tek's rating:

The Pink Five Saga, on Amazon

This isn't actually, like, a regular series. It's actually a series of fan films, which have appeared on various websites, over the years. (I couldn't tell you which films appeared where, before the saga was complete.) The first film was released in 2002, the second in 2004, and the third was released in three volumes: in 2006, 2007, and 2013. The complete saga was first made available on Vimeo in early 2016, before moving to Amazon a few months later. However, I didn't learn of any of the films' existence until 2017.

Pink Five (4:28)
Amazon; IMDb; official site; Star Wars Fanpedia; Wikipedia

The story takes place during the Battle of Yavin (from the end of A New Hope). There's this sort of Valley girl named Stacey who is, like, a really inept X-wing pilot. She talks a lot (mostly to her astromech droid), and, like, she's pretty funny, I guess. But that's really all there is to say about the film. I liked it, but only kind of. So... I guess I'm glad that I didn't see it until there were two more episodes, because if I had to wait a couple of years between episodes, I probably would have either completely forgotten about it or else not cared enough to watch the sequels. And that would have been a shame, because I definitely think they're better than the first film.

Pink Five Strikes Back (9:53)
IMDb; Star Wars Fanpedia; Wikipedia

This takes place shortly after the Battle of Hoth (from Empire Strikes Back). Stacey had apparently taken part in the battle, but now the Rebels have left Hoth, and they're all going to rendezvous... well, she didn't catch that part, so she's just going to follow the new kid (Luke Skywalker, whom we don't actually see). She also claims to be dating Han Solo, though they're "keeping it on the down low so Princess Hairstyle (Leia) doesn't totally freak out." Anyway, she crashes her X-wing on Dagobah, where she meets Yoda, and he starts training her to become a Jedi. (This is during the same period when he's training Luke, though her training takes place somewhere different from where Luke's does, and he has no idea she's even there.) She also meets the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi. And... that's all I want to divulge of the plot, but as I said before, I did think this film was better than the first one.

Return of Pink Five (12:33 / 14:19 / 18:19)
IMDb; Star Wars Fanpedia; Wikipedia

Caution: potential spoilers.

The third film consists of three volumes. So once again, I'm really glad I didn't know about it until well after it was all finished, so I could watch them all together. Volume I starts in Jabba the Hutt's palace on Tatooine, just like Return of the Jedi. Since Han was frozen in carbonite and delivered to Jabba at the end of "Empire Strikes Back," Stacey is now trying to rescue him, and has infiltrated Jabba's palace as one of his slave girls. (She spends some time talking with a Rodian slave, and then with Salacious Crumb.) Unfortunately, before Stacey can enact her rescue plan, Leia shows up and rescues Han herself. So Stacey leaves, and makes her way back to her X-wing. Then Obi-Wan's ghost shows up and asks her to help destroy the second Death Star. When she gets there, she meets the Emperor and Darth Vader, but I don't want to spoil any details about how that turns out.

Volume II begins with Stacey returning to her X-wing, which had been repaired by an astromech droid called DeeDee. (Stacey had gone through a couple of R2 type astromechs in the first two films, which of course just talked in beeps like R2-D2. But DeeDee is an R5 unit, who actually speaks English. She sounds like a Valley girl, so... it kind of makes for an interesting sort of frenemy relationship between Stacey and DeeDee. Mostly friendly, but there is some, shall we say, cattiness.) Anyway, Stacey ends up going to Endor to keep Han safe while he and the Rebels destroy the shield generator. (She gets some help from C-3PO and some Ewoks and Chewbacca.) Unfortunately, she finally comes to realize Han loves Leia, not her, so she's totally bummed out. Later, Yoda's ghost shows up and talks with her. Then Obi-Wan's voice joins the conversation. He says the Rebels have destroyed the generator, but Stacey informs them of a second shield generator on the Death Star itself, which no one else knew about. (Explaining how she knew would spoil something about volume I, so I'm not going to do that.) So, she and DeeDee head back to the Death Star to deal with that.

Volume III: They deal with that. Then they head back to Endor for the victory celebration, even though Stacey doesn't feel much like celebrating. Until she hooks up with a rebound guy....

Anyway, so like, the first film was good, the second film was great, and the third film (all three parts of it) was kind of awesome. You know, as the whole Pink Five Saga progresses, Stacey just gets funnier, and more badass, and becomes a much more sympathetic character than I found her in the first film. So, all in all, it turned out to be a pretty epic series, as well as a lot of fun. And I'm really glad to have seen it.