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Shakespearean Star Wars Winners


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This was hard. You all outdid yourselves in this contest. I think it’s fair to say that every entry was at least somewhat entertaining. Winners had to be chosen, but I’m glad I got to pick three. One would have been impossible.

Runners-up get recognized first, however. Click onward to continueth…

Best pun hiding in plain sight so well that only AgentCoop saw it:

2-1B or not 2-1B. That is the question.

scottemersonmoyle

IN TIME LONG PAST, IN PLACES FAR REMOVED…

Foul darkness loometh large; the Rebel hope
Lies mired in doubt, their forces scattered wide.
The Death Star’s gone, but yet the Empire toils
To drive the Rebels from their shelter’d ports.

On frigid Hoth, our heroes bide their time,
Safe from the Empire’s tireless scrutiny.
Luke Skywalker they name to lead their cause
To free all from the Empire’s tyrannous reign.

The Dark Lord Vader, wrathful and obsessed
With finding Luke, hath issued scouts in force.
Nor stealth, nor strength will serve the Rebels’ turn
When vengeful Empire boldly striketh back.

KevinGarcia.com

OBI-WAN, Act 1, Scene 3
ANAKIN
Though in the Trade Federation war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscience
To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the ribs.
OBI-WAN
‘Tis better as it is.
ANAKIN
Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against my honor
That, with the little midi-chlorians I have,
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
Are you fast knighted? Be assured of this,
That Yoda is much beloved,
And hath in his effect a voice potential
As double as the Council’s: he will expel you;
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
The Order, with all his might to enforce it on,
Will give him cable.
OBI-WAN
Seek not this spite:
Thy services which you have done the Republic
Shall out-tongue all complaints. ‘Tis yet to know,–
Which, when I know that boasting is an honor,
I shall promulgate–You fetch thy life and being
From the Force itself, and thy demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud an honor
As this that we have reach’d: for know, Anakin,
But that you protect the gentle Padm?,
You would not thy unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the Galaxy’s worth.
ANAKIN
By the Force, I think no.
[Enter PADM? and R2-D2]
OBI-WAN
My life upon the Force! Honest Anakin,
Yon Padm? must I leave to thee:
I prithee, let thy droid attend on her:
And bring them after in the best advantage.
Come, Padm?: first we have but an hour
Of strategy, of Republic matters and direction,
To prepend: we must obey the time.
[Exeunt OBI-WAN, PADM? and R2-D2]
ANAKIN
Thus do I ever make my fool my orders:
For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane,
If I would time expend with such a snipe,
But for my Padm?’s sake. I hate the Jedi:
And it is thought abroad, that ‘twixt the council
He has spoke ill my office: I know not if’t be true;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Windu’s a proper man: let me see now:
To get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery — How, how? Let’s see: —
After some time, to abuse Obi-Wan’s ear
That he is too familiar with the Sith.
He hath a person and a vindicative dispose
To be suspected, framed to make promises false.
The Jedi is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As bantha are.
I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.
[Exeunt]

OneMinuteGalactica

I haven’t read any of the entries, so I don’t know if anyone has made the obvious comparison between the ghost of Hamlet’s father and Ben Kenobi.

Scene V. A wintry landscape. Enter LUKE, who immediately falls face-first in the snow.

GHOST: Mark me.

LUKE (wearily raises head): Alas, poor blue-tinged ghost!

GHOST: Pity me not, but lend thy serious hearing to what I shall unfold about certain plot points beginning in Act Two.

LUKE: Speak; I am bound to hear.

GHOST: You will goeth forth to the Dagobah system. There you will learn from Yoda, and revenge my foul and most unnatural murder.

LUKE: Murder!

GHOST (nodding): Murder most foul.

LUKE: But thou did killeth thyself.

GHOST: Pardon?

LUKE: Thou did raiseth thy saber of light and commit suicide.

GHOST: I remember it not that way.

LUKE: Aye, poor ghost of crazy old hermit. Thou faltering memory deceives thee.

GHOST: There are more things in heaven and Tatooine, young Luke, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

LUKE: This be not Tatooine.

GHOST: What?

LUKE (dips hand in snow): Hoth this be.

GHOST: I thoughtest I felt a draft.

Enter HAN SOLO, who dismounts from his tauntaun.

HAN: To whom do you speak, Luke?

LUKE: Do you see nothing there?

HAN: Nothing at all.

GHOST begins to fade away.

LUKE: Why, look you there! Look how it steals away! My mentor! Look, where he goes, even now!

HAN: O delirious Luke, thou hast cleft my heart in twain. [Takes Luke’s saber of light and splits his tauntaun down the middle] Alas! Thoughtest did I that these things smellest bad on the outside.

Hermits-United

STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH

TWO FACTIONS, BOTH ALIKE IN MILI’TRY,
IN DISTANT PAST, WHEREIN WE LAY OUR SCENE,
WHERE SEPARATIST GRUDGE BREAKS TO NEW MUTINY,
AND CIVIL BLOOD MAKES CIVIL HANDS UNCLEAN.
FROM FORTH THE CONFLICT OF THESE DEADLY FOES
A FEARFUL, FOOLISH JEDI TAKES HIS LIFE
WHOSE MISADVENTURED PITEOUS OVERTROWS
DO WITH HIS FALL BEGIN GALACTIC STRIFE.
THE FEARFUL PASSAGE OF HIS DEATH MARK’D LOVE
AND THE CONTINUANCE OF HIS SITHLY RAGE
WHICH, BUT HIS CHILD’S STRENGTH, NOUGHT COULD REMOVE,
IS NOW THE TWO HOURS TRAFFIC OF OUR STAGE;
THE WHICH IF YOU WITH PATIENT EYES ATTEND,
WHAT HERE SHALL MISS, ORIGINAL TRILOGY SHALL MEND.

Hermits-United, again

A rewrite of Prospero’s “drown my book” speech from Act V, Scene I of The Tempest:
George Lucas: You actors of the screen and stage alike,
and ye that on the page with
do pen the epic movies and do edit
what I send back. You puppeteers that
by screen shine do the green screen creatures make,
with claws and teeth to bite, and you whose pastime
is to make the camera roll and actors move, that rejoice
to hear the solemn “next scene”, by whose aid,
weak masters though ye be, I have raised twin
Tat’oine suns, call’d forth the mutinous Rebels
and twixt the green Jedi and bloodied Sith
set roaring war: to the dread gasping Vader
have I given lightning and rifted Death Star’s frame
with ion bolt. The swamp’ed Dagobah
have I made teem, and with the Force have lifted
ship and speeder: planets at my command
have waked their soldiers, oped, and let ’em forth
by my so potent art. But this rough fandom
I here abjure, and, when I have required
some remastered edition, which even now I do,
to work my vision on their senses that
this editing is for, I’ll break my pen,
bury it certain fathoms beneath my ranch,
and ending 30 years of movie craft,
I’ll sell Star Wars.

ComradeDread1

I tried to take one of the worst scenes and see if I could improve it. I will let my fellows be the judge of my success:

Scene: Naboo. Padme’s lake palace
Anakin: Dear Lady, within my thoughts, thou art always. Nary a day passes when the thought of thee does not alight upon my breast. Such torments my heart endures at the memory of the forbidden nectar of thy sweet lips poured upon mine. Fie, upon thy kisses! Lucifer himself could not devise greater tortures upon my soul as the dream of thee. I pray thee, speak. Tell me that thou dost feel as I? Prithee, speak and be not silent!
Padme: My Lord, ’tis not possible…
Anakin: Nay, my Love, harken to my words…
Padme: Nay, Sir, harken to me. Thou dost deceive thyself as sure as the serpent deceived Eve. For thine own vows forbid what thou speakest of. Of such beguiling dreams, be silent, I pray thee.
Anakin: I will not speak, for thou has said enough .Thy words betray thy true feelings. Thou does love me! O, speak again, bright angel! for thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven!”
Padme: Tis madness…
Anakin: Then a madman, am I! Steal away with me, Beloved. Flee with me into the night.
Padme: Such thoughts lead only to perdition.
Anakin: Aye, but perdition with thee is sweeter to me than heaven apart. If such a choice must be, I choose damnation.

James.k.Polk

HAN: Anon, Noble Chewie, prithee engage and empower thy sublight enginry.
CHEWIE: Mmmwrrff, my captain.
HAN: What sorcery is this? Our path misgotten has been! This falcon chariot doth suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous meteors, colliding with unruly asteroids noted by no mapmaker nor charts!
LUKE: What’s going on?
Chewie: Mawrf mwf, rawr frrrrrt, alas! Mwffrrs WRRF!
HAN: Ay, there’s the rub! Expected Alderaan appears not. O inconstant world of Alderaan, wherefore art thou?
(Explosion rocks ship)
LUKE: This mystery doth deepen! An enemy carriage appears. This chariot, not suited to travel the deepest space alone, from a caravan must have strayed. Now this mysterious vessel doth make haste for yonder small moon.
HAN: Then let us give chase, perchance this rogue should give away our presence here!
BEN: That’s no moon, good sirs. Shining with borrow’d light, No vain, inconstant moon doth wear such sick and grey vestal livery. This orb must needs be a space station!
CHEWIE: MRRFGH!

MackDuncan is one of many who took on the Greedo scene.

A Cantina in Mos Eisley
Enter GREEDO

GREEDO: Good Solo! Would’st thou retreat anon?

SOLO: Greedo! What ho! Nay. Rather, to thy lord Jabba
I do entreat. Inform thy master his treasures shall reach
The grasp of his outstretch claw in due course. Sooth,
His desire shall comfort him two-fold.

GREEDO: My Lord Jabba grows tired of your delays.
A Kessle bread tree sloth should be more swift with
His favors than thee.
Jabba waits no more up thee.
Thine debt to our master shall be met this night.

SOLO: The gold thou seeks be not upon mine person.
Inform thy master…

GREEDO: …Thine words shall escape thine lips alone.
Perhaps, if he may be so moved, the good pirate’s vessell
Shall please our most nobel and generous benefactor.

SOLO: What curse is this? Speak thee in tongues? Nay!
A thousand times, nay! The ships shall sail beneath mine
Flag and shall have no other. If thee, or any other nave,
Doth wish to take her from my heart and mine grasp,
Then thee shall see me dead, my corpse beneath her bow.

GREEDO: As I have intended upon our meeting.
Many twin suns have risen and set within the long
Moments I have lain in wait for this twilight to arrive.

SOLO: So much is certain.

Solo kills Greedo
GREEDO: Hark! I am slain! A curse upon thee! I die.

SOLO: Sooth! I have drawn first blood.

Solo tosses a few coins to the tavern owner.

SOLO: My most humble apologies for what I have spilled
Upon your floor. Good morrow. (Exeunt)

mivasta
Coruscant. Jedi temple.

Enter CIN DRALLIG, BENE, MALREAUX and THIRD PADAWAN.

CIN DRALLIG: My students dearest, thou are old enough to see the terror and destruction
that conflict, war and violence bring with them; yet not old enough
to grasp by which they come to be. Therefore, thou shalt meditate
on the reasons we commit these otherwordly crimes.
BENE: Master, as puzzling and full of mystery as human nature appeareth
the answer to your question simpler can’t be;
we fight for what we love, for love ’tis what makes us man.
Ev’ry knight, as fearful as they come, would slay a dragon for his maiden’s heart,
and thou will not find a single kingdom that hasn’t been a dowry.
Justice is what we, the Jedi, yearn, so the just Republic is our lover,
and war our courtship.
MALREUX: My, these words, they ring so true,
So let us fight, in jest and not in wrath, to train our hands
in preparation for battles yet to come.
THIRD PADAWAN: I shall umpire!

Enter ANAKIN SKYWALKER.

ANAKIN SKYWALKER: The Republic is in danger! Treason is upon us!
A villain most insidious has attack’d our sacred union.
CIN DRALLIG: A villain?
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: More vile than seperatist scum!
BENE: Treason sayest thou?
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Ay, the biggest devil operates inside!
MALREUX: How grave is that danger that thou speakest of?
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Our enemy seeks the death of the belov’d chancellor!
THIRD PADAWAN: By the force, who could this traitor be? Speak!
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: It is this very order, which is rotten to the core.
I shall end the reign of terror, ere it has reached its zenith.
MALREUX: I am slain! [dies.]
BENE: I beg you, have mercy. Search thy feelings, and thou shalt see your one and only love:
the love for all that is living, for all that can feel, for all those who seek equality.
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Thou art mistaken. I detest the ones whose lives are nothing worth;
who only feel envy and seek to overthrow the rightful leaders. Be gone!
BENE: Thou have been blinded by erroneous lies! [dies.]
THIRD PADAWAN: And I have been shown the light by your misguidance.
Love may be true and show us the way, but hatred rages on like conflagration.
[dies.]
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: Spoken like a wise man, but foolish nontheless.
I swing my blade with the fury of a man whose spouse has been curs’d.
’tis a hatred for the world which keepeth me from caressing my love.
CIN DRALLIG: Love is a saber with two edges – it elevates us from man to gods
whose kindness knows as few boundaries as their malevolence.
Is living in a world, where the fairest of all virtues can bring about the direst of hours,
a state to be desired? I think not – therefore I am no longer. [dies.]
ANAKIN SKYWALKER: I shall leave this force-forsaken place, where villainy
has taken the mask of younglings and old men. [Exit.]

Enter CLONE.

CLONE: We have done what has been asked of us.
Order 66 has been fullfilled. What now remains
are the corpses of our enemies and the voids within our souls.
May the blood of the republic’s eve be long forgotten
when the empire’s dawn will come about.

jaycer17

-Obi-Wan kept from thee all that which he knew of thy father.
-Nay, he doth say as I needed to know, thy foul villain. He informed me that thy slayeth him in manner most foul!
-Nay, young master Luke. For I am thy father.
-What vile lies are these? It cannot be!
-Seek in thine heart, seek thy soul. Aye, thou know ’tis be true.
-NAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY…
(I think you’ve created a monster. Please make me stop.)

A lot of people did this one too, but rpmarsh cut to the quick.

You lack the need to peruse yonder knaves identification … These be not the automatons you seek for … The knave may be about his way … travel thus from this area

Calm-AV

Note please be sure to read this as if you are a high school play’s understudy – AKA like Hayden Christensen :

To Sith or not to Sith, that is the question,
Whether ’tis Nobler in the council to suffer
Or Sith and Emperor of outrageous Fortune,
And to take Arms against a Mace of Windu
Or by opposing end Jar-Jar to die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, of Mother and Padme’s death
Then the Flesh is heir to? ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep…
…I would continue writing this soliloquy but I have already given this character more life then Hayden ever did.

DocSamurai

Han: Dost Thou love him?
Leia: Of course mine affections for Luke are light that of the warm glow of the morning.
Han: Mine hopes dashed I shall retire and on the morrow I shall take my life. Oh sorrow! My love is not mine but loves another!
Leia: You are mistaken gentle sir. I love him not as a lover, but as a brother! For our father is one and the same, though this fact was only recently revealed.
Han: My heart rejoices at this news. I shall enjoy thine tender lips and attempt to not think about how you made out with your brother last movie.
[Everyone Dies]

…and DocSamurai again.

Chewbacca: If I may interject! Thou has plied thine mechanisms to an unfair advantage! A Plague on thine circuits foul misanthrope!
C3P0: Your incessant growling is of no use, the game is being played fairly though your own tactics may be lacking. My companion has made no transgression against thee.
Han: Are’st thou mad! It is most folly to transgress upon a Wookie.
C3P0: Fine sir, may you enlighten me as to the reasons one would take care to not transgress upon a Wookie in place of a Droid?
Han: Though my stalwart friend may seem docile his people have been known to tear limbs asunder in a fit of rage upon the forfeit of a mere game.
C3P0: I stand enlightened. R2, let the Wookie win.
[Everyone Dies]
[End Scene]

Calm-AV

excerpt from Taming of the Star Shrew :

PRINCESS LEIA: Come, come, you nerf, i’faith you are too angry.
HAN SOLO: If I be nerfish, best beware my horn.
PRINCESS LEIA: My remedy is then to pluck it out.
HAN SOLO: Ay, if the fool could find where it lies.
PRINCESS LEIA: Who knows not where a nerf does wear his horn? In his scruff.
HAN SOLO: In his tongue.
PRINCESS LEIA: Whose tongue?
HAN SOLO: Yours, if you talk of scruff, and so farewell.
PRINCESS LEIA: What, with my tongue in your scruff?

Now, how to select those who rose above all of that? Turn the page for the victors…


What I ultimately decided was to award the prizes to entries that went a step beyond, transcending the simple mash-up. As in the case of Bloodcreep, whose Shakespearean Duel of the Fates was also a pointed critique of the scene in any language.

SCENE 3–Naboo

Doors open. Enter Darth Maul.

Maul: Behold, tis I, Lord Maul. And we dark Sith shall now wreck murderous revenge upon thou Jedi.
Kenobi: Not for two more episodic installments, methinks.
Maul lowers his hood
Maul: No? Look upon my scarlet visage and think yet more.
Jinn: Thou appear likest a most venomous horned Toad.
Kenobi: And we are about to lash thee with our tongues.
Maul: Much like you two men-girls lash each other? I needn’t partake! I have two red tongues here to lash you.
Maul, Jinn, and Kenobi Draw sabres.
They fight. [Lucas edit]
Maul: Ah, your green dragon sword doth hiss, Jinn. And yours, Kenobi, crackles like the ice.
Jinn: Lords! Your kick has rattled the gaol of my sternum and scuffed my chest hairs!
Maul: Witness my twirl. Behold that garbage there, now it is here. It opens doors as if it were a key most fit.
Jinn: Bah! I have been well heeled in the boob again!
Maul: You would befit time more well to enlighten yourself with a defense, Master Jinn. And now I have purposely backed to the edge of this decking.
Kenobi: Feint! Or Force headbutt! I cannot tell rightly what I do.
Jinn: Now I shall smash thee to smithereens.
Maul: Thanks be to the Nabooans. Thanks be to the Nabooites. Whatever they deem themselves. Thanks be to the people of Naboo that they care not for life and limb to repair themselves with guardrails so I can flip over the chasm to this decking so impressively.
Jinn and Kenobi: And we shall follow where you lead!
Maul: And so you shall into this extraneous room with doors of amniotic pink.
Jinn: I shall pause for a moment of reflection. {Aside}: What the fucking pink Hell is this shit for?
Maul: I will take this respite to stretch my legs in the manner of a pacing Endorian cat.
Jinn: Return to arms! Engarde!
Maul: Listen to the song my sabres hum. But now is the time to draw the drapes across this little theatre.
Jinn: Egads! I doth believe it would have been better to welcome your boot again instead of your ruddy blade. You have cauterized my heart closed and dammed the gushing stream of my blood to a cold still lake. My legs have ended their allegiance to me and I fall forward in a failed somersault kind of way upon my face.
Kenobi: No.
Maul: I welcome you to the Genosian Bull ring now, squire.
Kenobi: Ha! It doth rankle me that you have felled my master. Also it doth rankle me to now realize that had I fought this well two minutes backwards you might be the one lying prone upon the ground.
Maul: Flush, you bugger! Into this gaping well I toss you. What do thee perhaps reason of this?
Kenobi: Well, I dost at this time think that– Har! I have now sent you on your way into the hereafter without your legs, Sir! Did not fortell that coming from many hectares away, did you, villain? I will from hereon deem that Sith lords be my speciality.
Maul: The rise was short but the fall is long. As I plummet through this stale vent I have the much longed for leisure to accomplish my designs for robot legs that would have, perchance, helped poor crippled tots stand upright against the sun and race the trout in its watery world.

berkowitzofthejews found a correlation between Shakespeare’s classic Fool archetype and, well…the inevitable analogue.

Act I, Scene iii
A Swamp
Enter A FOOL
Fool: Aye, some take me to be a fool, and perhaps I may be, but if some would just listen to my prattling nonsense, sense might be revealed!
Enter Qui Gon, a JEDI
Qui Gon: What is this place, and who might its people be? I sense much life ‘mongst these foreign weeds, yet none do I see.
Fool: Hail, good woman!
Qui Gon: Woman?! Look I like a woman to you?
Fool: If you not be a woman, than hail good droid!
Qui Gon: Art thou a fool? Do I seem a droid to thine eyes?
Fool: Nay, I see now that thou are not a droid, nor a woman, and indeed I am a fool. Shall I sing a merry song for you?
FOOL sings.
Qui Gon: Enough! What be thy name, fool?
Fool: My name, as was my father’s name, is Jar Jar, but Fool will suffice as that is all I am.
Qui Gon: Very well, Fool. Know thou the lay of the land?
Fool: Indeed, kind sir! I know it all very well! I get lost only once or twice before each Saturday! Need thee a guide? I shall show you the many secrets of my home!
Qui Gon: Yes, you shall accompany myself, along with my young apprentice, as we discover what we must. But pray, keep your mouth shut as much as you may lest we grow tired of your foolish words.
Fool: I shall do my best, good sirs, but a fool’s mouth is harder to shut than a door without hinges!
EXEUNT

As for Andalite – well, perhaps not as deep, but “Beepeth, Boopeth” cracked me up, and that was cause for bonus points.

R2D2: “Beepeth, Boopeth, Whistle-eth, Chirp”
C3PO: Hark! Methinks my stout companion have eyed some beasts most foul! The approach from the South East.

Luke: Forsooth, tis the People of Sand!

Congrats to all. Winners, please email me your info to get prized.