A new video mashes up clips from "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" into a trailer for a fake 1985 film whose release would have been the sci-fi event of the century.
"Trapped in a galaxy far, far away, Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of the famous starship Enterprise are left to the mercy of an evil galactic empire and caught in the middle of an interstellar war," the narrator of the fake movie, called "The Carbonite Maneuver," intones as the Enterprise is captured by a "Star Wars" Imperial Star Destroyer.
"Legends will unite and galaxies will clash as your imagination embarks upon a fantastic flight into fantasy-film history," the narrator adds in the 85-second video, which was posted to YouTube on May 6. "'The Carbonite Maneuver:' a cosmic spectacle unlike anything you've seen before."
The fake film's title is, appropriately enough, a nod to both sci-fi franchises. Han Solo was flash-frozen in carbonite in "The Empire Strikes Back," and one episode in the first season of the original "Star Trek" TV series was called "The Corbomite Maneuver." (In the episode, Captain Kirk bluffs away a potential attacker by claiming that the Enterprise is protected by an imaginary substance called corbomite.)
The trailer shows multiple meldings of the "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" universes. For example, Captain Kirk comes face to face with the humanoid robot C-3PO, TIE fighters fire at the Enterprise during a deep-space chase, and the iconic "Star Trek" vessel zooms down the trench of the planet-destroying Death Star.
There are some nice touches in the credits as well. "The Carbonite Maneuver" was supposedly written by Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote two of the first three "Star Wars" films ("The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi"), and the music is attributed to the English composer Gustav Holst. (The works of Holst, who died in 1934, reportedly served as inspiration to John Williams, who has written the music for all "Star Wars" films to date.)
"The Carbonite Maneuver" is rated PG. It opens June 5, 1985; a related video game is available now from Atari.
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