Archive for the 'Star Wars' Category
(Chronologically Listed)
- “Dad, you are the genocidal embodiment of evil, but I will eventually redeem you”?
- “Dad, you tortured my sister and cut my hand off”?
- “Dad, I’d rather throw myself down to certain destruction than acknowledge you as my father”?
- “Dad, cut back on the smoking”?
The Star Wars Holiday Special! (1978)
Courtesy of Ace of Spades comes the most reviled, most wretched “holiday special” ever produced. First, here’s the Vanity Fair article to give you the entire ugly background:
In the summer of 1978, Bruce Vilanch had a bad feeling about the Star Wars television special he’d been hired to write. A veteran of the comedy wars who has since written material for 16 Oscar telecasts and starred as the extra-large Edna Turnblad in the Broadway musical adaptation of John Waters’s Hairspray, Vilanch had just finished working on Bette Midler’s 1977 TV special, Ol’ Red Hair Is Back, for producers Gary Smith and Dwight Hemion when they threw him what sounded like a plum assignment: a spot on the writing team that would help George Lucas adapt more of the Star Wars saga for television.
A year had passed since the theatrical release of Lucas’s gee-whiz space epic, and in that time Star Wars had become the highest-grossing movie in history as well as a cultural phenomenon with its very own lexicon and mythology. With a sequel still two years away from theaters, Lucas had been sold on the idea that a Star Wars holiday television special—to be broadcast on CBS the weekend before Thanksgiving, when Nielsen audiences were plentiful—would sustain interest in the franchise, move more toys off the shelves, and maybe even pick up some new fans who hadn’t seen the movie.
Though Lucas would not be involved in the actual shooting of the special—Smith and Hemion would oversee that—he knew the tales he wanted to tell and planned to work with the show’s team of seasoned TV writers to develop his ideas into a viable script. For those who had been summoned, the prospect of collaborating with the father of the Force initially sounded like a sure bet. “We were really excited, because, ‘My God, this is an annuity—Star Wars!’” says Lenny Ripps, another writer who worked on the special. “How could it lose?”
How indeed.
For those of you with the stamina, here a link to the complete Star Wars Holiday Special itself. I suspect most (if not all) of the actors involved wished that no record of this existed. Heh. ..bruce w..
Video o’ the day
OK, this is one of the most remarkable video I’ve watched in some time, on several levels. It’s funny; it’s politically relevant; the two characters are actually quite good at martial choreography; and it even has special effects:
Be warned that it’s a bit long (9 minutes), but worth watching. Hat tip to Ace of Spades. ..bruce w..
Star Wars Dance Off - Defies Explanation
Everyone is free to make fun of Southern California and the strange people who live here. After seeing this, I have no rebuttal.
Hat tip to Hot Air.
Best Father’s Day gift ever still available!
Yes! The best Father’s Day gift ever conceived is still available, at least over the ‘net:
Here’s my write-up from last year. And, yes, I still have two of the sets I bought at Wal-Mart, though I have (so far) resisted the temptation to cut off Luke’s hand on one of them.
And just because this is always worth watching:
Happy Father’s Day! ..bruce w..
Disco Ultra Cheese - Meco Star Wars Theme
Once upon a time in the late 70’s, it seemed everything was Star Wars. To be honest Star Wars was (if I recall) the one that gave rise to merchandise tie ins to things like Happy Meals and action figures.
But also big during the late 70’s was the evil form of dance culture known as Disco. What evil would spawn if Star Wars and Disco were to cross? One twisted mind dared to find out, and recorded it under the name Meco.
Sadly it became stuck on radio stations from coast to coast and we all had to suffer through it for a long summer. Now, to bring back those halcyon days… I bring you Meco’s Star Wars Theme!
I can’t get the voice of Bill Murray out of my head singing “Nothing but Star Wars!” Someone kill me now, dear lord make it stop!
[Update] Seems that you can buy this cheese on Amazon. For those of you yearning to have this stuffed into your MP3 player, have at it! >> Meco Star Wars on Amazon <<
Destroying The Earth - No Easy Task
I will confess I am a lucky man. I was fortunate enough to marry a woman who is in many ways as nerdy as I am, which makes so many aspects of a technical life a lot easier. Thanks to her, we now know of LiveScience.com’s top 10 ways to destroy the Earth!
10. Total existence failure
9. Gobbled up by strangelets
8. Sucked into a microscopic black hole
7. Blown up by matter/antimatter reaction
6. Destroyed by vacuum energy detonation
5. Sucked into a giant black hole
4. Meticulously and systematically deconstructed
3. Pulverized by impact with blunt instrument
2. Eaten by von Neumann machines
1. Hurled into the Sun
Not only are these good solid ideas for destroying something on a planetary scale, they also list the likelyhood of accomplishment and main technical hurdles to make it happen. All you mad scientist / evil genius folks out there, get cranking!
The Star Wars Holiday Special, the condensed version
First, some background via Wikipedia:
A Gary Smith-Dwight Hemion Production in association with 20th Century Fox Television, The Star Wars Holiday Special was produced with a budget of a little over a million dollars. At the time, it was considered one of the most expensive TV endeavors of its kind. Taping began in October and ended sometime in November. David Acomba, the original director hired for the show, was an old roommate of Lucas’s from his years at the University of Southern California and knew his film-making style quite well. Acomba only managed to shoot the Cantina sequence of the special before he was fired by the producers due to “creative differences.” A new director was hired, Steve Binder, who was apparently much less familiar with Lucas’s work, or with Star Wars.
Lucas, who had had very little to do with production since his initial plot outline, was given a private screening of the completed film before it aired. According to reports, he was disgusted with what the producers had done to his story and greatly disliked the special. Rumor has it that he had signed an agreement for it to air at least once, and after seeing it, decided that it would never again be shown on any network after its first airing. The show was greatly hyped on broadcast TV, however, prior to its debut on November 17 [1978]. Although ratings were excellent, since the airing many have considered it a general disappointment, and even an insult to the Star Wars saga….
For the most part, The Star Wars Holiday Special has received a large amount of criticism, both from Star Wars fans and the general public. David Hofstede, author of What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, ranked the holiday special at number one, calling it “the worst two hours of television ever.” Shepard Smith, a news anchor for the FOX News Channel, referred to it as a “’70s train wreck, combining the worst of Star Wars with the utter worst of variety television.” Actor Phillip Bloch explained on a TV Land special entitled The 100 Most Unexpected TV Moments, that the special “just wasn’t working. It was just so surreal.” On the same program, Ralph Garman, a voice actor for the show Family Guy, explained that “The Star Wars Holiday Special is one of the most infamous television programs in history. And it’s so bad that it actually comes around to good again.” Most critics have expressed similar views of the special. Generally, it has never been well-received by fans, who often see it as silly, with some even viewing it as an insult to the Star Wars series.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s the TV equivalent of Vogon poetry. I could barely make it through this five-minute condensed version, and I spent most of that cringing on behalf of everyone in and associated with the show. Watch it if you dare!
Hat tip to Cracked.com, via Conservative Grapevine. ..bruce..
StormTruthers
I can be silent no longer. This post has caused me to question all I know about the horrible destruction I have witnessed on film repeately. We need the Truth:
… 3) Why was the rebel pilot who supposedly destroyed the Death Star reported to be on the Death Star days, maybe hours, prior to its destruction? Why was he allowed to escape, and why were several individuals dressed in Stormtrooper uniforms seen helping him?
4) Why has there not been an investigation into allegations that Darth Vader, the second-ranking member of the Imperial Government, is in fact the father of the pilot who allegedly destroyed the Death Star?……8) How could a single missile destroy a battle station the size of a moon? No records, anywhere, show that any battle station or capital ship has ever been destroyed by a single missile. Furthermore, analysis of the tape of the last moments of the Death Star show numerous small explosions along its surface, prior to it exploding completely! Why does all evidence indicate that strategically placed explosives, not a single missile, is what destroyed the Death Star?…
And, of course, everyone knows that fire cannot melt steel! ..bruce..
The greatest, gutsiest Father’s Day gift set I have ever seen [UPDATED]
I was walking through Wal-Mart yesterday and walked past a display containing this:
Stop and think: what does it say when you give your father a Darth Vader/Luke Skywalker set for Father’s Day?
Note that the packaging folds up into a Star Wars-themed gift box and even includes a Star Wars Father’s Day (or as the packaging puts it, I Am Your Father’s Day) card. The front of the card (you can see it in the photo above) shows Darth Vader in his black, gleaming, dangerous-looking, vaguely humanoid battle armor, holding his light saber in a, uh, let’s say in a Joseph-Campbellian archetypical and symbolic location, with a half-completed Death Star behind him, and says “It doesn’t take the power of the Force…” while inside it reads “…to know that you’re the greatest Dad in the Galaxy! Happy Father’s Day!”
Freud would have had a field day.
The two guys (and somehow, somehow I’m sure it was just two guys who thought it up over lunch or post-work drinks, who had to keep encouraging one another, and who supported each other’s arguments for the product to upper management) who got this through Hasbro marketing and out onto Wal-Mart shelves everywhere deserve to be put in charge of all Hasbro toy marketing or, at least, to be given a very hefty bonus and a very rich pension.
I, of course, bought one on the spot, and it will occupy a cherished location, forever unopened, in the Gallery of Cool Toys downstairs. I may go out and buy a few more.
Hat tip to, well, me. ..bruce..
[UPDATED 06/17/07 - 1638 MDT]
I had to go to Wal-Mart to pick up some emergency prescriptions (long story), so while waiting on those, I wandered up the aisle and…yes! There were still a dozen or so of these left! And they had been marked down to $9.98!
So I bought three more. Now I just have to figure out what to do with them. ..bruce..
[UPDATED 06/10/08 - 0901 MDT]
OK, it’s a year later, and you can still buy this (via Amazon, no less). ..bruce w..
Paradise Lost: Star Wars at 30
I can thank my old friend and, at the time, fellow BYU computer science undergrad Mark Savon for setting me on the path of having seen every Star Wars film on opening day. Mark told me about this nifty new movie that was coming out, Star Wars, and suggested we double-date (with our wives) to go see it up in Salt Lake City on a big screen. The ladies were skeptical, to say the least, but allowed us to drag them along (along with our nine-month-old daughter, Jacqui Beth). So, on May 25, 1977, we all were sitting in the pre-multiplex Century Theater (just one large screen — what a concept), waiting for the film to start.
The resurrected Fox fanfare was fun, and the scrolling text at the opening was great. Pan down to a planet…a space ship being fired upon…the pursuing ship coming onto the screen — and coming — and coming — and coming, while the Century’s great sound system let me feel the near-subsonic rumbling of the Imperial Star Destroyer in my chest. I was blown away and, by then, completely lost in the film. The rest of the movie flew by, and we left the theater laughing and talking about what fun it was. My wife and I would go back and see the film six more times during the year or so it was in theatrical release — which still remains a personal record for the number of times I have seen a given film in theaters. In those 30 years since, only one other film has made my jaw drop the same way in its opening sequence: Raiders of the Lost Ark. And my now-former wife Marla and I still quote Star Wars lines back and forth at each other, even 30 years later.
The second film, The Empire Strikes Back, was even better, which I attribute in part to the change in directors (Irvin Kershner) but even more so to the influence (albeit disputed) of Leigh Brackett on the screenwriting team. Nobody wrote dark, flawed-and-reluctant-hero space opera like Leigh Brackett, and the film itself remains my favorite science fiction film of all time, edging out even Serenity. In fact, TESB is my second-favorite film of all time, bested only by Casablanca, with which it shares a few striking similarities in setting, tone, and characters (e.g., compare Rick with Han Solo — and note that both shot a man in cold blood).
The third film, Return of the Jedi, was great, but it could have been even better that TESB if (a) Leigh Brackett had lived and (b) Lucas hadn’t insisted on the damned Ewoks. Even space opera has to play within certain rules, and the idea that short, slow, waddling Ewoks with clubs, spears and stone could slow down, much less defeat, even the nortoriously bad-shooting Imperial Stormtroopers was just silly. Still, the final endpiece, with the confrontation between Luke, Vader and the Emperor, with Luke’s willingness to die rather than kill his father and convert to the Dark Side, was very powerful, and it was a great wrap-up to the series.
We should have had some warning of what was to come with the special editions of the original trilogy. While (unlike some) I thought the new and improved special effects were great, I was appalled at Lucas changing two of the key character defining moments in the films: Han pre-emptively shooting Greeto in the cantina, and Luke dropping silently to his death within Cloud City rather than joining Vader (Lucas added him screaming as he fell). (I believe there was yet another change in ROTJ along the same lines, but I can’t recall what it is as I sit here.)
And then we get to the prequel trilogy: The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. With these three films, George Lucas managed to take what was probably the most beloved series of films in cinema history and turn them into a train wreck, a laughingstock. A very lucrative train wreck/laughingstock, it’s true — but these are films that become even more painful and/or boring on repeated viewing.
Example #1: I saw Attack of the Clones on opening day at the Uptown Theater in Washington DC (a wonderful theater, and during our last four years in DC within walking distance of our house). While there were some great moments (most notably Yoda’s fight with Count Dooku, though even that had a plot hole or two in it), there were far more wince-inducing moments (e.g., virtually every scene with Anakin and Padme). Wanting to ensure that I wasn’t just dealing with overly high expectation, I saw it two more times while it was in theatrical release. During the third viewing — a digital projection out in Northern Virginia that my daughter Salem and I went to — I found myself dozing off during the film, and that in spite of having consumed a large (theater-sized) diet Coke.
Example #2: Some months back, I was traveling on business and happen to come upon Revenge of the Sith playing on HBO while flipping through channels in my hotel room. Shorn of widescreen presentation and thundering sound, the film was almost unwatchable; I changed the channel after a minute or two.
The phenomenon is not unique to Lucas; Jerry Bruckheimer and Gore Verbinski created one of the most delightful and watchable films of the past 20 years, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, then followed it up with two bloated, turgid (but lucrative, I must confess) sequels. I have watched the original Pirates, piecemeal or in its entirety, many times on cable and DVD; like About a Boy, it is one of those rare films that you can pick up and watch at any point and still have a great time. By contrast, I think that I have watched the second film (Dead Man’s Chest) a grand total of three times (twice in theaters, once on DVD), and I’m not entirely sure that I’ll go back to see the third film (At World’s End) a second time in theaters (yes, saw it on opening day yesterday).
But one has to wonder: just as Lucas paved the road for the summer blockbuster with Star Wars, did he likewise pave the road for the wretched follow-up with the prequel trilogy? And who will break the curse? ..bruce..
For lots and lots of thoughts on Star Wars, check out the Star Wars Blog-a-Thon over at the Edward Copeland on Film blog.