Viral fan animation puts recent Star Wars movies to shame

With the Stars Wars sequels more than a little underwhelming, perhaps it would be better to leave things to the fans? That's the conclusion many are making based on a stunning short fan animation that's gone viral on social media.

Dayton Busse's 'Boba Fett Uses Seismic Charge on Star Destroyer' shows the famed bounty hunter bolting through laser beams in his Slave I. Made using Houdini (see our Houdini 20 review), it's clocked up thousands of likes across X (the former Twitter), Instagram and YouTube, where users reckon Disney needs to hire him ASAP.

It may be a fan animation, but Busse is no amateur. He's a professional FX Artist who undertook the project for his portfolio. That shows in the movie-level quality. 

Busse has shared some of his process on X. He used Industrial Light & Magic's Boba Fett model and cockpit shots from The Mandalorian and Star Wars: Episode II, but he made everything else himself in spaceships in Houdini, rendered it with Karma and compiled it in Nuke.

Some wonder if a seismic charge could really destroy a Star Destroyer, but fans are impressed by the piece. "More exciting and better story then entire Acolyte," one person wrote on YouTube. "Better than much of what Lucasfilm has produced recently!" someone wrote on X.

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