Sunday, July 29, 2012

Bart Wars

Okay, a Simpsons/Star Wars mash-up is kind of an obvious one, really, and I can’t even swear there isn’t already one out there, but this was mine.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Bart Skywalker lived on the dry planet of Tatooine with his Aunt Patty and Aunt Selma, and Aunt Selma’s dewback, Jub Jub. (Yes, I can see where an Uncle Patty joke would work, but it never occurred to me to go there at the time.)

Buying new droids from nervous Jawa Gill, Bart acquires Lis-3PO and Mag2-D2. While working on them, removing Mag2-D2’s pacifier like bolt, Bart is surprised by a holographic message with Princess Marge saying, “Help us Krusty the Klown. You’re our only hope.” Although it is a long shot, Bart wonders if this might be connected to local hermit Herschel Krustofski. His aunts are discouraging, but the next morning the droids have taken off, and Bart goes to pursue. He finds them, but is then set upon by Tusken bullies Jimbo, Dolph, and Kearney. After a pretty severe pink belly, they are shooed away by Herschel.

Herschel takes Bart back to his house and Bart explains about the message, which they watch. Admitting his true identity, Krusty explains that Marge was once a crusader against violent cartoons, but her reasonable concerns were twisted into a movement against all entertainment, especially humor, especially that mystical power known as “the Farce”. Marge has since been working with the rebellion, and has sent data that will be helpful and must be delivered to Alderaan. Bart should also know that the anti-entertainment forces caused the cancellation of Troy McClure’s show, leading to the breakdown of his marriage to Aunt Selma.

“That’s why she’s a lonely and bitter old woman?”
“Yeah, okay.”

Krusty wants Bart to come with him and the droids and be trained in the Farce, but Bart has doubts. Returning home, though, he finds it has been raided, and his aunts’ secret stash of MacGyver tapes have been destroyed, leaving them irritable and depressed. This seems like a good reason to leave. In town and looking for a pilot, shopkeeper Apu recommends his old bowling teammates, Homer Solo and Chewb-Otto, whom they can find at Moe’s Eisley Cantina.                   

A lot of the really fun sight gags would happen here. Obviously you have the regular barflies, like Sam and Larry, but I think if you also had a table of the aliens who were called in for the line-up in Homer and the Alien (Chewbacca, Gort, Marvin Martian, Alf, and okay, I don’t know if it was Kang or Kodos—they look pretty similar). Also, put the Martian from the Stonecutters musical number there with some Stonecutters, because that kind of gives you Patrick Stewart, and you could have some fun with it.

Transportation is arranged, but they need to take off a little bit more quickly than desired, due to some problems with a debt owed to Homer’s former friend and current rival, Gumble the Hutt (Barney) from some losses on their snow plow business. I imagine a plow still attached to the school bus like ship

Well, you know how it goes. They get taken onto the Death Star, which looks somewhat like the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, and knock out some Storm Troopers, though neither Homer nor Bart fit the outfits particularly well. They are able to rescue Marge, which is great, but sadly, Krusty falls to his rival and former student, canceller of television shows, Darth Bob (Terwilliger).

The rest escape and join up with rebel forces, where the fighter pilots are basically Springfield Elementary’s 4th grade glass, so Bart’s peers: Nelson, Data, Richard, Lewis, Wendell, and Milhouse as Wedge. Let’s forget Biggs, because he dies, and Bart just lost Krusty.

Fast forward to the ice world of Hoth, where that snow plow comes in handy. The rebels are found so need to split up, and while Bart ends up training in the Farce in the swamps with Sideshow Mel as Yoda, Homer, Chewb-otto, Marge, and Lis-3PO end up in the cloud city of Bespin, ruled over by Lando Carl-rissian and his assistant, Len-bot (Carl and Lenny). Everything initially seems fine, but Darth Bob is there.

Now, most of these character choices have felt very obvious to me, but there was not an obvious choice to play Boba Fett, so I think it would just be funny to have it be Flanders, operating not for strict greed but more with a commitment to everyone having to pay debts and adhere strictly to the rules, and you know he would be on the side of the Empire.

Luke goes to try and help, but he is only able to have a major showdown with Darth Bob, featuring this exchange.

Bart, I am your uncle.
You canceled my uncle!
No, that was your other uncle. I was also married to Selma.

This blows Bart’s mind enough that he loses his hair spikes, which are later surgically reattached.

Marge and company go to rescue Homer which is eventually successful, although she does briefly end up as a slave girl of Gumble the Hutt. Her slave girl outfit is basically a short, strapless green dress. That being done, they take off to the moon of Endor, to destroy the new Death Star.

Marge gets separated and meets special Ewok, Ralphie. Actually, if the 4th graders are the fighter pilots, then the 2nd graders are Ewoks. The Ewoks team up with most of the rebels to take over the ground controls, but Bart has gone up to the Star to confront Darth Bob, and the evil Emperor Burns. Things are not looking good for Bart, but he taps into the power of the Farce, and he gets Darth Bob to laugh so hard and feel so good that Bob realizes that when you are laughing like that you can’t turn into a ball of ice and slush (it would be a shout-out to Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, and it sounds awkward there, but I think it could work).

Joy and entertainment is restored to the galaxy. The end.

At least it was the end until the new movies came out, and then I started thinking about expanding, and then I just kind of started to hate everything. I like to pretend that Episodes 1-3 don’t exist, but if that were true then I would not have all of these bad feelings towards George Lucas. Yeah, the end.

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