Thumb Wars

Ace Ventura director Steve Oedekerk is all about overblown physical comedy and Thumb Wars, a Star Wars parody, is in no way an exception to his style. It is a half hour's long spoof of the old Star Wars trilogy (not the Phantom Menace, as the title suggests) in which thumbs are used as characters. You may think you have the good taste not to see this, but I assure you that some of the jokes had me in stitches when I first saw it and I am still quoting this film today, years later. However, you most definitely need to be a Star Wars fan and/or well familiar with the films in order to appreciate the gags that Oedekerk attempts.

Oedekerk has snapped up on all of the already silly things and the poor writing in the original Star Wars saga, and taken them to the extreme by making them twice as silly and overblown. Take the borderline whiny attitude of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker; in Thumb Wars an opportunity to make fun of this is never missed and the character has this whiny voice and complains about everything. It starts with Luke living at his uncle and aunt's house, much like the original saga, and confronting them one day with: "YOU DON'T KNOW WHO I AM INSIDE! YOU NEVER HAVE! I'M GONNA RUN AWAY AND NEVER COME BACK EVER! " (*storms out crying*) And so starts his adventure to overthrow the empire. Oedekerk also points to the things that George Lucas simply never bothered to explain. Like, Leia (or Princess Bunhead, as she is appropriately called here) once in the empire ship: "I escaped somehow. Let's go." Priceless.

Sometimes, the observant viewer can tell that a lot of thought has been put into some of the lines, like the thumb of Han Solo constantly making references to Harrison Ford's movies. While other times, the lines are so random that you just have to laugh out loud. It's also freaky how much thumb Obi-Wan Kenobi sounds like Alec Guinness, the real Obi-Wan. Pay attention to details like this and remember not to take things too seriously. Thumb Wars isn't flawless and there were one or two gags that I thought could have been removed completely, but the awesome dialogue usually makes up for this. I've seen all of the thumb parodies (Blair Witch Thumb, Thumbtanic, etc) and this is my favourite.