“The Biggest Fan Remake of All Time”. Star Wars Uncut: fans e crowdsourcing in una galassia lontana lontana

Abstract

Started in July 2009 as an experiment in crowdsourcing by young programmer Casey Pugh, the Star Wars Uncut project gathered together almost a thousand fans from all around the world to recreate a fanmade version of the first episode of George Lucas’ cinematographic saga, 15 seconds at a time. This paper aims to examine this project, its development, its main features and potentialities, and how its structure was implemented to develop further the participants’ user experience. Moreover, drawing from different academic fields and topics, such as fan studies, participatory culture and participative documentary studies, this paper seeks to provide effective theoretical tools to analyze the processes that subtend crowdsourced media project like Star Wars Uncut