Thanks B17,
I was about to buy the old Death Star Playset on e-bay, when I came across this: http://www.niubniubsuniverse.com/diorama/ep4/DS_FalconBay_01.asp
What do you do when you see something like that? I tell you what you do, you make one yourself, there is no other choice.
Go, on, you know it makes sense…[^]
Wirraway,
Re my Avtar, sure enough, someone did make an issue about it.
Seems weird that most of the items featured on this site involve weapons of War and the mechanics of killing, yet a poor Baby Poo is shunned. I was once stopped by the Police for throwing an apple core on a grass verge next to a very large tree, they said I was littering, can you figure that one out?
Those of you who miss little T"rd Baby needn’t worry, you will be pleased to know that he has been offered a job as Global Partner at Merryl Linch. I will miss him.
My new avtar is a happy piece of chocolate ice cream I havn’t thought of a name for him yet! any ideas are most welcome.
No rude ones please!
Well, you have to understand the brain of a Star Wars nerd… [:-^] Believe me, if my parents would have let me, I’d have been in line for the midnight show of Revenge.
Anyways, you have to understand that Star Wars had a lot of content to it. Yes, the plot follows a relatively generic line, but the universe itself sets up for a lot of excitement. I once was kinda iffy about Star Wars. But then, I began venturing into the Expanded Universe. There is a TON of material there that expands upon the movies, etc. I’m not going into depth, but I think that you should try it again before passing judgement. Also, Lucas DID say, Star Wars was space Vietnam. Please, I didn’t want to start an argument. Anyways, great dio! [tup]
All I wanted to know about the Vietnam thing was the context it was used in… No arguement… Just wanted the read the entire quote if it was possible…
I typed that not remembering that actual Vietnam vets are reading this stuff, and that was stupid of me. Point was I think after the 60’s and Vietnam, in 1977 we got caught up in a silly movie, that was our biggest concern at that time. There was no malice in the article, they just were making a point about the culture at that moment.
I’ve never understood the fascination with Star Wars. Which, with some folk, goes way beyond healthy, verging on obsession. A guy at my workplace had his name legally changed to Zen Skywalker. I’m embarrassed for him even if he is not. I guess some people will latch onto something to give their life some meaning or purpose. Now, that should stir up some Jedi…
Ahh, roger that… Understood, and thanks for clarifying…
Heh… I’ve seen some of the same stuff with Star Trek… One broad I recall showed up for jury duty wearing a “Starfleet” uniform, complete with phaser & tricorder, and was held in contempt of court… Another guy I know, who’s a pretty avid modeler, painted his white mini-van up as a shuttlecraft, complete with all the Enterprise markings and stencils…
On the other hand, I and many others like me dress up as WW2 Germans and GIs, buy weapons, blank ammo, own tanks & halftracks, and run around in the woods on military posts, shooting blanks at each other, while re-creating WW2 Battles… 'Course, we’ve actually had a lot of folks get paid to do so by movie and documentary film makers to do so… Your’s truly “starred” in a D-Day documentary for a PBS feature some years ago… (I was “dead” more often than not that day… )
Also, I see a lot of "normal " folks who, on weekends, dress up in football, hockey, and basketball jerseys for some reason and paint their faces in team colors an’ stuff, so…
But, ya… Name-changing is what I’d call “over-the-top”… Then again, I know a guy who’s a big Rendevous participant and buckskinner that legally changed his first name from Gordon to River Rat… Then the Civil War guys who wear period moustaches and beards all year round… The flip-side of that is the “Klingon” guys here in town who wear the Klingon beards and moustaches all year as well.
So…
I can only explain my love of the film in the following way:
I was 8 when the film was released I still remember the feeling of excitement as I walked into the cinema. I remember being totally absorbed, thrilled and awestruck throughout the movie, it was like being taken on a fantastic journey. That feeling of excitement, amazement and awe must have been like taking a very addictive drug.
I guess anyone who experienced that feeling of pure magic would love to get it back, just like an addict wanting another fix. In 1977 it wasn’t like today when the DVD comes out after 6 months, all we could do was talk about it to our friends and see it again in the cinema as many times as possible.
It was awesome, completely awesome. Definately one of those life changing moments.
I’ll second that feelin’ Skonch… I was an adult, and was blown away by the visuals of the movie… As I said earlier, no one had ever seen that before… Lucas hit the ball outta the park with that one…
I read that in “The making of Star Wars.” Great book, has tons of pics of in-progress models, and such. And yes, Lucas is great with effects. Compare Star WArs with “Lost in Space” or “Forbidden Planet” and you see how bad the effects were. It looked cool all the same, but was mainly aluminum foil covered stuff. About the guy changing his name… THAT is pure obsesion, I’m just a nerd…
Kind of OT here, but I remember when we got a boot-leg copy of Empire Strikes back in 1984, and played it as a surprise (a decade before it was officially released) to some friends. The reaction and atmosphere in that room, well geekgasmic.
Don’t understand… The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980…
weirdos! but i also know grown adults who dress up in starwars outfits and go to conventions, same with the trekkies. my cousin one christmas showed up dressed as harry frikkin potter and he’s in his forties…bwahahahaha!!!
i really enjoyed starwars as a kid growing up. i had the action figures, but the playsets always sucked. my dad built us a a huge hoth playset, out of styrofoam and model railroad landscaping, he was a brilliant ho scale railroader, but stopped twenty years ago for some reason. it was great, and i wish we hooligan brothers didn’t destroy it, but we destroyed all our toys, and models we built for that matter.
props to the op for being a great dad, and giving your kids an awesome fantasy toy you cannot buy in the store!
Typo? Maybe he means Jedi… But that was not released 10 yrs later… strange
Got lost in translation. If there had of been a bootleg of Ep V in 1980 there wouldn’t have been any home vcr’s around to play it anyway (maybe a betamax) The best we had in 1980 was a 20 minute super 8 reel of selected scenes before the movie was released which, silly as it sounds, was also awesome (we charged other kids so they could watch it, heh what a scam) . So anyway around the time Jedi was released a bootleg copy of Ep V was a big deal, considering Jedi was pretty crappy. I think Empire was released officially late 80’s early 90’s from what I remember.
Too bad there is probably a bunch of legal stuff that would get in the way; otherwise i’d say that you should make this thing into kit components and sell it as a garage affair! Star wars guys would go crazy!
Again, I’m confused… Empire Strikes Back (1980) was the sequel to Star Wars (1977), and Return of the Jedi came in '83…
Do you mean that you had a reel from Return of the Jedi or The Empire Strikes Back?
There weren’t any episode numbers in the Trilogy in 1983… A New Hope was Episode IV, but not until they released the 1st Special Edition on VHS in 90s, as far as I know… I remember being surpriced at the full title, “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” in the opening credits… That was the first clue most folks had that there was going to be a “Prequel” with three more films…
I do remember also that Lucas had originally intended the Star Wars saga to consist of nine episodes…
Episode V, thats the Empire Strikes Back, but yeah not called ep V at the time. I was just talking about a bootleg copy of Empire we had in 1983 or 84 can’t quite remember. These days seems pretty silly considering we had to wait four years. And in the late seventies early eighties they would officially release super 8 reels, up to 20 minutes of highlights about the same time the movie was in the cinema. Of course, it was pre-VHS and DVD.