New Star Wars Movie From the Makers of 'Troops'

Anonymous Coward writes "A new fan-made Star Wars production is underway from the creators of the well-known 1997 Star Wars spoof 'Troops'. I.M.P.S. - The Relentless is a documentary style feature following the crew and missions of an Imperial Star Destroyer during the height of the Galactic Empire. While slightly more serious than Troops, the first available chapter of I.M.P.S is an exceptionally well-produced (and still subtly humorous) piece of fanfilm. Worth it for the incredible CGI alone."

The site's already unavailable

[VikingBerserker]

Curse my metal body, I wasn't fast enough!

Re:The site's already unavailable

[oogoliegoogolie]

Listen to the servers R2, they're dying.

Re:The site's already unavailable

[AndroidCat]

"Shut down all the Slashdotters on the detention level!"

Like the Jedi...

[_PimpDaddy7_]

vanished! ;)

Even the torrent is fubared

[AndroidCat]

Could someone create a torrent of the torrent?

Re:Even the torrent is fubared

[Kalak]

For those who don't want to deal with trackerless torrents/ /Magnet URIs, etc. (see above), which are faster...

This torrent below will give you a smaller torrent, so a slower download - you have been warned:

One torrent of the torrent:
http://www.iddl.vt.edu/~jackie/imps_chapter1_DAVEN PORT_928735.avi.torrent [vt.edu]

And may /. have mercy on my tracker.

Re:Even the torrent is fubared

[yotto]

may /. have mercy on my tracker.

May it indeed, yours is the first tracker that's worked. And the download is not slower, becasue you can't get slower than 0kibs.

Many thanks.

[Bob_Robertson]

As has been said before, yours is the only one working.

This Magnet URI seems like a great idea too, looks like I'll have to install Asurlace (or whatever it's called) in addition to everything else. I'm using bittornado, quite happy with it, maybe it does Magnet URIs too.

(but for that I'd have to read the manual! :^)))

I wonder why no one posted the Torrent UUencoded?

Bob-

Re:Even the torrent is fubared

[XaXXon]

I've started up a high-upload-rate connection against the torrent you provided. As soon as it gets some data, it should be pushing 2-3MB/s, so people should be able to get their copy reasonably quick.

Re:Even the torrent is fubared

[benjamindees]

.torrent files contain a list of hashes for the pieces of a torrent. If you have lots of pieces, you need a big .torrent file to describe them all. Lots of pieces usually results in faster and more reliable downloads.

Or check here...

[redmo]

http://www.theforce.net/fanfilms/shortfilms/imps/i ndex.asp [theforce.net]

Re:Or check here...

[FroBugg]

That's great if you just want the teaser, but for the actual movie that page links back to the dead server.

Re:Or check here...Damaged Redundency.

[DNS-and-BIND]

The old ARPA internet that would function even if 90% of its nodes were destroyed by a Soviet nuclear attack is a thing of the past.

The modern internet has nothing like the old redundancy. Go check out NANOG and listen to them bitching about it.

Re:Or check here...Damaged Redundency.

[frankmu]

if the soviets only knew about spam and porn, we'd all be speaking russian now.

Torrent here

[idonthack]

http://www.torrentreactor.net/view.php?id=5102279 [torrentreactor.net]

you're welcome

Re:Torrent here

[Jack William Bell]

It's showing no peers right now. No activity at all.

Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Danathar]

The tracker for part 1 of the avi is down...so here is the Magnet URI for use in Azureus to access the swarm "trackerless"

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RDFJDRRUQXGXPZBH7BCFXGRPGKAC VJ FR

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[dave1g]

holy shit, that worked really well. connected me to 70 seeds in a minute. even wihtout the tracker, yay for distributed tracker! :-)

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Danathar]

Is'nt that goofy how /. tends to put a space before the last two characters? (Hey Taco!...fix it!).

I've posted Magnet URI's before and always kick myself in the ass for forgetting to mention along with the URI that you need to get rid of the space near the end.

More people should publish Magnet URI's instead of links to torrent files.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[yotto]

(Hey Taco!...fix it!)

Actualy, that /is/ the fixed version. They chop up (almost) everything that's longer than a certain length so us poor 80-columners can read the site without having to scroll sideways.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Danathar]

It would be nice though to be able to specify a tag that keeps it from being choped....I understand your pain but the fix kills the URI.

Of course one could construe that this weeds out the people who are not smart enough to notice that the space is a problem and needs to be hand fixed before pasting it into Azureus......but I'm a nice person and would rather have it work without having to hand fix it.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Chmarr]

All one has to to is use the proper HTML tags to make the link clickable. So, stop being lazy, and put that little bit of effort in!

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Danathar]

It's not link....URI's are NOT LINKS..they don't "link" to anything...hence the term URI instead of URL.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[YA_Python_dev]

Well, according to the W3C [w3.org] you can put any URI in an <a href="...">, not only URLs.

The real problem is that /. messes up magnet URIs in the <a> elements: "magnet:?xt=urn:btih:AAA..." becomes "magnet:xturnbtihAAA...". :-(

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[Captain Nitpick]

Actualy, that /is/ the fixed version. They chop up (almost) everything that's longer than a certain length so us poor 80-columners can read the site without having to scroll sideways.

No, they chop it up because there were jackasses who would intentionally post things that widened the page to a ridiculous degree, breaking line wrapping.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[yotto]

No, they chop it up because there were jackasses who would intentionally post things that widened the page to a ridiculous degree, breaking line wrapping.

Um, you just said the equivalent of "You're wrong, and here's some extra information about what you posted."

They cut it at all for the benefit of everybody, sure, but they cut it to a number 80 for people like me.

Already fixed

[Safety Cap]

Is'nt that goofy how /. tends to put a space before the last two characters? (Hey Taco!...fix it!).

As you can see, this has already been fixed [slashdot.org] by the /. crack programming squad.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[david.given]

Thanks for the magnet URI.

Unfortunately I seem to be unable to figure out what I'm supposed to do with it. I'm running 2.3.0.2 Azureus, and there don't seem to be any obvious options dealing with magnet URIs... the closest is 'open location', and that plain doesn't work.

What am I missing here?

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[david.given]

"Open location" is fine: insert the magnet URI in the URL field removing the whitespace before the last two chars.

I tried that; it just says: "Error --- no sources found for torrent" and gives up.

*shrug*

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[hacker]

Nope, with B64 from 6/19 and 2.3.0.2, with Distributed DB running (and thousands of lines of relevant successful log in that tab), it doesn't fetch a single byte of the distributed torrent file.

In my case, it sits there at "Downloading from..." (the magnet URI), for about an hour... never gets past it. Other torrents I'm pulling and seeding work fine.

Re:Magnet URI below...tracker down

[hacker]

Nope, doesn't work for me either, using B64 from June 19th's snapshot...

Re:Torrent here

[neonstz]

The page linked to in the story was unavailable for a while.

Re:Torrent here

[ArmorFiend]

I've been at this for a half hour, and all I get are timeouts before I can download a single byte. I don't use BT much. Am I doing something wrong?

Re:Torrent here

[bersl2]

No, you're doing it right.

Re:Torrent here

[imsabbel]

Like the other said, you dont do anything wrong.
The site is only currently REALLY bombed, but your client will check every x minutes, and as soon as the site is up again it will start. Just run it in the background, as long as it cant connect to the tracker it will use hardly any bandwith.

Re:Torrent here

[acariquara]

Damn, the trackerless feature of Azureus 2.3.x is working wonders with this one. No contact w/ the server whatsoever and the torrent is capping my 1meg DSL...

Hey hey hey!

[varmittang]

Another ASP bites the dust!

FileFront download link

[PSVMOrnot]

it's not a torrent, and its not a mirror, but it's the best i could grab at the time:
http://download.filefront.com/3857087;2ee21ce8850b c08599a3d844a47485bf1274714926a230d06c1d5d8c48f3e5 41f450d9474875fa80 [filefront.com]

filefront mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

filefront mirror [filefront.com]

Great Movie!

[__aaclcg7560]

What an intense movie! Although a bit short for a movie, I don't understand why the credits ends with "SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE". Who is this "AVAILABLE" fellow and what did he had to do with the movie?

Re:Great Movie!

[jspoon]

What an intense movie! Although a bit short for a movie, I don't understand why the credits ends with "SERVICE NOT AVAILABLE". Who is this "AVAILABLE" fellow and what did he had to do with the movie?

It's Lando, before Darth Vader murdered his family causing him to vow revenge. Unfortunately he suffered an electric shock while working on the Millennium Falcon and forgot all about that. And his name.

Re:Great Movie!

[SamSim]

What I like best about this movie is the way its brevity makes it open to interpretation and sparks the imagination. The real movie is in the details you yourself supply. "Available" can be anyone you want him/her to be, though personally I hold the opinion that "Available" is you, the viewer.

Top quality

[greenlead]

I downloaded the trailer and the first chapter a couple of weeks ago. They are top quality, and a must-see. I am anxiously awaiting chpater 2, and I'm not even that much of a Star Wars fan.

Re:Top quality

[ScrewMaster]

One might argue that you are anxiously awaiting Chapter 2 because you are not even that much of a Star Wars fan.

Working torrent?

[yotto]

Somebody post a working torrent ASAP! These really bad jokes using classic Star Wars lines are making me want to rip my eyes out!

Oh, and for the record, Han will get that torrent up, we've just got to give him more time.

Re:Working torrent?

[Mulletproof]

That's no torrent! It's a... Oh, nevermind >:(

Re:Working torrent?

[PsiPsiStar]

Your faith in your friends is your weakness.

Re:Working torrent?

[bersl2]

These really bad jokes using classic Star Wars lines are making me want to rip my eyes out!

Then you might not want to watch the movie. They use one.

Re:Working torrent?

[VikingBerserker]

These really bad jokes using classic Star Wars lines are making me want to rip my eyes out!

They said they fixed it! It's not my fault!

Torrentless donload

[Nehle]

For those of us who can't use bittorrent:
FileFront [filefront.com]

A Terrible Movie

[jonathanbearak]

I had trouble finishing the film.

Most of the movie is CGI of ships, walkers, etc. with a narrator's voice discussing the Empire's army in some sort of documentary that's part poorly written propaganda film and part unemotional and cheap knock-off of COPS.

Clearly the CGI was a lot of work; it's beyond what I could have done -- but it's hardly spectacular --- and I believe much of the criticism of a certain sci-fi film is how CGI does not a good movie make.

The acting is poor. Of course, it's hard to express emotion when you don't see a single face throughout the entire movie, save for a few moments at the end, where officers suddenly appear for no apparent reason. The demeanor is off for military personnel, and the whole thing just doesn't come together in the end. Apparently, the crime involved the smuggling of teddy bears and action figures. That's fine for a joke, but not after 20 minutes of tedium.

I'm sorry but there's nothing to empathize with in this movie. It drags on without purpose, without being sure of its concept at large. The beginning narration feels like it's about to be cut off, and then just keeps going on and on and on. It makes you scream, "Make it stop!"

I don't think much thought went into this film as far as the story or script are concerned. A very vague idea went in, and some people went to work on their computers. I'd give it half a star out of 5.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[Antonymous Flower]

this describes the entire star wars franchise fairly accurately. good job

Re:A Terrible Movie

[bokmann]

Oh come on! this is worth watching just for the subtle reference to the Alien and Predator movies!

The animation is just fresking incredible. I cannot believe what kind of stuff is possible on consumer budgets these days.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[bokmann]

I should have finished watching it before I posted that. There are also reference to the original movie ("Arent you a little short for a stormstooper?"), as well as a fantastic prop reference to Pulp Fiction. Makes me wonder what references I'm missing cause I didn't see the original.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[Jott42]

Stormtroopers supposed to be clones? I do not think that there is any reference to that in EP4-6, so in "classic" SW the answer is no. In "modern" SW, EP1-6, I do care what the answer is. I do not really care for what they have done to the mythology in Ep1-3, and I choose the regard them as "revisionist" tales, marginally interesting but not any source for the "truth" of that mythic universe.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[eraserewind]

They don't have an infinite supply of clones however. I think the later ones are just guys looking to pay their way through college or whatever.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[Nasarius]

I wouldn't call it "terrible", but the script/story was rather dull. It's sad, because the production values were excellent.

Re:A Terrible Movie

[serutan]

A very vague idea went in, and some people went to work on their computers.

So? Sounds like most of the projects I've worked on. If Episode 2 involves contractors getting blamed and fired, we'll be right on track!

Re:A Terrible Movie

[SamSim]

Seems to me like that's something lacking in basically every fan film, Star Wars, Star Trek and miscellaneous - acting. CGI seems to be easy these days, but a fan film with people in it who aren't just fans, but actually decent actors would be like gold dust. Anybody know any good examples?

Grocery Store Wars

[adam1101]

Another fine SW parody: Grocery Store Wars [storewars.org].

Re:Grocery Store Wars

[bani]

Not very good at all. Lots of very lame strained and forced pseudo-jokes and the wild-eyed political spew is very distracting.

Needs far better jokes and lose the political spew.

Not as funny as troops, but...

[william_w_bush]

"Stop that ship! Blast them!"

Link to the movie on Filefront

[NeedleSurfer]

Just choose a free server with no wait time [filefront.com] if there are still some availlable...

The site was Slashdotted so I thought a fast link might be of circumstances...

Re:Link to the movie on Filefront

[neoshroom]

Mod parent up. Mod me up while your at it. :)

Red vs. Blue meets Star Wars

[Picass0]

Whoever wrote this just needs to spinkle a few "cockmunchers" into the dialogue and it would be an ep.of RvsB

Web Server

[Namlak]

"And now, young Jedi, witness the power of this fully operational web server!

Oops, wait, hang on, oh forget it...."

Not too shabby!

[rbanzai]

Yes it has alot of limitations but it was still pretty entertaining.

The city they put together is amazing, especially the giant neon signs. They did a good job integrating the CGI and live action.

So the acting and writing is a little limp. That makes it about the same as the current crop of star wars movies.

There were some cute jokes, like the beeping noise the AT-ATs were making while they backed up.

The shoot out in the landing bay was nicely done. Alot of complex effects underway at once and well-hand

Re:Not too shabby!

[bani]

beeping backing-up vehicles is a joke older than yoda, and not confined to star wars either. it's a pretty overused cliche by now.

milking the cow

[Fr05t]

From the article: "Is Lucas milking the cow dry, or could these updates of the classic and new films really enhance the experience?"

The teat started squirting dust a few years ago.

Bwa hahah

[zippthorne]

Any SW fanfic that can make a Pulp Fiction reference work is OK in my book. I thought 'troops' was more fun in general though. I was so mad when they barely got any mention at that awful lucas self-back-patting of SW fan film award show dealy. "I want ton ton's for Xmas?" what's up with that?

Re:Mirrors?

[isolationism]

You know it's a robust server when the editors slashdot the site before it's even posted.

Re:Mirrors?

[ArmorFiend]

Forget mirrors, we need torrents!

torrentspy.com

[Andy Dodd]

Search for Troops there and you'll see a link to a torrent for the new movie in addition to the original Troops (the latter of which is a nearly dead torrent)

Re:Mirrors?

[SkunkPussy]

what a joke!

try http://impstherelentless.com.nyud.net:8090/tek9.as p?pg=chapter1_download [nyud.net]

Nah..use Magnet URI

[Danathar]

If you have azureus...just juse the Magnet URI

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:RDFJDRRUQXGXPZBH7BCFXGRPGKAC VJ FR

Note...slashdot puts a space before the last two characters..so when pasting the URI into Azureus (latest version) with "open location" be sure to omit the space.

AND...be sure you have trackerless BT plugin enabled! (when starting up Azureus it takes a couple of min to integrate into the DHT network)

MOD PARENT UP

[tulare]

Worked a charm for me. Do you have a link describing the magnet: protocol and how you managed to get this information on the torrent?

Behold another legitimate use of bittorrent, and MPAA can suck a nut.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Danathar]

One of the original posts had a posting to the torrent file on torrentreactor. The file downloaded but the tracker was obviously down.

In Azureus if you right click on the torrent file under "my torrents" you will see an option at the bottom that says "copy magnet URI to clipboard"

As for information. I learned about it from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_link [wikipedia.org]

It is'nt the best description in the world but there are links at the bottom and within the document that link to better sources of information.

I find it amazing that more torrent sites don't publish the URI in addition to the torrent file.

The biggest problem is that people seem to not understand what/how Magnet URI's work in conjunction with Azureus.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[tulare]

Well thanks. It downloaded, I watched it, it was great.

Create your own magnet URI

[YA_Python_dev]

I find it amazing that more torrent sites don't publish the URI in addition to the torrent file.

Yeah, but please note that some sites (e.g. torrentspy [torrentspy.com]) publish an equivalent information: the info hash.

You can convert an info hash to a magnet URI and vice versa with this small Python script [massacritica.to.it]: simply pass the hash or the URI to the command line.

Re:Nah..use Magnet URI

[Danathar]

Yea..the swam is pretty slow at the moment..hopefully more people with good connections will join once they figure out how to use the Magnet URI to access the swarm

Re:Nah..use Magnet URI

[MarkRose]

Yeah, it takes a while for the swarm to find new peers -- I've never had to use this feature before, and it's totally cool! Now things are flying along as fast as any trackered torrent.

I didn't even use the Magnet URI though -- I simply loaded the torrent file from torrentreactor.

Re:Mirrors?

[tylernt]

That link works for me, thanks!

Re:Its available on theforce.net

[Comsn]

the movie links back to imps server ;\

Re:I sense a disturbance in the web

[__aaclcg7560]

No wonder Anakian felt so helpless and turned to the dark side of the Force.

Re:At first I misread it as 'Star Troopers'

[infolib]

It's a hilarious flick. If you didn't catch that the extreme clichéness is purposeful you're watching too many bad movies. Mediiic!!

Oh, btw you misspelled "Starship Troopers".

Re:At first I misread it as 'Star Troopers'

[LurkerXXX]

It's a grade 'a' B movie! I think you mistyped "It's a high budget bad grade B movie".

Re:Don't bother here's the spoiler

[irving47]

troll

Re:Don't bother here's the spoiler

[lobsterGun]

breathless fanboi.

Oh no! You spoiled THE TRAILER

[Infonaut]

its just a long series of shots of a storm trooper putting on his body armor followed by a couple of quick cuts of storm troopers standing around in various environments (snow, desert etc.).

You know the difference between a trailer and a feature, right?

Re:Oh no! You spoiled THE TRAILER

[lobsterGun]

Yes I know the difference.

I also know the difference bewteen a good trailer and a bad one (after a good trailer the viewer is left somewhat interested in the film). This is a bad trailer.

It's not worth looking at.

Wasted Download

[lobsterGun]

Total length of trailer: 1Min 50 Sec

The first 20 sec is a shot of the black sheep productions logo.

The next 55 seconds is tight shots of a trooper putting on various pieces of his gear. kinda like in any one of a dozen or so USMC recriutment commercials.

The a bunch of shots of troopers standing/walking around.
Including :

Troopers in snow: 1:19 and 1:24.

Troopers in desert: 1:16.

The last 25 seconds is shots of text directing you to their web site.

Re:well known ?

[kfg]

"well known" or "notoriety" is entirely subjective. . .

Well of course it is. I've had to make this very point any number of times myself when people have sought to claim that I either wasn't, or was, "famous."

Certainly any number of people, quite possibly in the millions, have seen my name and image in the traditional media and it isn't unheard of for complete strangers to walk up to me and say, "Oh, Hey, you're ". . ." aren't you?" God only knows how many people only recognize me by sight.

While browsin

Re:well known ?

[Kymermosst]

I'm immensely curious to know who you are. But I have a feeling you won't enlighten me.

I think I've got it figured out, depending on whether or not KFG is from Chapel Hill.

Re:well known ?

[Dachannien]

Well, they did get Peter Cullen [imdb.com] to do the narration, so that's gotta count for something.

Re:well known ?

[johnjaydk]

Well, they did get Peter Cullen [imdb.com] to do the narration, so that's gotta count for something

According to imdb it's allmost the only non-pooh film he's done for the last teen years.

Re:well known ?

[Dachannien]

Considering that he's been doing voice work for 40 years, I think he's earned the right to take it easy these days. He did voices in most of the well-known action cartoons in the 80s (he was Optimus Prime, for example), so it's not like he's a nobody.

I mean, sure, I'd be even more impressed if they got Frank Welker on board, but his voice doesn't have that resonating quality that Cullen's voice has.

Re:well known ?

[blincoln]

He did voices in most of the well-known action cartoons in the 80s (he was Optimus Prime, for example), so it's not like he's a nobody.

He still seems to do a lot of narration for big-budget films and games (Warcraft III's trailers, I remember in particular).

Definitely one of the coolest male voices ever. I was shocked when I realized that Black Sheep really had gotten ahold of him for this.

Re:They're using Filefront

[ScrewMaster]

You bastard. And here I thought my 362 KB/sec was impressive. Damn damn damn.

Re:Amazing

[s2k2vidguy]

Well, for starters, they aren't George Lucas.

Heh, the ending was funny!

[antdude]

I like it.