It’s a big month for Ron Howard. On May 25, his directorial debut for Lucasfilm: Solo: A Star Wars Story will finally come to theaters, and on May 4 (also known as Cinco de Cuatro to the Bluth family), a brand-new recut of Arrested Development‘s fourth season will be on Netflix. To mark this special celebration of Ron Howard-ness, The Star Wars Show has released an Arrested Development-style recap of A New Hope, and it’s completely, utterly, perfect.
As soon as the familiar “this is a story” begins with Howard making dry asides about the overall semi-ridiculousness of the first Star Wars film with the context of the prequels casting a large shadow over it, it’s clear that this works. Almost too well. There have been plenty of remixes and Arrested Development Narrator jokes out in the wild, but this provides some genuine laugh out loud Star Wars moments that have never really been seen before.
It’s surprising how well a recap of A New Hope works in an Arrested Development way. It’s tight, concise, and makes fantastic usage of the “five minutes earlier” title card. And the conversation between Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan that was once considered completely heartbreaking is now genuinely hilarious. Hopefully, they do more of these.