This STAR WARS Short Film Has A Cool Twist Ending
Summer '78 is a cool short film written and directed by J.C. Reifenberg about a kid recreating George Lucas' Star Wars with toys on his front lawn, and it features an excellent twist ending that will probably make you want to go back and watch it again to pick up all of the little clues and references throughout. Watch it for yourselves below:
SPOILERS ahead!
Peter over at /Film already put together a nice list of all of the references to the work of J.J. Abrams, and once you know that's who the kid in this short is supposed to be, it's fun to look back and watch it with that knowledge in mind:
Darth Vader using a very 1978 cocktail stick for a lightsaber, which conveniently also happens to look just like Kylo Ren’s cross-bladed lightsaber from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The Super 8 camera, which Abrams used as a child and was featured in his film Super 8.
Tannen’s mystery box sits behind the cityscape, a reference to the magic box given to JJ as a young boy.
The Starship Enterprise, a reference to the two Star Trek films he directed.
JJ’s signature lens flares
The boy’s dog is named “Robot”, which is why he yells “Bad Robot!” (the name of Abrams’ production company) at the conclusion of the short.
Astroids, a reference to Abrams’ first blockbuster movie writing gig on Michael Bay’s Armageddon
The dinosaur falls into a patch of three-leaf clovers, a reference to the Bad Robot produced film Cloverfield.
Han, Leia and Luke fall down a “secret hatch”, the blue VW bus and the numbers on the cardboard buildings are all references to the JJ Abrams produced tv series LOST. Lost hatch.
During the credits: Princess Leia in disguise in a red wig is a reference to the JJ tv series Alias.
There are also Fringe and Mission Impossible easter eggs.