Star Wars Musical (Disney Parody): The Empire’s New Groove

Star Wars Musical (Disney Parody): The Empire’s New Groove

I’m George Shaw, as a composer, songwriter, and geek, I am fortunate and proud to spend every day doing what I love. I have co-written a song with Marvel legend Stan Lee, composed for Will Wheaton’s Tabletop on Geek & Sundry, composed for the Geekie Awards, and collaborated with a slew of YouTube creators who’ve featured my music in videos that have amassed over 150 million views. 

With the approaching release of Star Wars Ep VII: The Force Awakens, we couldn’t be more excited to see the continuation of the Star Wars saga, but when the announcement first came in 2012 that Disney was purchasing Lucasfilm, I couldn’t believe the 2 things that I loved since childhood were coming together! I began to imagine if my 2 musical heroes who inspired my journey to become a composer, John Williams (Star Wars) and Alan Menken (Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Tangled) had collaborated and made Star Wars into a Disney musical.  

Unable to contain my excitement, I spent nearly 2 years creating my vision of a humorous mashup of the two worlds in a fan film titled Star Wars: The Musical. Along the way, I assembled an amazing team of passionate and talented collaborators to help me complete the parody of Episode 4: A New Hope as a musical. Our team included an award-winning director, producers who are America’s youngest multiple award winning novelists, a Disney Imagineer, the colorist of the special edition and prequel Star Wars trilogies, matte painter on James Cameron’s Avatar, a Mad TV actor, and a broadway actress/singer who can be seen in the Oscar nominated Selma and recent Magic Mike XXL. 

After our first video went viral and has amassed over 250,000 views in the past year, we are excited to return to give the next episode, Empire Strikes Back, the Disney musical treatment. This time we want to join with the passionate Star Wars, Disney, and musical fan communities to make an even better fan film.  

The first time around we had no money and it took a lot of time and favors to make the video. This time we’re excited to have support from fans and hope to release within a year, aiming for December 2016. 

We are excited to be teaming up with RocketHub and Ovation TV, who’ve selected us for their Creative Studio where we compete for a chance to be featured on TV and win $5000 towards our project. Making the Star Wars Musical was the biggest passion project I’ve had, and it’s been an incredible way to share my love for Star Wars and Disney, and I hope you can join us in the journey of making an Empire Strikes Back musical. 

Source: ICNW