If you were alive and online in the 1990s, there is a reasonably good chance you stumbled on the fan-made short film Troops, which reimagines the white-and-black-clad Imperial stormtroopers of Star Wars as head-knocking beat cops in the style of the then-popular police reality show, COPS. Just 10 minutes long with credits, this short went viral back not only before the concept of virality was widespread, but before YouTube or other websites made uploading digital videos easy. Viewing Troops meant downloading the video, typically using a modem and telephone line if you weren't in an academic or corporate setting with access to high-speed internet; this could take minutes, even hours. Signing up to watch Troops was a commitment.
But people made that commitment, and in droves, partly because the effects-work was surprisingly high-quality for a nonprofessional production and partly because it was genuinely funny, with amusingly accented ride-along confessionals by stormtroopers on the beat, recasting Jawas and other Star Wars–universe types as local ruffians. The mashed-up elements weren't original, but the parodic synthesis was, and by treating the stormtroopers as ordinary beat cops patrolling local communities, it delivered the sort of world-building that helped make Star Wars an obsession for a generation.
