Back in 1997, long before the days of Youtube, there was a film short called Troops. Troops is about 10 minutes long, and an absolutely hilarious piece of work. It’s done in the style of Cops, but set on Tatooine in the Star Wars universe. Many people today credit it with kickstarting the fan film genre and inspiring what has evolved into stars of Youtube.

I remember giving a talk at the Air Capitol Linux Users Group (Wichita, KS). I brought with me my laptop, and had downloaded Troops onto it. I played it for the group. This was at a time when being able to play video on a laptop was something new and interesting, and under Linux no less, even more so. Also, at a time when video of this size may have taken a day to download. Everyone there loved it. I think I used xanim to play it (remember that?)

Anyhow, you can still download that same original file from theforce.net. Or, for the less patient, just watch it here: