Here’s an excellent treat, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to find for years. Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation is a shot-for-shot remake that two Mississippi kids made over the course of eight years in the 1980s. A few weeks ago a complete copy was floating around on one of those secret BitTorrent sites. Here’s the first ten minutes. (The audio level is low throughout, so you may have to turn up the volume.) Enjoy.

Jim Windolf wrote about the remake in the 2004 Vanity Fair feature “Raiders of the Lost Backyard.” That same year, the producer Scott Rudin bought the rights to the boys’ story, and Daniel Clowes is apparently working on a script (or he was at one point, anyway).

A couple of years before his late-’70s ascension to teen idolhood, Robby Benson auditioned for the Luke Skywalker role in Star Wars. He was as ill-suited for the role as you’d expect, given his subsequent success as a geeky but adorable moptop in such sports-themed movies as One on One and Ice Castles. In the clip below, 20-year-old Benson spends nine minutes reading turgid George Lucas dialogue with a mostly off-camera Harrison Ford.

[via YouTube member Ghyslain, with an indirect assist from All the Little Live Things. Ghyslain’s profile contains links to several other Star Wars audition tapes, including Mark Hamill’s.]

A few belated follow-ups to last week’s post about 5-25-77, the upcoming low-budget movie starring John Francis Daley (late of Freaks and Geeks) as a fanatical Star Wars fan in 1977:

First, my pal Rob was quick to inform me that it isn’t Martin Starr in the pre-production teaser—it’s Chris Owen, who’s best known for playing the Shermanator in American Pie. Owen really does look a lot like Martin Starr in that teaser, I have to say.

Second, I got a couple of nice emails from 5-25-77’s writer/director, Patrick Read Johnson. Based mainly on what I saw in the teaser, I wrote in my post that the movie is “apparently a Scary Movie-style spoof of ’70s culture.” Johnson made some clarifications:

The film, now in post-production, is actually NOT a spoof… We don’t focus on Smiley Face t-shirts or Earth Shoes. It’s not in the LEAST self-conscious in that sense (the teaser IS—) And though much of it is pretty damn funny (or so people are telling us) it’s not really even a comedy. It’s more like… American Graffiti in the months leading up to the release of the original Star Wars. Yet it’s not really ABOUT Star Wars… or Star Wars fandom, either, for that matter.

He also told me that among the many cameos in the film is one by Mark Borchardt, the subject of one of the best documentaries ever—no, one of the best FILMS ever: American Movie. Borchardt apparently has a small role as the manager of a movie theater.

Third, I discovered an extended interview with Johnson that makes it clear that 5-25-77 is at least partly autobiographical. When he was a movie-obsessed teenager growing up in Illinois, Johnson visited Los Angeles and got to hang out with Steven Spielberg on the set of Close Encounters, among other adventures.

Those of you who’ve listened to some of the commentary tracks on the Freaks and Geeks DVD set know that John Francis Daley, who played Sam Weir on that brilliant show, is no longer a squeaky-voiced adolescent. Daley’s voice has dropped at least an octave since 2000, when NBC cancelled Freaks and Geeks after a single near-perfect 18-episode season. I hadn’t seen a recent picture of Daley until I discovered the photo at left.

It’s a still from an upcoming movie, a low-budget comedy called 5-25-77. The title is a reference to the original release date of Star Wars. The plot description on the movie’s IMDb page simply says this: “Pat Johnson has things get in the way of him seeing Star Wars.” Daley stars as Pat Johnson, and Christopher Lloyd plays a character called Herb Lightman. The movie’s official site doesn’t have much more than stills, behind-the-scenes photos, and a list of the cast and crew, so it’s hard to tell exactly what the deal is with this movie. But it’s apparently a Scary Movie-style spoof of ’70s culture. Weirdly enough, one of the producers of 5-25-77 is Gary Kurtz—the actual producer of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. The movie’s original music is being composed by Alan Parsons, which is just totally hilarious and perfect.

The movie’s IMDb page links to a pre-production teaser, and this is where things get especially weird. The teaser was made before John Francis Daley was cast in the film, so he’s nowhere to be seen. But another Freaks and Geeks alum is in the teaser: Martin Starr, who played Sam Weir’s eccentric friend Bill Haverchuck. Starr, however, isn’t listed in the credits on IMDb or the movie’s official site; he apparently doesn’t have a role in the actual film. (At one point during the teaser, Starr and another character talk about the fact that Gary Kurtz was the producer of Star Wars, and one of them holds up a picture of Kurtz. Very, uh, Being John Malkovich.) Also in the teaser, for literally a second or so, is none other than Carrie Fisher herself. She’s listed in the teaser’s closing credits but not in the credits on IMDb or the official site. I have no idea if she does a cameo in the actual film. Also in the teaser’s closing credits, but nowhere else, is Joe Pantoliano. The teaser is packed with snippets of ’70s culture, including brief clips from Logan’s Run, Jaws, and The Six-Million-Dollar Man. (There are also a few ’60s and ’80s references in there, too.)

Chatter in the movie’s IMDb message boards indicates that the filmmakers are hoping to release 5-25-77 in time to capitalize on the publicity surrounding Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith, which opens in May. The director of 5-25-77, Patrick Read Johnson, has occasionally been popping up in the IMBd boards to answer questions or clarify facts.

In other Freaks and Geeks-related news, Newmarket Press recently published the show’s complete scripts in two volumes. My pal Emily Nussbaum wrote about the show in the Arts & Leisure section of The New York Times a year or so ago, when the DVD set was released, and the back cover of volume one of the scripts features this blurb from her piece: “Even among good series that died young, Freaks and Geeks stands out. A brilliantly funny and poignant high school comedy-drama … The show attracted a fan base that identified strongly with its obsessive, loyal, pop-culture-loving characters.”

UPDATE: I did a follow-up post about 5-25-77 a week later.