Amazing, that is, because this could have easily been parody. Instead, it makes one wonder what might have been for the Lost Prequel Trilogy had someone else wrested control of the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas. Like Disney, perhaps, who gets the chance to rehabilitate the series after the laughably cheesy Jar-Jar Era:

Like Rob Bricken writes at io9, the weird part is how well it actually works:

The craziest part is that it totally works. I want to put on Empire right now! Of course, there’s always a little part of me that wants to watch The Empire Strikes Back at pretty much any given moment, but this video has absolutely made it bigger.

With Allahpundit on vacation this week, I feel like I should be on palate-cleanser patrol, and this is, well … awesome. This was the superior film of all six in the series, surpassing even the original Episode IV, so it lends itself best to the Bay/Abrams trailer treatment. The actual acid test here would be to make a Bay/Abrams trailer for Phantom Menace that didn’t tip all the way over into sarcasm (“One Gungan must face his destiny to, er, be written almost all the way out of the story by Episode III”). For that matter, I’d challenge the creators to make one for Episode II that contains the infamous “sand” quote, or Episode III for any mention of “younglings.” You want to impress us? Make us want to go back there.

Speaking of going back there, what was the original trailer like? Ahem.

Let’s just say the art has advanced somewhat over the last 35 years. If you’re looking for how Disney will approach the franchise now, well …

I’d like to use the Lando Calrissian quote, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” but I’m actually encouraged by this. Maybe Disney isn’t going to take itself as seriously as Lucas obviously did in the prequels. Or, perhaps, this is just for the younglings.