ABSTRACT
When Star Wars Uncut (2009), a fan-produced remake of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), won an Emmy in the recently created Interactive Media category, it was celebrated as a powerful expression of the potential of fan filmmaking and social media. This “film,” produced for the computer screen, compiles hundreds of short segments, or clips, created by fans in a scene-by-scene remake of the original film. Following up on past winners, such as The Lost Experience (2006) and The Heroes Digital Experience (2007), both of which were sanctioned extensions of popular sf television series, Star Wars Uncut seemed to offer new evidence of the power of fan-created content. However, little attention has been directed to the fact that Star Wars Uncut is also an adaptation; it is both a translation of the Star Wars saga into a new medium—web video—and a collective reinterpretation of the film. But far from simply imitating the source film, Star Wars Uncut retells the original through the collaborative efforts of literally hundreds of participants. Although the number of participants is itself noteworthy, Star Wars Uncut is also the latest in a long line of fan productions that take existing popular culture texts and adapt them into new media, often with the goal of commenting on the original.
