The Auralnauts Jedi Party Saga [2013-2018]

2013 was the beginning of a renaissance for the Star Wars fandom. With the waning days of the post-Episode III Expanded Universe and the recent sale of Lucasfilm to Disney, things were about to change dramatically for the franchise and its massive fanbase. But in 2013, things were still simmering.

And with that simmering came the Auralnauts Jedi Party Saga…

More than anything else that has happened in recent history, I think the Auralnauts were the ones to spark the Great Prequels Revival of the past few years. No longer are the movies considered offhandedly as irredeemable garbage; they’re treated by most as either flawed-but-fun adventures or as outright great movies that rival the originals. I think backlash to the RedLetterMedia prequel videos and their obnoxious fans was part of this trend, but I’d like to at least give part of the blame to Auralnauts, who took the Star Wars prequels and made friggin’ hilarious videos about them.

The first episode is just a series of random clips that vaguely recreate The Phanom Menace but where the Jedi are drug-addled party fiends who wreck everything that lies in their wake and one that culminates in the ultimate dance-off. Epsiodes II and III, though, add a story with actual continuity to things, creating running gags and more intricate edits that would carry on throughout the series.

Before “Hello there!” and “Have you ever heard of the…” became household memes, the Auralnauts were out here whooping ass with the story of Anakin, a friendzoned loser who goes straight to impress a chick that doesn’t like him, and the story of Obi-Wan, a midichlorian addict who struggles to get his life together. And I have a hard time believing that these silly stories didn’t play a major role in getting people to remember, and eventually reevaluate, the prequels that were so despised in fanboy circles.

The songs just got better and better, too.

Not only are they really funny songs, they’re legitimately great music as well. What the heck is up with that, anyway?

The Auralnauts eventually moved to making the Original Trilogy in classic Jedi Party form, moving very far into the realm of plot and continuity. I’m sure there is a large camp that highly prefers the shorter, less focused Prequel videos, but I think that is a bad camp to be in, because Episodes IV, V, and VI are dynamite. Anyone that doesn’t love the legend of Duke Dirtfarmer, the Last Laser Master, doesn’t have a heart.

The Auralnauts are some of the best Youtubers out there, but sadly because of copyright issues with their parody videos, they hardly make any money off their work and their videos don’t get nearly the exposure they deserve. We can only hope some day that can change, because they deserve to be videogamedunkey levels of popular.

They have recently announced their versions of the Sequel Trilogy. Whatever that’s going to be… Well, as you can already see, it’s going to be something special.