As anyone who regularly reads the news can tell you, it’s tough knowing that bad things are happening in the world and feeling like there’s nothing you can do about them from where you are. That’s the idea behind Outer Rim (A Star Wars Fan Film for the Rest of the Empire), in which two friends working “40 miles farther” in “a galaxy far, far away” from everything else that’s happening in Star Wars.

This poignant fan film was made by LA-based filmmaker Thomas R. Wood, and stars comedians Dave Ross and Steve Hernandez as our unnamed protagonists, watching the Empire nuke some Coruscant-looking town from afar on their homestead. It’s admittedly pretty short, but if you’re anything like me, I suspect you will be thinking about it all day.

It’s worth pointing out that while the main canonical films have always dealt in some way with the fight between those trying to build the Empire and those opposed to it, there were plenty of stories in the expanded universe of Star Wars Legends that were smaller scale like this. Most notably, Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina featured short stories about the minor characters we saw during Luke’s visit to the infamous hive of scum and villainy. Now that the new canon is pretty much starting from scratch, it will be interesting to see if they ever take on a similar idea in the movies. Heck, maybe the untitled Han Solo spin-off will be light on Imperial influence and focus more on his smuggling past—it doesn’t seem like he ever really tried to cross the Empire before the events of A New Hope, after all.

What do you think of this fan film? Would you welcome more Star Wars stories about people who have nothing to do with fighting the empire? Tell us what you think in the comments below!

Image: Thomas R. Wood/Vimeo

Kylo Ren’s scar controversy heats up!