Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the new This Week In Star Wars, our weekly (usually) look at the important things that happened in the history of everybody's favorite sci-fi/fantasy/adventure franchise.
This week touches on important moments in the original trilogy, prequel trilogy and the wide wide world of Star Wars video games. Hoist up them Jedi robes and let's head out to herd some nerfs, what do you say?
November 1st, 1946 - Dennis Muren born.
True story: way back in the day I was fortunate enough to have received an invite to the world premiere of Spielberg's War of the Worlds in New York. At the fancy after party the mobs of dashing men and women about town were all surrounding Spielberg and Tom Cruise. I noticed a tall drink of water standing by his lonesome and was amazed that nobody was engaging him. Yes, it was Dennis Muren, one of the key visionaries in the world of cinematic wonderment.
Naturally, I went up and talked to him for a couple minutes and geeked out a little bit. He was nice and seemed surprised that anybody would know who he is. It's a shame not more people do, but I think he'd have been mobbed if it was a different crowd. Premiere-goers tend to include a strong quotient of star-fuckers, not true blue cinephiles.
Muren is still a force to be reckoned with in the area of visual effects, but I'll always love him for his assholes and elbow grease effects work back in the day, where anything could be accomplished with a little ingenuity and some spare parts. Whether it was tin foil doubling as the rocky walls in the Temple of Doom mine cart chase or the refigured model kits that helped build the Death Star, he was and will always be the “Magic” part of Industrial Light and Magic to me. Happy birthday, sir.
October 28th, 1978 - Irvin Kershner arrives in London to prep The Empire Strikes Back shoot.
This notable stage in pre-production on Empire began when Kersh showed up to personally supervise the sets being built and lead the behind the scenes team in preparing what would become a complicated shoot.
Artist Ralph McQuarrie flew in the next day and worked closely with Kershner to storyboard the action sequences.
November 1st, 1994 - George Lucas starts writing the script for Star Wars Episode 1.
Sorry, prequels fans. I swear I began searching for a nice image of Lucas writing or reading a script or something, but when I saw that I laughed so hard I couldn't chose any other image for this entry.
Lucas actually wrote his scripts out long-hand, using old-fashioned pencil and paper. He spent two years writing The Phantom Menace, around the same amount of time he spent molding the original Star Wars. He has said much of that time was spent making sure Episode 1 not only set up what he wanted to do with Episodes 2 and 3, but that it would also mesh with the original trilogy. My opinion is that he didn't do so hot on that second part, but for a whole slew of Star Wars fans he set in motion another impressive trilogy, so for them I'll try not to be too much of a dick about it. Except for using that picture. Like I said, I just couldn't help myself...
November 1st, 2005 - Star Wars: Battlefront II released.
My memories of Battlefront II aren't so hot, but I did play it. By this time they had moved significantly away from the iconography of the Star Wars movies I liked and more to the new stuff.
However, we can all be excited about the new Battlefront relaunch that's coming up in a few short weeks, right? (Pre-Order Yours Here!)
October 26th, 2010 - Release of The Force Unleashed II.
I adored the first Force Unleashed game and this one has its moments, but really does feel rushed. Sam Witwer once again does a great job voicing Starkiller, Vader's Secret Apprentice in the years leading up to the events of Star Wars. In this game you're playing Starkiller's clone (kinda have to after the ending of the first game) who is desperate to find the original's sweet baboo, Juno Eclipse. He searches while both Vader and Boba Fett are hot on his trail.
This was a really fun series that I'd love to see brought back in the wake of the current Star Wars craze. Old Clone Sam Witwer shows up somewhere in the 30 years between Jedi and The Force Awakens! Let's get on that, whoever has the rights to do it now that Lucasarts is kinda not allowed to develop games anymore.
There you have it. Next week sees the original Star Wars finding its core cast and some more goodies. See ya' then!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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