Star Wars Gangsta Rap

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The classic opening scene to the original version

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap is a parody song popularized as a Flash music video based on the original Star Wars trilogy. It was created by the BentTV group, and currently appears on AtomFilms as part of the Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

1 History
2 Visual synopsis
3 Special Edition
4 Legacy
5 External links

[edit] History

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap first appeared on the Internet as an audio-only file, produced by Bentframe. The idea for Star Wars Gangsta Rap came about around 1996 when Jason S Brannon, who was in college at Indiana University at the time, would sometimes "free style" to beats while doing Star Wars impersonations. Star Wars Gangsta Rap was written by Jason S Brannon and Chris Crawford, with vocals by Jason S Brannon, drum machine by Chris Crawford / Brian A Leonard and keyboard by Brian A Leonard (who also created the music for the current version, which does not have music and sound samples from the films as the pre-original versions did).

Animator Thomas Lee discovered the rap in 2000 and used it as a basis to practice his developing Flash skills. After showing the results to Bentframe, they together formed BentTV. This became the first widely seen version of the video, and remains faithful to the audio version except for the omission of a single line, "Things are about to get ugly."

In 2004, BentTV created an improved version of the video, referred to as the Special Edition. The song was not changed (sound effects from the movies were added), but the animation was completely redrawn with improved color and shading, smoother lines, and more detailed motion, all while emulating the relevant scenes in the movies much more closely. The improvement in animation is analogous to Industrial Light and Magic's 1997 Special Edition film touch-ups.

[edit] Visual synopsis

(This description corresponds to the original version, with references to the lyrics corresponding to the transcript in the next section.)

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap loosely mixes the plotlines of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, satirically recreating several well known scenes and dialogue passages. It is quite similar in construction to a typical gangsta rap track in its backing instrumentation, the method in which the characters quickly trade off lines, and the overall exact styling of the rap. Bentframe cited The Beastie Boys as a major influence in particular.

The music video begins in a camera pan across the back of a Star Destroyer. As Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader trade off their lines in the Spoken Intro, the camera pulls back to reveal three additional Star Destroyers patrolled by swooping squadrons of TIE Fighters.

The first verse uses minimalist backgrounds of dark imperial gray, accented briefly by a silhouette of Luke with a lightsaber, until Vader boasts "We got Death Star!" (which in his rap, sounds like "We got Def Star!"). Images of the Death Star flash in the background, composited with a line of Stormtroopers, who do a gangsta rap wave, finally climaxing in the explosion of Alderaan.

The spoken interlude cuts to the Lars moisture farm on Tatooine, with Uncle Owen shouting commands at his nephew from the recessed farm courtyard. Luke then raps the second verse, with C-3PO and R2-D2 waving for a brief cameo for "I cleaned the droids...".

The bridge into the third verse superimposes the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi over Luke's X-Wing flying to Dagobah. In the third verse, Yoda hops down off a log, and raps to the camera until the end of his opening when he lifts the X-Wing. Luke and Yoda trade off raps about whether he should go to Cloud City, the floating metropolis appearing in the background for the corresponding line, before cutting to Luke's X-Wing taking off from the surface of the planet.

The second interlude takes place inside Luke's cockpit as he enjoys a "mighty good gin an' tonic". When he arrives at Cloud City, he and Vader duel with their lightsabers, battle-posing in time with the beat of the rap, until they begin the fourth verse. A series of close-ups frames their exchange until Vader begins his repeat of "I'm your father", when the waving Stormtroopers return to mock a crying Luke.

For the outro, the composition of Vader and the troops transitions to Han Solo, who appears in the background over animation of the Millennium Falcon aiding in the Death Star trench run. His line, "Knock 'em out the box Luke", is a reference to the song Children's Story by hip hop artist Slick Rick. This continues until the video fades to black and the credits.

[edit] Special Edition

The original Star Wars Gangsta Rap or classic edition was made in 1996. Eight years later, in 2004, the people at Bentframe TV decided to completely redo the animation, adding shaded colors and thinner lines, and several animated versions of scenes in the actual Star Wars film. In addition, there were entirely new credits added, showing small animated clips from Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. However, the lyrics were left untouched except for some sound effects from the real movies.

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap Special Edition follows along parts of the basic plotlines for Star Wars Episode IV and V, along with a small addition of Episode VI unlike in the original one.

[edit] Legacy

The Star Wars Gangsta Rap is one of the most popular Flash videos of all time and has been seen well over 20 million times online, which is notable for a project that never received heavy public recognition through media outlets, such as Numa Numa. It was given the Audience Choice Award in the voting for the 2002 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards.

It has inspired other similar works, notably The Lords Of The Rhymes, done very much in the style of the Star Wars Gangsta Rap but instead parodying The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In addition to the Special Edition, Bentframe created and released a sequel to the rap. The sequel song is cruder and less related to the Star Wars plot, and no official video has been produced. The Newgrounds site also host different versions of the raps, including a version made with clips from the Star Wars films instead of original animation.