Be Kind, Re-Print; ‘Sweded’ Star Wars Trailer Uses 3D Printing And Lots of High-tech Cardboard

If you’re of a certain vintage and predilection, you may have seen a new movie trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

This is not it.

This version, by Dumb Drum, a group of “artistes” in Fresno who make videos and short films, was created in a “sweded” version that, while the budget was beyond low, does feature some 3D printed props.

If you’re not familiar with the concept, sweded films are amateurish recreations of famous films which celebrate the limited resources and technology used to make them. The genre was inspired by the 2008 comedy film “Be Kind Rewind,” and their shoe-string budget props are a major component. The term “sweded” entered the lexicon after it was used in the 2008 Michel Gondry comedy. The VHS rental store where the film takes place loses its entire stock of videos due to a horrific magnetizing accident, and the protagonists do their best to re-create the store’s video collection by making all the films themselves and passing them off as “special editions from Sweden.”

While nearly the whole range of sets for this trailer are made of high-tech cardboard (including a cardboard version of the Millennium Falcon), a droid and lightsaber were 3D printed.

The auteurs responsible for this trailer say it took them a month to create their faithful tribute, and it’s managed to rack up nearly a quarter million views on YouTube.

If you’d like to see a frame for frame and side-by-side comparison between the actual trailer and the “sweded” version, you can check it out here.

LeFabShop designed the 3D printed lightsaber used in the trailer, and you can download all the files to 3D print your own on Thingiverse.

What do you think of the “sweded” movie trailer genre? Can you see 3D printing raising the artistic level of “special editions from Sweden?” Weigh in and let us know what you think in the Be Kind, Re-Print forum thread on 3DPB.com.