Star War: The Third Gathers — The Backstroke to the West

About

"Star War: The Third Gathers -- The Backstroke of the West" refers to a Chinese bootleg of the 2005 film Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith. The film became an internet phenomenon because of its poor subtitles, creating a series of videos and memes, including Do Not Want.

History

On June 7th, 2005, blogger Jeremy Winterson^[1] uploaded a collection of photos from a Chinese bootleg to Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith, entitled "Star War: The Third Gathers -- The Backstroke of the West." Winterson's blog created an internet sensation with the film's poor subtitles, which appear to be based on a script that was translated to Chinese and then back into English.^[4][5] The film became an instant source of mockery and considered an example of Engrish. Some of the most infamous translations include Anakin Skywalker's line "This is where the fun begins," which the film translates as "Game time started" (shown below, left) and Darth Vader's infamous "NOOOOO!" translated to "Do not want" (shown below, right).

Reception

"The Backstroke of the West" grew in cult status since Winterson's post. On September 15th, 2008, highlights of the bootleg made their way to YouTube (shown below), when YouTuber Engrish Is Funny posted a two minute reel of clips called "Backstroke of the West -- An Untold Love Story." The video has since received more than 935,000 views.

The film has since been uploaded (shown below) in its entirety to YouTube. On January 16th, 2016, YouTuber μ posted the entire film, which has received more than 224,000 views by May 2017.

Fandom

On October 1st, 2014, YouTuber Death Johnson Misc uploaded redubbed clips of Revenge of the Sith, replacing the film's dialogue with the lines from "Backstroke to the West." The video (shown below, left) went on to receive more than 1 million views. Over the next few weets, Death Johnson Misc uploaded three more highlight videos (shown below) of "Backstroke," all of which received more than 80,000 views.

More than a year later, YouTuber GratefulDeadpool uploaded a redubbed version of the film (shown below) in its entirety, reviving the bootleg's viral video status. The video received more than 663,000 views in the first 14 months. In January 2017, after the website Dorkly featured the video,^[4] several news sites covered GratefulDeadpool's video, including The Hollywood Reporter,^[2] Gizmodo,^[3] and more.

Impact

/r/PrequelMemes Take Over

In May 2017, a series of memes featuring the subtitles from "Backstroke of the West" began appearing on the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit. On May 9th, Redditor chrisjfoster14^[6] posted an image of Obi-Wan Kenobi with the subtitle "I feel far from good" in the thread "When you're watching a Chinese bootleg and you have a bad feeling about the subtitles." The post received more than 1,200 points (100% upvoted).

Three days days later, Redditor Dark_Souls_Jef^[7] posted the same image in the thread "When you run out of real prequel quotes so you have to resort to Chinese bootleg quotes." The post received more than 16,200 points (93% upvoted) and 370 comments in three days.

Over the next week, Redditor continued to post photos, screen caps and memes based on "Backstroke of the West."

On May 14th, Redditor Arcanas1221^[8] posted a photo of Obi-Wan Kenobi with "Backstroke" subtitle "I have the king of the hill" (shown below) in the thread "CHINESE BOOTLEG VERSIONS OF PREQUEL MEMES STILL RISING! BUY BUY BUY!" in the /r/MemeEconomy subreddit.

Related Memes

Do Not Want

Do Not Want, and its positive counterpart Do Want, are catchphrases typically used in reaction image macros to express one’s opinion on an image, video, or post. The phrase can also be modified with varying degrees of desire including “sort of want” and “don’t know if want.” It is used similarly to This Is Relevant to My Interests as a social cue to convey to other people whether the material is worth viewing.

Search Interest

External References