A Force-Sensitive Teen Kicks Imperial Ass in This Fan-Made Star Wars Short

Filmmaker Joe Sill's 'Kara' manages both great FX and a human, affecting story.

January 20, 2016, 2:15pm

Star Wars! By now you've seen The Force Awakens or you've been hiding in a cave searching for an ancient Jedi temple on a remote water planet. If you have seen it, like every fan, you now have the long wait for Episode VIII which is directed by Rian Johnson, an exciting prospect if you've seen Brick or Looper. According to Lawrence Kasdan (co-writer on The Force Awakens, Jedi, and Empire) he's "going to make some weird thing" that's "not going be like anything that's ever been in Star Wars." Until that's out in May 2017 there's a spin-off movie this year about the rebels who stole the Death Star blueprints and also they'll be plenty of fan-made stuff hitting the internet.

With that said, 2016 has only just started and already a contender for best fan-made piece of Star Wars content is here. Called Kara, it's a seven-minute short by Joe Sill that centers on a Force-sensitve woman named Kara and her father. They're traveling on a desert planet of course, towards a Rebel base when they spot a Star Destroyer. Before long, there are TIE fighters and X-wings soon follow. After being hit a young female Rebel pilot ejects and the father-daughter duo go to find her, and are then chased by Stormtroopers.

Screengrab via

What sets this apart is how good the production and VFX—done by Sill and Luc Delamare—are. But as well as having the visuals on point, it also has a very affecting, human story at its heart. No doubt it'll upset some hardcore fans, this is the internet after all, but it will also delight some, too.

"I wanted to do a small and contained, visceral and raw story set in the universe," Sill told Short of the Week. "It’s not glossy with beautiful camera moves, it’s rather uneven and shaky in the tone and aesthetic—and this is absolutely intentional. I wanted to put my own spin on it. Not just to change things up… but really to convey my own perspective on the world. I wanted to inject a bit of a darker story and mystery between a pair of seemingly innocent nomads—that somewhere in this crazy universe, this particular story is happening at the exact same time as the other stories."

It doesn't particularly break any new ground for the franchise but it does feel like the Star Wars universe (both Abrams' and the originals) as well as being an enjoyable narrative short. And although Sill calls it unofficial, it either must've been sanctioned by Disney somehow or it'll be offline by the end of the day. Let's hope not. Anyway, watch it while you can.