Watch The Substance Director Coralie Fargeat’s Homemade Star Wars Fan Film 2025

What would The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi look like if they were shorted to 14 total minutes and directed by the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind The Substance? You’re about to find out.

Letterboxd got its hands on a Star Wars fan film made by the writer and director of The Substance, Coralie Fargeat, when she was 17 years old. It combines footage from the movies, stop motion animation, and live-action actors—complete with homemade costumes—showing Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker and his Rebel friends taking down the Death Star.

“Thirty years ago, when I was 17 years old, I made a little Star Wars film,” Fargeat wrote. “Using my family’s camcorder, I animated my toys frame by frame in stop motion, disguised my friends as Ewoks and stormtroopers, and edited on a VHS video recorder (which was the top device at the time!). It was such an amateur endeavor, but everything I loved about making films was already there… It was the place where I felt free, passionate and alive, and able to fully express myself. It’s after I made this little film that I knew that I wanted to be a director… Today as I am nominated for Best Director, I can’t help but remember this little film… Follow your dreams!”

Here’s Coralie Fargeat’s Star Wars fan film (the real people come in about halfway through, which is when it really kicks up a notch.)

A few things jump out here. First is the camerawork around the toys. You can see that even with a camcorder and a few AT-ATs, she understood moving the camera was a crucial part of filmmaking. A way to make things feel more dramatic. There are also establishing shots here. You have to think most teen-made fan films don’t have establishing shots.

You also can just feel her childhood wonder and excitement in every frame. For example, the choice to use not just John Williams’ Star Wars music, but his Indiana Jones music and Nino Rota’s Godfather score is super fun. And it’s just very, very enjoyable to watch the actors run around in these homemade costumes—which are all so simple but work so well.

Finally, fingers crossed Lucasfilm sees this for what it is: an Oscar nominee professing her long love of Star Wars. Because we know how the company feels about anything Star Wars that’s not from the Special Editions… and Fargeat’s gratuitous use of “Yub Nub” at the end is both glorious and very much no longer in canon.

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