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General Star Wars Random Thoughts Thread — Page 274

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MathUser said:

I wouldn’t say it’s been cool since 1977. I’d say it became more like T2. People who saw it thought it was cool in their heads, but it became dated and less must see every passing year. Not unlike alot of sci-fi. Only cool in fans minds, ya know.

Speaking as someone who’s actually been around since 1977, poppycock! The first ever official SW con was held in 1987, and that place was packed. Star Tours opened at Disneyland the same year. You don’t build a multimillion dollar theme park ride around a fading franchise.

Star Wars never left the public consciousness. President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative was nicknamed Star Wars by the press, much to Lucas’ dismay. Reagan even called Russia The Evil Empire.

The OT was never out of print on home video. The 1993 LD boxset was a big deal at the time. Just about every electronics or department store with a wall of tv’s would use one of the trilogy as demo material.

The Special Editions made enough money to prove people still cared about a galaxy far far away.

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While Star Wars never left the public eye, it wasn’t much of a kids thing between 1985 and 1995 (the dark times). There were no toys in the stores, but there were novels, graphic novels (not comic books), and HARD video games.

I would argue Star Wars matured into an adult fandom at this point. And as hard as it’s tried to go back to being just a kids thing, I don’t think it can.

You know of the rebellion against the Empire?

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I don’t know why you think that. My daughters love it.

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I was born in 1990 and my childhood was an OT paradise. There were playsets (Death Star, Hoth base, etc.) with bullets that fired when you touched the back of them (same for the toy Millenium falcon). There was the 1995 Faces trilogy to grow up on with exceptional quality on VHS. There were the toy lightsabers so heavy they could kill a kid (I remember the first time I saw the wimpy little sticks kids were playing with and I thought “We had it good”).

And all the kids talked about it. 1990s boy’s upbringings were all basically the same, we were all raised on Star Wars. Cool? Definitely.

-TM

Jar-Jar is the Emperor in the extra special edition of ROTJ (scenes 1, 3, and then 6 to the end).

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suspiciouscoffee said:

MathUser said:

While I saw the SE once on VHS It didn’t take and I didn’t see what the big deal was.

That explains it.

I doubt him watching the OOT would’ve made any real difference. If anything, I bet he’d have been even less impressed.

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Trooperman37 said:

I was born in 1990 and my childhood was an OT paradise. There were playsets (Death Star, Hoth base, etc.) with bullets that fired when you touched the back of them (same for the toy Millenium falcon). There was the 1995 Faces trilogy to grow up on with exceptional quality on VHS. There were the toy lightsabers so heavy they could kill a kid (I remember the first time I saw the wimpy little sticks kids were playing with and I thought “We had it good”).

And all the kids talked about it. 1990s boy’s upbringings were all basically the same, we were all raised on Star Wars. Cool? Definitely.

-TM

I was born a year earlier and yep, same experience.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

(It hasn’t happened yet)

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I think I may be the only person here who didn’t see the OT in it’s entirety until my late teens…16 to be specific.

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Interestingly, it was another kid’s mom who sent the Original Trilogy home with me and my brother because she wanted us to see it. The purchase happened soon afterwards.

One of my favorite possessions is a Star Wars comic book I got when I was a kid. Perfect condition, had the complete movie in comic book form, 1st printing in 1977–and my mom picked it up for 10 cents at a book sale.

Jar-Jar is the Emperor in the extra special edition of ROTJ (scenes 1, 3, and then 6 to the end).

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Just found out from Amazon it pulls $55 new today, so not that rare–but I thought it was! TM

Jar-Jar is the Emperor in the extra special edition of ROTJ (scenes 1, 3, and then 6 to the end).

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That’s awesome man. I watched the PT with my mom when I was a child (TPM and ROTS being viewed in theaters) and shortly after seeing ROTS she had me watch SW and then abruptly stopped even though I wanted to see the other installments. Then when I was 16 I decided that I should watch the OT in it’s entirety. Ever since then the obsession has taken hold of me and has been steadily increasing to the point of being unhealthy.

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Lord Haseo said:
Ever since then the obsession has taken hold of me and has been steadily increasing to the point of being unhealthy.

Hehe…welcome to the club!

Jar-Jar is the Emperor in the extra special edition of ROTJ (scenes 1, 3, and then 6 to the end).

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Erikstormtrooper said:

While Star Wars never left the public eye, it wasn’t much of a kids thing between 1985 and 1995 (the dark times). There were no toys in the stores, but there were novels, graphic novels (not comic books), and HARD video games.

I would argue Star Wars matured into an adult fandom at this point. And as hard as it’s tried to go back to being just a kids thing, I don’t think it can.

There were some bendy figures (kind of like Gumby) in 1993. There was a small trickle of items during the lean period, because I saw these non posable PVC figurines in the gift shop next to Star Tours. (Droids and Ewoks cartoony style, but also a Chewie.) They also had a lot of exclusive t shirts. There were also 3D SW comics put out by a company called Blackthorne between '87 and '88. I think there were only ever three issues of that. Only place I ever saw them for sale was at Disneyland.

The older novels were never out of print, but there were no new ones before Heir To The Empire in '91.

I don’t think Don Post ever stopped cranking out SW masks during that period.

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ray_afraid said:

Micro-Machines, yo! They had it all!

I had a million of those.

Also there was the Power of the Force action figure line in the 90s and I had a million of those overly-buff figures (still have a couple kicking around). They were amazing.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

(It hasn’t happened yet)

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I loathed those at the time, (yet I still bought a Chewie) but they’re in the so bad it’s hilarious category now. (The original Leia looked rather mannish.) I’m amazed they didn’t find a way to make Artoo and Threepio pumped! 😉

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Yup, the PT is definately what hooked me. Episode 3 was a great movie and it got me interested in seeing all of them.

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The only time the words “great” and “Episode 3/ROTS” should be used in the same sentence is if someone is calling it a great big disappointment.

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Frank your Majesty said:

I just came back from my vacation in Croatia and one of the villages next to the hotel was called Podrace. Well, not exactly, there was an accent on top of the c to make it sound like “ch”, the actual name is Podrače.

And at a tourist market in the next city, I found merchandise from my favorite scinece-fiction movie: SPACE WARS
I didn’t take pictures, but it looked like this;

At least “Space Wars” makes sense. I’ve seen worse stuff in dolar stores in Australia, an English speaking country.
These are just a couple of the fake brands I remember off the top of my head:

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You should send these to Ashens. I remember seeing him critique a Lele set.

Keep Circulating the Tapes.

END OF LINE

(It hasn’t happened yet)

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Anyone seen this photo before?

I found it here and I can’t recognize neither the outfit or the hair from anywhere in ESB. But I can’t remember having seen this in any deleted scenes either. It also seems unlikely that it’s some kind of wardrobe test considering how she’s actually on the set.
(It’s weird, everything just seems so off about this costume.)

Star Wars is Surrealism, not Science Fiction (essay)
Original Trilogy Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Beyond the OT Documentaries/Making-Ofs (YouTube, Vimeo, etc. finds)
Amazon link to my novel; Dawn of the Karabu.

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Her hair simply has the “bun” untied. Actor Treat Williams visited Carrie on the set and ended up an extra. Carrie seems to have joined him in on the fun of playing a rebel soldier. The costume seems rather too big for her, so it was probably a spur of the moment thing captured forever by the still photographers.

More about it here:
http://www.starwarsarchives.com/?p=1775

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Wow, I’ve never seen a photo of Boba with the poncho he has in the concept art. Wonder if they ever filmed any scenes with him wearing it?

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