There is something extraordinarily special about Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Extraordinary. Not just extraordinary, but Hamlet is the single greatest play written of all time. This isn’t just an opinion, it’s a measurably certifiable fact. Really? Huh. I hear you saying. How is that even possible? Seems weird to be able to quantifiably numerate a qualitative measure. How is that even a thing? Well, it’s a thing because I surveyed myself and fairly surprisingly, 100% of respondents responded that Hamlet is, in fact, the single greatest play of all time. Huh. OK.
Why is it so good? Well, if you are tragically uniformed as to this certifiable fact I’d be happy to walk you through it. Obviously you have piles of palace intrigue. Throne usurpation’s and the lot. There are duels – physical and metaphorical. You have poisonings, stabbings, and murders. There are ghosts that impart wisdom and ask for retribution. There’s unrequited love and suicides. There are plays within plays – drama within drama. But the pièce de résistance, is Hamlet’s internal struggle and his grappling with the meaning and purpose of the universe, and his place in it.
And maybe the biggest aspect of Hamlet’s awesomeness, is the brilliance of Hamlet’s written soliloquies. You know, like, “I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.” Bound in a nutshell? Tormented by dreams? Huh. Throughout Hamlet, there are seven soliloquies – and each one of them, in and of themselves, could vault a random play into the stratosphere of the greatest pieces of literature of all time.
Well, today I bring you a Star Wars fan short film mashup with Hamlet that is nothing short of brilliant. Granted, I’m a complete Star Wars geek… and coupled with my Shakespearean dweebness, I’m all over this glorious little movie. It dives right into the Act 3, scene 1, soliloquy, bypassing the very first line, which everyone knows already – “To be, or not to be, that is the question” and slides right on to the second line, “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.”
Come on. So good. Makes a fascinating twist to the backstory and legend of the storm troopers, but it also makes it clear that these 420-year-old words are still just as poignant and real today as they are when they were originally written.
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
TD-73028 … apparently
No traveler returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Edited by, CY
