Excellent Star Wars fan film takes thrilling new perspective on Order 66

Star Wars fan films have been getting made for years and come in all shapes and sizes. Some are pretty good, but only a rare few come as good as “Betrayal,” the latest short film from Loacher Films.

Betrayal zeroes in on a game-changing moment from Revenge of the Sith: “Execute Order 66,” the moment when Palpatine used his clone army to wipe out the Jedi. It gives us an intimate glimpse at what the experience would have been like for a clone getting the order. The clones were compelled to carry it out with a control chip in the brains.

Watch below:

I loved creator Peter Csikasz’s idea that the clones’ memories would be rewritten to make it seem like the Jedi were evil all along. We see false memories of clones being treated unfairly, which gives them a more emotional motive to turn against the Jedi. It really makes sense.  Speaking to Nerdist, Csikasz explained this idea further:

"The inspiration came from a random thought I had watching The Clone Wars season finale. In the show the clones have an organic inhibitor chip placed in their brains to force them to obey Order 66. But I thought that there must be more than just forcing obedience. Otherwise the conflicting emotions and thoughts would make the army go mad in a short time, leaving the forming empire defenseless. So my idea was that the chips rewrite their memories along with forcing compliance. This way the clones feel as if the order to kill the Jedi was justified, and that they really were traitors to the republic."

Terrific animations like this are difficult enough to execute  if you’re Lucasfilm. So to hear that this whole thing was made by Csikasz and a couple of voice actors over 45 days…it’s very impressive. Csikasz explained some of the complex software he used to bring the wonderful animation to life, starting with Unreal Engine 4. He motion captured with a Rokoko Smartsuit Pro, and edited in Hitfilm Express.

If you’re interested in seeing more from the technical side of making Star Wars fan films, check out this behind-the-scenes video about the making of another epic Order 66 film, this one from the YouTube channel Cinematic Captures:

And the finished product:

These animations are becoming nearly as good in quality as the official series itself. It’s fair to say Star Wars fan films have come a long way from what they were, and I’m up for more. Keep ’em coming.

And as long as we’re talking about fan films, how about one from a different fandom? Created by Lost Utopia Films, this fan-made trailer imagines a live-action Spider-Man movie featuring Miles Morales, the main characters from the excellent Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse:

Keep up the creativity, everyone.

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