Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the new This Week In Star Wars. Well, technically “This and the Last Couple of Weeks in Star Wars” since I was a big old stupid dummy head and dropped the ball thanks to Fantastic Fest, very little sleep and a lot of travel.
That just means that this week you get a massive column. These last few week saw the anniversaries of big events in the Original Trilogy, Prequel Trilogy, Online Star Wars nerdiness and video game fronts.
October 9th, 1936 - Brian Blessed born.
I'm about as on board with the new Star Wars films, but Brian Blessed sticks up in the back of my head every time I hear about amazing casting in the new films. Blessed is one of the screen's all-time greatest personalities (just re-watch Flash Gordon if you don't believe me) and he's reduced to playing a fat frog with a speech impediment in Episode 1.
Still, I can't deny he brings a ton of personality to Boss Nass. I just wish he was used better. The dude's still the best, though. Happy Birthday, Mr. Blessed!
September 22nd, 1937 - Richard Marquand born.
I've read some transcriptions of story meetings on Jedi and even there it feels like Marquand is just going “Yeah, yeah... good idea, George” for 90% of the time and then getting shot down on his ideas for the remaining 10%.
He also had the unfortunate task of taking over after Kershner dropped the mic on the entire Star Wars universe. But I'll always be a Jedi defender. It's a rocky film, to be sure, but the Vader/Luke/Emperor triangle is some of my favorite things in all of Star Wars. So perfectly played.
September 27th, 1947 - Denis Lawson born.
Wedge! We all miss Wedge, one of the more unsung heroes of the Rebel Alliance. Luke and Lando might get all the credit for blowing up some Death Stars, but neither could have done it without Wedge Antilles, son.
By the way, one of my favorite bits of Star Wars serendipity is that Denis Lawson is Ewan McGregor's real life uncle. How cool is that?
September 25th, 1951 - Mark Richard Hamill born.
You can't get much more important to Star Wars history than the casting of Mark Hamill as Luke Skywalker. No question, he's the heart of Star Wars and one of the key reasons why jaded assholes like me could never connect to the prequels. I didn't have anybody I liked to follow along with. Anakin was either an annoying kid or a selfish douchebag Jedi.
Luke, on the other hand, was the kid that was given the shit end of the stick and was still able to turn out okay. He was optimistic, but not stupid. His flaws as a character all came from a place of good intention, but he was always able to see the bigger picture. He might not have been as flashy as Han Solo, but much like Han's ship Luke had it where it counts.
For me and a few generations of film lovers Luke Skywalker will be one of the best movie heroes ever committed to celluloid and Mark Hamill's note-perfect performance (yes, even the Tosche Station line) throughout the original three films is a huge reason for that. I am dying to see him back in the robes come December.
Hope you had a happy birthday, Mr. Hamill. Oh, and thanks for the iconic Joker, too. And The Guyver! That was pretty rad.
October 11th, 1976 - Element shoot (pick-up) on Star Wars.
This was one of the very last things filmed on the very first Star Wars. They needed a couple stormtroopers in the foreground of the primarily matte-painting heavy shot of the Falcon entering Death Star. Those two stormtroopers were both played by Joe Johnston because they only had one complete stormtrooper suit on hand.
That means they shot him in one suit reacting to the Falcon, then changed up his outfit a tad and shot him again, then laid those two next to each other making two different troopers.
Cool, huh?
September 21st, 1977 - Contract signed between Lucas' “Chapter II Company” and Fox for The Empire Strikes Back. Lucas negotiated more merchandising rights (from 50/50 to 90/10), complete control and locked Fox in as distributor only. Lucas funded the sequel himself, not with merchandise money, as widely thought, but with a deal with Bank of America.
Without Bank of America coming to provide gap financing Lucas would have been forced to take money from Fox, which would have given them creative control. Late summer/early Fall 1977 was THE crucial period for Star Wars because it was Lucas' business savvy bulldog contract negotiations that kept Star Wars from just becoming studio product.
And it almost became just that. Lucas was stretched so thin financially that one little thing going wrong would have derailed everything and it's very possible Empire would have turned out way, way different. You mess up Empire and we don't have the Star Wars machine we have today.
October ???, 1977 - The Keeper's World debuts.
Sorry, I don't have an exact date for the publication of The Keeper's World in Marvel's Pizzazz magazine, but I know it was October 1977, so I'm just going to plug it in here.
This happens to be one of the earliest Expanded Universe stories ever printed. Taking place after the Battle of Yavin this adventure sees Luke, Leia, R2 and 3PO detoured to a planet filled with android children and their computerized “Keeper.”
September 24th, 1978 - Boba Fett's first public appearance at the San Anselmo County Fair Parade. (pg82, MoESB)
You may remember a few TWiSW columns ago when we had the anniversary of the first Boba Fett costume test. Now this happens to be the anniversary of the first public appearance of Mr. Fett. They had already decided against his stormtrooper colors and the paint job is pretty damn close to what we know and love today.
I love that even his body language is similar to what we'd see some 2 years later when Empire finally hit screens. Also, keep your eye open for a quick glimpse at producer Gary Kurtz escorting Boba around while Vader signs autographs for some kids.
September 25th-28th, 1978 – Ralph McQuarrie begins and completes “East Landing Platform” during the pre-production of The Empire Strikes Back.
Speaking of Boba Fett, here's an early look at his ship, Slave I, plugged into some Cloud City art by the late, great Ralph McQuarrie.
September 22nd, 1981 - Ashley Eckstein born.
Ahsoka Tano is a crucial element to the success of The Clone Wars. She started out rough, I gotta say. Throwing around “Sky Guys” left and right early on in the series grated me so badly, but when they moved on from that and focused on her relationship with Anakin Ahsoka quickly became the missing element from the prequels that I was so desperately searching for. She was pure of heart, loyal and very sharp, but more importantly she brought out a softer side of Anakin, one that made the tragedy of his fall to the dark side actually sting instead of being “of course he's turning evil... he's already an asshole!”
Eckstein's voicework is a big reason for that character catching on so well and in real life she's reportedly super nice and authentically nerdy. I met her once very briefly at this past Star Wars Celebration after I did a trailer breakdown live on StarWars.com. She was next up on the stage and we talked a little bit about her nerdy clothing outfit, HerUniverse.com, which always features prominently in my annual Holiday Gift Guide.
Happy Birthday, Ms. Eckstein. Thanks for all you do for geek-kind!
September 21st, 1997 – TheForce.Net launches.
You think we're going Star Wars crazy now, you should have seen what the world looked like in 1997. We knew George Lucas was making new Star Wars movies, the originals were hitting screens again and Star Wars fandom was one big, happy family.
TheForce.Net came around about a year after AICN started and had a laser focus on uncovering any and every bit of new movie info they could. Back in the wild wild west days of the internet that meant a whole fuckton of really bad info, but maybe it's because I came up in that world I find all the bullshit rumors and guessing at developments based on tiny tidbits of info to be part of the fun in anticipating a big upcoming movie.
TheForce.Net was a huge force around that time and they're still plugging on today! Congrats on the birthday fellas.
September 30th, 1997 - Shooting wraps on Episode 1.
Just a week after TF.N launched filming ended on Episode 1. It would be a year before we found out the title... Speaking of...
September 25th, 1998 - Episode One Title revealed.
I never hated the title The Phantom Menace, but boy did a lot of people react strongly against it back in the day. A title doesn't mean much at the end of the day. The Empire Strikes Back is a pretty cheesy title when you really think about it, but because the movie is so incredible everybody accepts it.
September 21st, 2004 - Star Wars: Battlefront Released.
Oh, man did I lose many hours to this game. The gameplay wasn't the best, but just to be able to run around in familiar Star Wars locations and shoot me some stormtrooper was all I really needed.
How excited are you for the new one? I'm going crazy waiting for it, but I'm also worried I'll still be deep in Fallout 4 world when it comes around. That didn't stop me from pre-ordering it, though. Bring it on!
October 3rd, 2014 - Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion premiers on Disney Channel and brought in a new era of great Star Wars animation.
I've spoken about how much I love this show many times before, so I won't bore you with another love-fest, but I will say happy birthday to the show. Spark of Rebellion was the “episodes bundled together to make a kind of movie” launching pad for the show, which officially began it's Cartoon Network run on October 8th.
There you have it. Apologies for the long delay. I'll endeavor to keep 'em on schedule from here on out.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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