--- title: Star Wars: Anime-Style Tribute to TIE Fighters 4 Years in the Making description: The short film is an homage to 1994's 'Star Wars: TIE Fighter' canonical: https://time.com/3757840/star-wars-tie-fighter-anime-video/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-03-25T14:19:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:42:15.613Z og:title: Someone Spent 4 Years Creating This Anime-Style Tribute to a 'Star Wars' Video Game og:description: The short film is an homage to 1994's 'Star Wars: TIE Fighter' og:url: https://time.com/3757840/star-wars-tie-fighter-anime-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Someone Spent 4 Years Creating This Anime-Style Tribute to a 'Star Wars' Video Game twitter:description: The short film is an homage to 1994's 'Star Wars: TIE Fighter' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Someone Spent 4 Years Creating This Anime-Style Tribute to a _Star Wars_ Video Game > Sponsored content. 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It curates the day's top headlines with TIME's reporting and analysis across politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. It is free to join at time.com/newsletters. #### How do I sign up for The Brief? The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=ab7c01f6-ec4e-497d-89ff-b396dec2c6ef&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer [Watch (HLS stream): Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Z2jYG2aP.m3u8) (1:30)  _Published 2014-12-03. Star Wars: The Force Awakens Trailer_  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Mar 25, 2015 2:19 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Mar 25, 2015 2:19 PM UTC The _Star Wars_ universe keeps growing, but one fan with _a lot_ of time on his hands has been fixated by one of its lesser-known properties: [the 1994 computer game _Star Wars: TIE Fighter_.](http://kotaku.com/one-man-spent-four-years-making-a-homage-to-the-video-g-1693469097) “What if there was an Empire-focussed short _Star Wars_ animation, drawn with the crazy detail and shading of classic ’80s anime that’s all but vanished from Japan nowadays?” asked Paul “OtaKing” Johnson on his YouTube channel. Well, Johnson spent his weekends for the past four years making that hypothetical a reality, and the resulting seven-minute, incredibly detailed short film has absolutely delighted the geekiest corners of the Internet. ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There's been an awakening. Have you felt it? . [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] [ MUSIC ] [ NOISE ] The dark side. 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