Where did you find a high res version of that ROTJ cover? I couldn’t find it and ended up using the exploding Vader one that JMoomer posted later on, though I like the McQuarrie Jabba’s Palace much better.
Personally, I’ve never taken to Machete order. Being deeply familiar with the films myself, I don’t derive any benefit from breaking the flow of the OT by jamming the PT in the middle for the sake of avoiding spoilers. If I were to have a marathon by myself or with friends who have already seen everything, I’d go chronological, likely skipping the PT or using fan edits. If I were introducing someone to the saga, say, to cram for VIII this December, I’d show them the OT and TFA in rapid succession, followed by R1 if they’re into it. If whoever I’m showing the films to in this scenario is interested in the prequels, I’d show those on their own day after the fact. I’d never force them on anyone, but I do think they’re worth a watch for new fans simply for perspective. It would be a mistake to muddy someone’s initial viewing with them, though.
the score . . . sounds far more like classic pirate films than any of the other scores do
Well, except for this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6vKhR8XuP4&t=3m20s
Even Poe is like your stereotypical company-man military type, like a friendly Top Gun pilot who believes in the cause for freedom as he shoots down those First Order (Nazi) “thugs”.
My dad said he half expected Poe to come out with a “let’s do it for Brooklyn!” or something to that effect the first time he saw TFA.
Perfect! Many, many thanks.
It’s a great label and I’ll probably end up using it, but I’d hoped for something with another McQuarrie concept painting for consistency’s sake (more for consistency with SteveE’s labels for the other two than JMoomer’s original ANH set; I realize the poster sketch was his choice for SW Revisited).
It would completely undermine the their previous decision to make the ST with the OT cast.
I don’t think I ever had this rich headcanon about Anakin Skywalker everyone’s talking about in the first place, so I can’t really say the PT destroyed anything like that for me. I was nine years old when TPM came out, and Star Wars had only been on my radar for three years before that. At that age, I was way more interested in what Luke was doing after ROTJ than what his father was up to before the trilogy, so when the PT came around, it wasn’t really overwriting much of anything. I think they’re pretty lame, and it used to burn me that half of the films in the franchise were pretty lame, but now that they’re making more movies I’m not really angry about it. I think they’re bad movies, but they aren’t this unholy puzzle box that will ruin your life if you open it. Maybe I would’ve agreed with you guys before 2012 when it looked like Star Wars on the big screen was pretty much dead, but now I just see them as three weak installments in an ongoing series. Watch 'em or don’t, but it doesn’t have to be as huge a deal as you guys are making it.
Bringing this query to the photoshoppin’ community here because my PMs to the original creators have apparently fallen on deaf ears. Over in the thread for njvc’s custom blu-ray Despecialized set in the Preservations section, user JMoomer created some very beautiful case inserts for all three films and disc labels for ANH. User SteveE then created labels for the other two films, and I was able to assemble the set using my new printer. The problem, however, is that JMoomer included Star Wars Revisited as disc 3 of his ANH set instead of njvc’s documentaries disc, and SteveE didn’t make ANH labels because JMoomer had already done it. I reached out to both of them to see if they wouldn’t mind whipping up a quick documentaries label to round out the set, but that was more than a month ago and I’ve gotten no reply from either. Would anyone here mind throwing something together for the docs disc to match these?
THE DISCS:
Star Wars:
If anyone does, I’d ask you not to use the McQuarrie painting of the Falcon in the hangar at Mos Eisley because I printed that on the inside of the case. I’d be all kinds of grateful if someone would take a crack at this, as the one blank disc staring out whenever I open the case is kind of a bummer.
This is the End was on TV the other day, so I can’t stop thinking of Jonah Hill’s Woody Harrelson impression whenever I see anything about this. “I have to do what’s right. Weed is for the people! It’s the people’s weed!”
I think Rogue One is probably a better film than Jedi, but the latter is such effective cinematic comfort food for me that I have to rank it higher.
I do remember that the Palpatine scene in the first issue was really the only thing that interested me about it.
I remember reading around the beginning of season 2 that they weren’t planning to do more than four seasons of Rebels before replacing it with something set in the ST era.
Maybe someone else will use that octopus guy on Saw in the time between Rebels and Rogue One.
I’ve read just about everything so far, though I didn’t finish Chewbacca or Obi-Wan & Anakin. Here’s what I think:
-Lando, Han Solo, and Doctor Aphra are great right out of the gate. Aphra in particular is doing exactly what I hoped it would when it was announced, which is using the archaeology angle to flesh out some of the deep history stuff that got wiped away with the reboot. I can’t wait to see where they go with this, it has the potential to expand the universe more than anything else I can think of in the new continuity.
-Kanan surprised me. After how mediocre the A New Dawn novel was, my expectations for Kanan’s comic were pretty low, but it ended up being one of the most enjoyable books out there. It’s also nice to get away from the space between episodes IV and V on the timeline, which is already getting to be oversaturated.
-Poe Dameron started off kind of meh, but the current arc has really drawn me in a lot more. The flashbacks to Terex immediately after the Battle of Jakku are really fascinating. I’m hoping for some further info on Lor San Tekka as well.
-Star Wars and Darth Vader are pretty uneven. When they’re good, they’re really good, but they’re not always good. Vader being finished, I’d say it’s definitely worth a read on the whole, even if the quality isn’t consistently stellar. Star Wars is enough fun that I’m happy to continue reading it, but if you take these things really seriously I don’t know if I can recommend it.
-Princess Leia, Chewbacca, and Shattered Empire are not very good and only worth checking out if you’re a completist.
-I have no memory of Obi-Wan & Anakin. I read the first issue when it came out, then didn’t pick up my comics for a couple of months and just never got to the other issues when I finally went and got my giant stack of books. They’re on the shelf and I’m sure I’ll get to them eventually, but I don’t feel any sort of burning need.
I definitely went trick or treating as Luke with my friend as Vader in '97 or '98. I’ll have to see if I can dig up a photo.
I’m going to say '96. I know my folks rented the OOT tapes to show me before I saw the SE, but given my age at the time it couldn’t have been more than a year before (I turned 7 in September 1996). The SE in the theater is the first SW experience I really remember. Spent the next few years obsessively checking those big “Essential Guides” out of the library and drawing ships and characters out of them, then reading whatever EU stuff I could find when I was a little older. Also played a lot of Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight in those days. Then came the PT, which I would consider the end of the beginning of my relationship with the franchise.
The LA Times just posted an article that said she’s in rough shape but hanging on (can’t figure out how to copy a link from the Twitter app and don’t feel like busting out my laptop). I was honestly worried that she’d died yesterday and that they were waiting until after Christmas to make an announcement. Hang in there, Carrie.
Received The Art of Rogue One from my aunt last night. I’m leaving on a family vacation to Italy and France later today so I probably won’t get to really sit down with it until ten days from now, but I’m sure I’ll find some interesting stuff.
I’ll be in Europa from Christmas to January 4th! Going to Rome and Paris with my folks and sister. Probably not going to want to waste any of that time arguing about Star Wars on the internet. So ciao, in a little bit.
I think someone posed the same issue to Pablo and his response was something to the effect of “being wielded by the Force isn’t the same as wielding the Force,” which I took to mean that it’s more a matter of the Force acting through Chirrut than of Chirrut using it.
I’ve seen it suggested (and possibly confirmed in some book or other, I can’t remember) that in-universe, the English accent = Core Worlds, American = Mid/Outer Rim. I like this explanation a lot because the implication is that the Empire’s officer corps is disproportionately drawn from Coruscanti recruits while most of the stormtroopers are from the sticks, but it’s kind of blown to hell by the fact that Corellia is always depicted as being in or near the Core and Han definitely doesn’t have an English accent.
Also feel like mentioning that having lived with the score for a few days, I’ve embraced it. Jyn’s theme is still a little too close to Trek for comfort, but I’ll forgive it for the Guardians of the Whills theme. Completely evocative of the very best EU stuff I never thought I’d see on screen (much like the Chirrut character).
And leaving your own baseline is a very rare thing.
I feel like I’ve kind of done that. I was born in '89 and grew up on LucasArts games and Bantam paperbacks, but after movies stopped coming out in '05 I became a lot more passive in my fandom, largely because I wasn’t wild about the direction the EU took after jumping back to Del Rey. For six or seven years my relationship with Star Wars consisted of just watching the OT once or twice a year and maybe firing up an old computer game once in a blue moon, but then in college I got back into it in a big way, and when the Disney buyout and subsequent reboot were announced, I resolved to follow as much of it as I could, because I’d always felt I missed out on ever keeping up with the Dark Horse comics just because of when I was born. At this point, I’m as invested in the current iteration of Star Wars as I was in the 90s version. I’ve got a major soft spot the Legends stuff I grew up with, but I’m fine with the fact that it’s over and it doesn’t interfere at all with my ability to embrace current material.
I think we get an OOT blu-ray next year for the anniversary, and then a UHD release in 2020 when Disney gets the rights to V and VI and the ST is finished. I can’t imagine them releasing nothing for the 40th, and there’s no way they can get away with just giving the 2011 SE new packaging again. I suppose it’s possible we get a new master of the SE (which I’d grudgingly accept just to get rid of the awful current version), but that doesn’t seem big enough to me. I’m not going to be gutted if it doesn’t happen given some of the amazing 35mm based projects over in the preservations section we have to look forward to, but I’m still cautiously optimistic. Now that Rogue One is out in the wild, though, I think if we don’t hear anything in a month or two that will be that for 2017. For the past few months I’ve figured they wouldn’t announce anything during the promotion of the new film so as not to confuse the situation, but now that that’s over I expect something soon or not at all.
