ZkinandBonez

I forgot that Burger Chef had ESB posters as well as ANH posters;

Burger Chef Empire Strikes Back posters

1980 TV commercial

These posters were apparently originally not meant to be used by Burger Chef at all.
According to artist Boris Vallejo;
"The posters were actually done originally as a promotional campaign for the Coca Cola Company, to be given away at movie theaters that showed “The Empire Strikes Back”. Subsequently they found other avenues."
Source

(I’m guessing that the fourth poster was made for this, but Burger Chef only used the first three, hence there’s no “Number four of four” or anything similar written on it. Either that or it could have been used to promote the other three posters. Does anyone actually know what this fourth poster was used for?)

SilverWook said:

I think 7-Eleven had the same cups. That guy in the commercial is funny too.

From what I could find online, yes, I think so.
I also saw some ROTJ cups, so I might post some pictures of those some time later.

SilverWook said:

The Japanese ad gave me flashbacks to that French clip, which has horrified many around here before. That’s only the tip of the Japanese SW knockoff iceberg. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3O6lCeKuQM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOrlHsz3vl4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOSmIJCHqcQ

Hmm, “Message from Space” actually looks like a pretty decent B-movie.

“The War in Space” is a bit too on the nose though.
However Wookiee with horns is still less weird (and creepy) than disco Threepio.
(Also isn’t this just the space-suit from 2001: A Space Odyssey?)

I also just now realized that the Majik Market (& 7 Eleven) cups gave Ben a red lightsaber and Vader a blue one.

You know what, I honestly didn’t think I’d see anything weirder than that Tuna commercial today.

I’m guessing these were the “budget” versions of the Burger King glasses?

Majik Market Star Wars cups TV commercial from 1977

And I don’t even know what to say about this commercial other than that it’s Japanese and most likely not authorized by Lucasfilm;

Japanese Tuna TV commercial from 1978

Did they just make a fart joke?

SilverWook said:

I have to wonder about all the Sigma Star Wars ceramics now. Besides the infamous Threepio tape dispenser, they made mugs and even a Luke Taun Taun teapot.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Star-Wars-Sigma-Ceramics-LUKE-ON-TAUNTAUN-TEAPOT-1980-MITB-Unused-with-box-/322264912987
None of those really struck me as really being suitable for having a cup of tea.

Wow, for real?

Also had no idea my little warning would actually freak freak anyone out.

I assumed that most people would have had a few sips from the glasses back in the 70’s/80’s then forgotten about them or stored them in a cabinet never to be touched again, or something similar.

Well, at least now you know. Better late than never, I guess.

(At least the Burger Chef posters are safe. Hopefully)

Burger King Star Wars glasses

1978 TV Comercial

1980 TV Comercial

1983 TV Comercial

(Oh, and btw, if anyone actually has any of these, don’t actually use them as drinking cups, they’re apparently quite toxic.)

Burger Chef Star Wars posters

1977 TV Comercial

And here’s the actual posters;

NeverarGreat said:

ZkinandBonez said:

He looks like he’s had a bit too much to drink.

And now this is my avatar. Thanks!

Ha! That’s awesome.

He looks like he’s had a bit too much to drink.

Well, now I have something to look for the next time I visit Japan.

(PS; no ROTJ translation?)

Wow, these are really awesome.

(That Marvel adaptation must have been a pretty big deal back in the day. It’s interesting that they reprinted the American comics. I was under the impression that the Japanese preferred to make their own versions of American IP’s when it came to comics/manga?)

Also I wasn’t aware that Ohrai had done more than just the ESB poster.

The PT (specifically TPM) also has no proper exposition as they expected you to have already seen the OT back in 1999.

Seriously, the PT never explains the Force. That info doesn’t come until “episode 4”. Of course there’s always someone to explain it for you, but you shouldn’t have to rely on people to do the film’s job for you.

This, and spoiling ESB, are my reasons to not show anyone SW in episodic order regardless of your opinion of the quality of the PT.

Okay, theses are the last Star Wars Weekly (or Marvel comics) related images I’ll post in a while, but I just found some of these old magazine ads, news, etc. and I find them pretty interesting.

These are taken from Star Wars Weekly issue 100 from January 1980.

Click here for Larger image

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(I think it’s funny that it calls them co-stars of the “future.”)

Click here for Larger image

(Note that they’ve gotten John Williams name wrong, and called him “Richard Williams” instead.)

Tyrphanax said:

ZkinandBonez said:

Tyrphanax said:

DominicCobb said:

What I find interesting is that Luke’s outfit in TFA is almost exactly his outfit in ROTJ, just colored differently.

There’s always debate as to whether the robes and tunic are actually a part of the Jedi uniform (as the PT suggests) or rather the garb of Tatooine dwellers and hermits. Luke being a hermit in TFA doesn’t help either way. Perhaps Rey’s eventual Jedi costuming will prove one way or another (though it is probably likely that she’ll keep the outfit from the end of TFA throughout VIII).

Whoof, I just realized I hope we don’t see any PT Jedi robes in the ST.

Is there such a thing even? We more-or-less just saw the same robes that Ben and Yoda wore. I think Anakin was the only one who really stood out, and his outfit was kind of mix of the farmer robes and Luke’s black outfit.

i think it’s most likely they’ll make up their own Jedi outfits for TFA that kind of fits in between both the OT and PT, so as to not irritate either side of the fan base.

There’s definitely a difference in feel between what we saw Ben wearing in Star Wars and what we saw all the Jedi wearing in the PT. Different textures and materials and whatnot.

Sure, but the Jedi outfits were surprisingly OT-esque compared to everything else.

(All I meant was that it shouldn’t be a big deal if an ep. VIII Jedi costume ended up being similar to the PT as they were already very similar to the OT.)

Tyrphanax said:

DominicCobb said:

What I find interesting is that Luke’s outfit in TFA is almost exactly his outfit in ROTJ, just colored differently.

There’s always debate as to whether the robes and tunic are actually a part of the Jedi uniform (as the PT suggests) or rather the garb of Tatooine dwellers and hermits. Luke being a hermit in TFA doesn’t help either way. Perhaps Rey’s eventual Jedi costuming will prove one way or another (though it is probably likely that she’ll keep the outfit from the end of TFA throughout VIII).

Whoof, I just realized I hope we don’t see any PT Jedi robes in the ST.

Is there such a thing even? We more-or-less just saw the same robes that Ben and Yoda wore. I think Anakin was the only one who really stood out, and his outfit was kind of mix of the farmer robes and Luke’s black outfit.

i think it’s most likely they’ll make up their own Jedi outfits for TFA that kind of fits in between both the OT and PT, so as to not irritate either side of the fan base.

I don’t think the robes were meant to be specifically Tatooine farmer outfits, but rather farmer outfits in general. In a lot of pre-PT material they’re referred to as “colonist clothing”, which makes sense considering how humans aren’t meant to be native to Tatooine.
(It’s hard to say since this was never addressed in the movies and that a lot of this info comes from EU material, but I don’t think it was ever blatantly meant to be just Tatooine outfits. At least not post-ESB.)

EDIT: Double post

LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

(At least this one makes more sense to the plot. Although it really weird-looking, it has both Baron Tagge and one of the Omega Frost towers. And the title (Danish here, don’t know the Swedish or Finish one) translates to “Frozen Stars”, which makes a lot more sense than the ambiguous “Last Warning” that Norway got. Also google translates the Finish title as “Glacial Ambush”. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but it still makes more sense than the Norwegian one.)

---

This might be a somewhat odd thing to ask about, but to you know/remember how the Finish comics, that is the monthly comics, notified the readers as to the continuity of the stories, if at all? I went and checked the comics that I have in my collection, and pretty much all of them have a small sentence at the top of the splash-page that will say something to the effect of “this story takes place between [ESB] and [ROTJ]” or at least say something like “shortly after evacuating the Hoth base…” I’m curious as to what the Finish comics did once you mentioned that you got them all in a random order as well in the early 80’s.

That probably is the literal translation but it’s more like “freezing ambush” or “ice-cold ambush”.

We got the exact same covers for the SW comic as in your link except the last one in 1986. I think they were just translated from English, I highly doubt that the translator made his own comments into the comics. As you can see from the covers, the “random” order is the same order Denmark got based on the covers. They started after TESB, then went after ROTJ, then again after TESB and then continuing where they left off after ROTJ.

Right.
Well then it seems that all four countries got the exact same comics released in the same back-and-forth order during the 70’s and 80’s. The only exceptions being the extra comics in Sweden, the one weird cover variant in Norway, and of course the actual translations.

(Also I wouldn’t doubt that the translators made their own comments some times. After all they did some pretty extensive and elaborate editing on the annual albums, even going so far as to extend the panel art. Also in the Norwegian comics, the text informing the reader about the continuity, is literally just one line typed onto the blank margin atop the splash-page. Example)

LexX said:

ZkinandBonez said:

LexX said:

Finland got the same treatment. About 10 years ago I tried to figure out what Marvel numbers were released here and found out how they did the albums. Kind of funny. ROTJ was the last album, then they started to publish the comic itself and the stories were like they were meant to be (althoug in completely random release order).

Interesting, that’s exactly what they did in Norway.

I know that Denmark and Sweden published more-or-less the same comics as we got in Norway, and from what I’ve gathered online they were all edited and distributed by the same company in Denmark.

I wonder if Finland might have done the same.

---

Did you actually get any of these Finish annuals/albums?
I’m curious as to what they look like.

Yeah, it was the same. People were asking for more stories and the answer always was “depends on the distributor in Denmark”. Sweden only got maybe a couple of more stories that weren’t released here that I know of.

I have all comics released here. You got some weird cover art for one of the album, otherwise they were the same. I didn’t find any site to quickly show you all of them but here are four of them: http://www.overlook.fi/lehtihaku?keys=tähtien+sota&tid1=All

I found this Danish website recently that covers all the SW comics released in Scandinavia; http://superhelteserier.dk/star_wars_comics.htm

It’s interesting to see how Sweden got a fair amount more than Norway, Denmark, and apparently Finland as well.

I also see that you got the same cover art for the fifth album that Denmark and Sweden got. I wonder why only Norway got the unique cover. (It also got released one year later for some reason.)

(At least this one makes more sense to the plot. Although it really weird-looking, it has both Baron Tagge and one of the Omega Frost towers. And the title (Danish here, don’t know the Swedish or Finish one) translates to “Frozen Stars”, which makes a lot more sense than the ambiguous “Last Warning” that Norway got. Also google translates the Finish title as “Glacial Ambush”. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but it still makes more sense than the Norwegian one.)

This might be a somewhat odd thing to ask about, but to you know/remember how the Finish comics, that is the monthly comics, notified the readers as to the continuity of the stories, if at all? I went and checked the comics that I have in my collection, and pretty much all of them have a small sentence at the top of the splash-page that will say something to the effect of “this story takes place between [ESB] and [ROTJ]” or at least say something like “shortly after evacuating the Hoth base…” I’m curious as to what the Finish comics did once you mentioned that you got them all in a random order as well in the early 80’s.

Someone made a James Bond-esque title sequence for ESB;
https://vimeo.com/165592795

(It’s a concept so foreign to SW that it feels really weird to watch, but it’s none-the-less pretty interesting to see such a well made mash-up of the styles and iconography of two completely different franchises.)

ATMachine said:

ILM has unveiled the winners and honorable mentions of its 2016 SW art challenge.

Is that Luke’s hands being given to the Emperor?

DuracellEnergizer said:

ZkinandBonez said:

flametitan said:

Out of curiosity: Were there ever any country specific comics anywhere for Star Wars? For example, I know Marvel in the UK had a couple stories in some of their other licenses that didn’t appear in the US comics. Did this happen for star Wars too?

I the UK’s Star Wars Weekly magazine, there was exclusive stories; such as The Day After the Death Star that I mentioned in an earlier post, as well as Way of the Wookiee, The Weapons Master and a rather odd and out-of-place story called World of Fire .

There were also the Alan Moore stories and “Death Masque”

Ah, yes, I forgot about those.

I actually really liked some of these. Death Masque was a pretty clever story, and Dark Lord’s Conscience is a really good example of how cool Darth Vader was before the PT (and even ROTJ to some degree).
Alan Moore’s Tilotny however is one of the weirdest and most non-SW things I’ve ever seen published by either Marvel or Dark Horse.

Anchorhead said:

ZkinandBonez said:
I ever actually read the newspaper strips so don’t really know what they would have looked like originally…

They’re all here in their original format. A must-read archive, perfectly preserved.
http://dailysw.blogspot.com/2009/03/welcome-to-daily-star-wars.html

Still one of my favorite ways to step into the Star Wars universe. This is well before it became a contaminated mess. Just a comic strip based on a popular film.

Thanks.
I’ll have a look at those.

ATMachine said:

^ That was exactly the sort of thing I meant – only the Stormtroopers come in from the opposite direction for the scenario I proposed to make sense.

It does look like the little guy was running from something which we never quite find out what it is, and then the big guy takes off after him. Pleasantly ambiguous!

Right.
It’d be interesting to see any other bits of “life in Mos Eisley” that they shot.

I’m actually quite surprised that there’s never been an overly-elaborate EU story about these two guys.
(Of course this shot was originally only in HS, so I guess there wasn’t as much of a demand for it. Then again the guy with the ice-cream maker on Cloud City got his own tale, so it could still happen.)

ATMachine said:

ZkinandBonez said:

ATMachine said:

I suspect the shot of the one drunk alien being dragged away by his friend might be an outtake from the SW 1977 cantina footage. It strikes me as just the sort of amusing slice-of-life/documentary moment that GL would like.

(Plus the crew also improvised other sight gags during filming, like a gunfight between two guys of extremely different height in a Mos Eisley back alley.)

Are you referring to this shot?

Like Tyrphanax said, there’s no fighting, the little guy just runs through his legs. But, I don’t doubt that they shot other “sigh gags” like this. I’m guessing this one survived because it was used in the Holiday Special.

(It’s a weird shot, because the small guy seems to have an empty holster, and he’s clearly running away from something, and the tall alien follows him off screen. Just another day in Mos Eisley I guess?)

Yup, that was what I was referring to.

From your description, the Holiday Special version sounds incomplete – as if there were more to the scene, like a third person arriving in the alley to interrupt a two-way gunfight (causing both people in the image above run away).

No, the little guy just runs away, and then it cuts to the Cantina band.
Here’s the actual HS scene

In the original deleted scene however some Stormtroopers arrive just after the little guy runs away and the tall alien follows after him.
Maybe they were running away from the Stormtroopers? It’s hard to tell, but the troopers doesn’t seem to take any notice of them.

Maybe you’ve seen a deleted scene that wasn’t included in the recent Blu-ray release.

SilverWook said:

Fox or Lucasfilm sued over all the lightsaber knockoffs in the 70’s. I had one of these for Halloween around 1978 or '79.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1970s-Space-Sword-toy-molded-plastic-glow-in-the-dark-by-Toy-Box-USA-23-/262597449701
Mine had a futuristic decal on the hilt though. The molds were probably for some more earthly toy sword before 1977. Ironically, I thought it was cooler than Kenner’s official version, which as an adult looks like a giant rubber on a flashlight. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XESLIiwsWp8

Kenner did make a cooler saber by ESB though. Wish I still had my red bladed beauty!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn0AxNeb_vM
And again, someone at Kenner had a yellow saber fetish or something.

That ESB one actually looks kind of cool. The whistle sound effect was pretty clever.
That floppy yellow balloon on the other hand just looks really awkward.
“Inflation required” isn’t something I ever thought I’d hear from a lightsaber commercial btw. Also, I can imagine that balloon popped quite often?

I still can’t wrap my mind around why they kept making them yellow though? I mean the lightsaber toys that were available in the late 90’s when I was a kid didn’t always have the right colour that corresponded to the hilt design. But I get that. That’s a pretty nitpicky detail. But making toys with a colour never apeared in the films, that’s really weird to me.
Then again it makes a great discussion topic, so I guess I shouldn’t complain.