even garnered the attention of Hollywood.
"There's more and more of them coming online all the time, mainly because a [group] of people who are interested in 'Star Wars' are technical people, and now you can pick up a piece of software off the Net and create your own movies overnight," said Countingdown.com news editor Lincoln Gasking, 22, of Melbourne, Australia, who started waiting in line for "Phantom Menace" outside the Mann Chinese theater in Hollywood six weeks before the film will open.
Gasking and a team of three animators and artists made "Park Wars" over a weekend, communicating and creating over the Internet. The short, which was downloaded more than 140,000 times by its second day on the Web, can now also be found on the Comedy Central Web site. (The TV show "South Park" is seen on Comedy Central; its creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, had nothing to do with "Park Wars.")
Besides "Park Wars," some of the most popular and innovative parodies on the Web include:
* "Troops"--An effects-laden cross between "Star Wars" and the reality-based TV show "Cops," starring a Federation storm trooper with an accent right out of "Fargo."
