ZkinandBonez

At least this confirms that the Knights of Ren will play a part in Ep. IX (not that there was much doubt about that to begin with);

Vanity Fair released a few other set photos as well, but this one was the only one that really stood out. The rest is mostly stuff we’ve already seen in the trailer, plus some new alien designs.

DominicCobb said:

At the end of the day, I think what’s most notable about TPM is that it is the only Star Wars film ever that is just pure, unfiltered George Lucas. With the OT there were a lot of factors that pushed the films away from the vision in his head and a lot of people refining what he wrote. With AOTC he was responding a bit to the criticism of TPM and also coming up with a lot of stuff on the fly and in post. And with ROTS he was playing catch up and providing some fan service. But TPM is really the only one where he had a lot of time to write all by himself (and a lot of freedom in the story due to its setting in the timeline), and then when it came to production there was basically nothing stopping him (technology or budget-wise) from getting exactly what he wanted. It’s definitely an interesting film to look at in that regard, but ultimately I think it’s clear to see the problems with that as well.

I never thought of it that way, but you’re completely right. Have you read “The Star Wars”, the comic adaptation of Lucas’ first draft of the original film? It’s very TPM-like in many ways. It has complicated galactic politics, a Wookiee equivalent of the Ewok/Gungan battle at the end, very stiff and formal Jedi Knights, etc. Its’ interesting to think of what SW would have been if the first film, in the literal sense, would have been more like TPM.

Despite all its faults, I’ll always fondly remember TPM as my first SW movie.

The funny thing is that I only ended up watching the film because all of my friends at school was constantly talking about it and playing SW during recess. I had no idea what they were talking about so I felt quite left out. After finally seeing the film, and shortly after the OT as well, I quickly became the biggest SW fan in my class.

(It’s also really weird to think of TPM as being 20 years old, as I always used to think of the OT as being “20 years old”.)

SilverWook said:

How did I not notice Vader pulling a Fonzie in that image before now?

Well, actually he didn’t, but I wanted a thumbs-up image from the original SW comics and the cover for issue #35 was the easiest to Photoshop. I considered removing Luke as well, but that would have taken much more time.

Shopping Maul said:

So yeah, I thought Infantino rocked.

I’ve been in Oslo the last few days to celebrate Norwegian Constitution Day, and I managed to find a copy of the Norwegian album-version of “The Wheel” story arc in great condition. I already own one, but that version is practically falling apart at the seams and is covered in thirty year old yellow tape. I was lucky to get this version for a decent price as well. A lot of people online assume its much rarer than it actually is and charge ludicrous amounts for it.

As you can see they’ve re-drawn (or rather “re-painted”) the cover to SW #18.

“Ruletten” is Norwegian for “The Roulette”, which is what they called The Wheel. I actually really like the Norwegian translation in this case; it makes sense as the name for a circular-shaped gambling establishment.

Since SW #16 “The Hunter”, as well as the whole Eight for Aduba story arc, was never published in Scandinavia they cut Vader’s introduction on Telos IV, and the page above was his first post ANH appearance that we got over here.

In addition to cutting out a whole scene, I’m sure they did a lot of panel editing as well, just like they did with the 5th album, but I haven’t had the time to compare every page and panel to the original American version. I have noticed (just from memory) that a few splash pages have been reduced to smaller panels, or simply cut out entirely (as some are quite superfluous and repeat what was seen in the previous issue), but I’m sure there’s more tampering with the art than just that. Funnily enough though, they didn’t cut any of the “recap” moments. It makes sense for the characters to summarize the events of the previous issues in the serialized version, but in the Norwegian album-version they’re literally just repeating what you just read some pages earlier.

Anchorhead said:

Man, I thought I might not be doing a thorough search. Thanks, back to it…

Yeah, you have to search a bit before you find it buried under all the new Marvel and Dark Horse stuff.

Anchorhead said:

Does anyone here have any experience with Marvel digital?

https://www.marvel.com/comics/issue/53791/star_wars_1977_1

I read a lot of digital versions of comic books, but they’re all DC via ComiXology. Super easy to download and read. I only see the post-2014 Star Wars on there, so Marvel will have to be a second purchase/app (or however they deliver).

I haven’t used Marvel Digital, but all the classic SW comics are on comixology as well.

screams in the void said:

according to this source , Al Williamson drew the 12 strips in 1978 and they were first published in The Art Of Al williamson book in 1983 . If you follow the link to the facebook page there is more info. I also seem to remember reading that Al had some commitments to his Secret Agent X9 strip that he was doing with Archie Goodwin that prevented him from doing the original adaptation, as he was George’s first choice, and he did not feel like he could give his all to the project . When x9 ended , he was freed up to come on board for Empire . anyway , here is the link I mentioned…http://www.battlegrip.com/spotted-online-unpublished-star-wars-comic-strips-by-al-williamson/

Thanks. It’s interesting to see just how many different things Goodwin was working at this time. He was a busy man.

It’s also nice to see that I’m not the only one who’s favourite SW comic artist is Carmine Infantino;

http://www.battlegrip.com/my-favorite-star-wars-artist/

Also, according to an interview with Infantino, he was told that he was requested by Lucas. First time I’ve heard about this.

http://www.battlegrip.com/carmine-infantino-penciler-publisher-provocateur-in-pdf/

Makes me wonder just how much control Lucas actually had over the comics and their creative teams. I know he disapproved of certain ideas, but I had no idea he chose the artists after the ANH adaptation.

SilverWook said:

I’d love to see Sith wearing a forerunner of Vader’s armor.

I’d be great to see the Sith armor from Tales of the Jedi recanonized.

It would be a nice little explanation for why Palpatine chose such a specific design for Vader.

SilverWook said:

When did Marvel begin to do newspaper strips? I remember one for Spidey and even Howard the Duck. It seems unusual in retrospect they didn’t do the SW strip.

As far as I know Marvel had nothing to do with it. However, both Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson did work on the strips while also working on Marvel comics.

According to Wookieepedia; the SW strips were distributed by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and the Watertown Daily Times.

There might have been some kind of license deal though. Since Marvel held the comic rights, maybe the newspapers had to go via them?

timdiggerm said:

Really neat to see something clearly made after filming but before all the effects work was finalized (note the Tantive’s pre-hammerhead bow)

I haven’t actually been able to find out exactly when this comic strip was made. It looks more movie accurate than what Chaykin managed to do with the reference materia he was provided, but that could just be a matter of style. This version has its oddities as well, the Tantinve’s bow as you mentioned, and the Dewbacks looks more like regular lizards. But then again, they seem to be part of Williamson’s set of stock aliens. Tatooine also has several of Williamson’s trademark rock-formations.

It seems odd to me that Lucas wold have hired both Chaykin at Marvel, and Williamson for some newspaper, to do two separate adaptations at the same time. I can see how Marvel was talked into making the comic, but I don’t see how a newspaper would have commissioned a comic strip before SW had already become a hit. The Russ Manning comic strip started in 1979, so I would guess Williamson’s version would have been made somewhere between late 1977 and 1978.

Maybe this is old news to some of you, and I guess this doesn’t technically count as “original Marvel”, but I just found out that at some point Al Williamson was commissioned to adapt ANH into a comic strip and just had to post it here. Williamson only did twelve strips before Russ Manning was hired to make original stories instead.

First three strips (not counting the crawl):

Source & remaining twelve strips

Although this version is quite rushed compared to Chaykin’s adaptation, it would still have been interesting to have seen how this had turned out had he been given the chance to do the whole movie. At least it gives an insight into what a proper AH adaptation by Williamson might have looked like.

(Also, if anyone know where I can find these in better quality, please let me know.)

Fang Zei said:

Disney has announced the release dates for three untitled Star Wars films, which will be December of 2022, 2024, and 2026, much like the ST.

I’m glad to see that they’ve learned from the release-date flub of Solo and that they’re not trying to compete with the MCU formula. A SW film every other year, and a few TV shows to keep us busy in-between, makes much more sense than to pump one (or more) out each year.

DominicCobb said:

Somehow I missed the announcement but Valance the Hunter is getting his own canon comic miniseries starting this July.

I knew they’d recently re-canonized the character in the “Han Solo: Imperial Cadet” series, but I assumed it was in name only.

Makes me wonder if SW #108 is intended as a cross-promotion for this miniseries, or the other way around. Either way, it’s neat to see more classic Marvel SW characters get brought back.

screams in the void said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Thought this was quite funny;

This was an advertisement for the regular SW series in Return of the Jedi #2. It re-purposed Tom Palmer’s cover for SW #70 (“The Stenax Shuffle”) with some added speech bubbles.

---

I also just found out that the ROTJ miniseries was coloured differently for the TPB. Does anyone know why this was done?
Source

Here ya go ! scroll down a bit and you will see some info on the coloring of the various Jedi adaptations …seems it had something to do with the paper stock…http://classiccomics.org/thread/1039/star-wars-marvel-reviews-confessor?page=57&scrollTo=153630

Actually, that’s where I got the pictures from in the first place, but the guy who wrote the post only seems to assume it had to do with the paper stock. It’s not a bad explanation, but it does seem odd to me. Judging by the two pictures, the TPB seems to have more yellow paper which could explain the need for more exaggerated colours. It just seems strange to me that the TPB would have an inferior paper stock compared to the regular comic. Unless the TPB is the one shown on the left? I don’t actually own any original copies of ROTJ so I don’t know which is which.

SilverWook said:

ZkinandBonez said:

SilverWook said:

Interesting that Williamson and Infantino had their stock company of aliens. I wonder how many other artists do that?

Considering how fast artists had to draw comics it wasn’t unusual that they found shortcuts. Though I can’t remember having read anywhere that they actually kept stock background characters, though it would make sense.

And from what I’ve been able to find out about Al Williamson, he simply enjoyed drawing lizards and mushrooms:

RINGGENBERG: “What do you like to draw the most, given a choice?”
WILLIAMSON: “Lizards. Mushrooms? Rocks.”
-Al Williamson Interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg in 1984

In Infantino’s case however, I’d say scaly humanoids with pointy noses and fin-ears (like this guy) was just how he drew generic aliens when he didn’t have time to think up anything too specific. A sort of mental “shorthand” I suppose.

SilverWook said:

I would expect the regular run to have to invent some aliens. Otherwise, we’d be seeing the same Cantina fellows every time and everyplace! And I was thinking of The Wheel storyline in particular before I clicked on that link. 😉

Infantino did actually re-purpose some Cantina aliens during the Wheel story-line. And once more in “Return of the Hunter”. The only other time he did this, as far as I can remember, was when they actually returned to Tatooine.

I forgot about that one. Mufftak’s buff cousin?

The one’s in ROTH slipped by me, probably because there weren’t too many photos of the far background cantina guys in public circulation back then. The band and the aliens who made it into the early Kenner line had better agents I guess. 😉

The guy next to the Talz (/“Mufftak’s buff cousin”) seems to be a somewhat incorrectly drawn Bith. I’m guessing they didn’t have the best sources to work-off back then. The bald guy from “Return of the Hunter” is probably based off a photo of Djas Puhr, but the colorist decided to make him a greyish blue instead of black. Regardless, Wookieepedia does identify him as a Sakiyan.

Its quite interesting to search through Wookieepedia and see what they’ve identified the Marvel background aliens as. Some times Infantino, Williamson, etc. gwts credited as having invented their own species, and other times they’ve been retroactively identified as whatever established species the fans assumed they were trying to draw.

I’ve always wondered if using the Kenner toys (or at least catalog photos of them) as reference while making these comcis is the reason why so many of the TIEs and X-Wings look so bulky, or why Luke’s lightsaber was yellow for a while, etc.

SilverWook said:

Interesting that Williamson and Infantino had their stock company of aliens. I wonder how many other artists do that?

Considering how fast artists had to draw comics it wasn’t unusual that they found shortcuts. Though I can’t remember having read anywhere that they actually kept stock background characters, though it would make sense.

And from what I’ve been able to find out about Al Williamson, he simply enjoyed drawing lizards and mushrooms:

RINGGENBERG: “What do you like to draw the most, given a choice?”
WILLIAMSON: “Lizards. Mushrooms? Rocks.”
-Al Williamson Interviewed by Steve Ringgenberg in 1984

In Infantino’s case however, I’d say scaly humanoids with pointy noses and fin-ears (like this guy) was just how he drew generic aliens when he didn’t have time to think up anything too specific. A sort of mental “shorthand” I suppose.

SilverWook said:

I would expect the regular run to have to invent some aliens. Otherwise, we’d be seeing the same Cantina fellows every time and everyplace! And I was thinking of The Wheel storyline in particular before I clicked on that link. 😉

Infantino did actually re-purpose some Cantina aliens during the Wheel story-line. And once more in “Return of the Hunter”. The only other time he did this, as far as I can remember, was when they actually returned to Tatooine.

SilverWook said:

Interesting that none of those guys look like any of Jabba’s henchmen we know. The guy shooting Luke’s hand would make for a cool action figure though.

I’ve noticed that Al Williamson had a tendency to draw the same aliens over and over again regardless of which sci-fi/fantasy series he was working on. He’d draw recognizable SW aliens or creatures if they were relevant to the plot, but the background characters seemed to always be from his mental catalog of aliens and creatures. For example; these spotted lizards tended to show up quite often if the plot required some kind of mount that wasn’t specified as either a Tauntaun or a Dewback. Not to mention, mushrooms, giant, spotted mushrooms. Those seem to almost be a calling card for him.

Some of these guys has a very Flash Gordon feel to them (which makes sense with Williamson). I especially like the big toad-like creature lurking in the background.

Non-SW aliens appearing in the comics is one of my favourite “quirks” of Marvel’s SW. Infantino also had a mental catalog of aliens that he kept reusing, some of which I think could have worked really well in the movies.

Thought this was quite funny;

This was an advertisement for the regular SW series in Return of the Jedi #2. It re-purposed Tom Palmer’s cover for SW #70 (“The Stenax Shuffle”) with some added speech bubbles.

I also just found out that the ROTJ miniseries was coloured differently for the TPB. Does anyone know why this was done?
Source

SilverWook said:

And yet, it’s those vibrant colors many a comic based film tries to emulate. I had reprints of Fantastic Four and Batman when I was a kid, and I appreciate that they didn’t futz with the colors now. Probably because they hadn’t thought of it, or didn’t want to spend money on doing so. Recoloring comics is almost as bad as colorizing black and white movies. At least those films have disclaimers about how they were altered from the original.

I like the idea of a disclaimer, and I think its strange that its not normal in the comic industry to include one. I bought a Marvel “True Believers” reprint of SW #1 a while back and was disappointed to find that it was the 2015 recoloured version. Of course it only cost $1, but it was still annoying, and when the whole gimmick is that they reprint classic comics its strange that they didn’t make it clear it was recoloured. I’ve had similar problems with digital issues from Walter Simonson’s run on Thor. Random issues had the new colours, while the rest were the original 80’s colours. I even thought the new colours were surprisingly well done, but I intended to buy the originals and got something else instead.

Recoloured versions really should be labelled as some kind of “redux” or “special” edition at the very least. Or even, in some cases, as a kind of “director’s cut” as was the case with Batman: The Killing Joke were the original artist decided to recolour it himself. To me recolouring is the same as the SW SE, I don’t mind it existing, but they should be clearly labelled (which unfortunately they rarely are) and the originals should always be made available (which they luckily are most of the time).

SilverWook said:

And wow, good catch! Was the coloring on 4-LOM always like that? Makes him look like a cyclops rather than an insect headed droid.

Assuming that the “restored” colours in the TPB’s are accurate, then it looked similar, but not quite so obvious. The “eyes” didn’t stand out quite so much. The funny thing about this page is that all of the bounty hunters have odd colours, including Bossk who’s green instead of orange. In the rest of the comic everyone has more or less the correct colours.

I’m also wondering if people in 1997 complained about the ANH SE comic being a bit drab colour-wise, because the ESB one is somewhat more vibrant despite still going for more “movie-accurate” colours.

SilverWook said:

Yeah, special editioning the comic was possibly the dumbest thing they could have done.

Why can’t they just use the original coloring? Did they lose the negatives or something?

Well, it makes sense for for Dark Horse and Marvel to want to modernize these comics, especially since they’re based on famous movies. Most people under a certain age won’t understand why the OT adaptations (or any older comics) has such wacky colours. For people who actually grew up with these comics, or younger fans like me who reads/collects them, its obvious that the old newspaper-print needed vibrant, over-the-top colours, in order to pop out. But on modern glossy paper, or digitally, it can be quite weird and even confusing to some. This effects SW twice as much since there are several movies as reference points.

So as long as Marvel provides the original colours in one form or another (which they do), I don’t hold it against them for wanting to modernize it for newer/younger readers. They could of course just draw new adaptations, but I personally appreciate that they instead choose to reintroduce new readers to the work of Chaykin and Williamson.

And while on the subject of the 1997 SE comics; I just flipped through the ESB SE and noticed that on one page Boba Fett has the exact same colour scheme as Jango in AOTC. I wonder if that’s a coincidence or if someone at Lucasfilm saw this page at some point and figured they’d borrow the same look when designing Jango a few years later.

SilverWook said:

The only thing worse was their dull muted recoloring of the Marvel originals. The anonymous kid who colorized the black and white Star Wars Weekly issues I once bought at a curio shop could have done better. 😛

I actually really liked the recoloured versions, though that might simply be because I had those versions as a kid. However, the colours were quite accurate to the movies and at least they didn’t hide the art in dozens of gimmicky effects like the most recent ones did.

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/The-original-Marvel-Star-Wars-series/id/58853/page/4#1178669

Although I don’t find recolouring comics to be that necessary (generally speaking), if they should try it again in the future, I think a combination of the 1997 and the 2015 version would be the best choice. At least the 2015 version tried to be colourful, while the 1997 version kept the colouring simple and unobtrusive. Something similar to the Dark Horse Classic Star Wars series would probably work best.

Even though I had the OT on VHS available to me as a kid (the unaltered versions luckily), I still loved the movie adaptation comics. I was lucky to get ahold of the Norwegian ANH TPB from 1978 when I was about 8 years old, and I shortly after managed to track down the re-coloured OT adaptations released in the mid 90’s.

I would actually bring them with me on trips and holidays so that I could always “watch”/read SW wherever I went. Norwegians are quite fond of their “hytte”, which is basically a combination of a cabin and a summer house, and even though they had some modern conveniences, a VCR wasn’t one of them. And since we often spent several weeks in the cabin I’d always bring lots of comics to read, and the OT adaptations was a permanent inclusion.

Valheru_84 said:
It is not my intent to be overly literal and logical about it all (it’s just how my thought process works), my initial feeling that Rey didn’t have the right to just take the saber from Luke was just that - a feeling, which contributed to my dislike for the character. It is only in discussing and trying to explain it that I am looking deeper myself and laying out my detailed perspective on why I happen to see it this way, often in response to simplistic replies that seem to brush it aside as nothing of consequence despite it having an impact on the judgement of Rey’s moral fibre (which is why I also tie the matter into her physical abuse of Luke and threatening him with the saber which at this point is not even her’s to use).

When exactly did Rey “steal” Luke/Anakin’s lightsaber. It was offered to her by Maz, and she rejected it. It was then given to Finn for a while, and then she picked it up to protect him (and herself) from Kylo. There’s the deleted scene where Maz gave it to Leia, who clearly let Rey keep it as she later traveled to Acho-To to return it to Luke, who promptly threw it away. At that point I’d say she has as much a right to keep it as anyone else.

bromeo said:

I’ve never been that interested in TCW or Rebels, but I could easily imagine myself jumping in if there were movie edits of the shows. Does anyone know if there’s someone in our midst who is / has been juggling with this kind of an idea? A story arc in a single movie or two with all the filler cut out? To me, that would probably be the most enjoyable way of watching (or just look up all the filler episodes and skip them).

Well, Outboundflight did edit all of Maul’s story-arc into a single movie;

https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/Maul-Son-of-Dathomir-Released/id/59332

You could also just google what’s the most important episodes and only watch those. Although I’ve seen the whole series now, that’s how I started watching it, and it works pretty well.

It’s usually quite easy to tell which episodes or important or not just based on the summaries as well. The first two-ish seasons feel more like a kids show (though on don’t mean that negatively), but from season three or so onwards, it gets really good where most episodes are worth watching.

Judging by some of the leaked footage, it seems like Werner Herzog is going to have a bigger role than previously implied/assumed. He’s apparently a leader, or at least a member of, an Imperial Remnant group with the goal of restoring the “natural order” of things, including the role of the Mandalorians. This could of course end up as being the plot of just one episode, but either way, I’m really excited about seeing the Imperial Remnant in canon as the post-ROTJ era was always my favourite part of Legends.

I also really liked the music that we’ve heard so far. It has a clear spagetthi-western vibe to it, but without sounding derivative or cliched, and with more of a South-American feel to it.