StarWarsClassics

  Star Wars I spent a fair amount of time figuring out which versions of the Original Trilogy to watch for this. My first choice was the 4KXX releases, for maximum originality. I'm normally more of a Harmy guy, but it'd be fun to try something new, and presumably more authentic. But that wouldn't actually be authentic to the early 1991 Heir to the Empire  release time period viewing experience. VHS/Laserdisc being much lower quality, and Lucas having already making minor changes (EPISODE IV was added in 1981). So I spent some time digging around for what would be the correct release version for 1991. There's a handful of pretty questionable VHS releases (I'm not dedicated enough to watch a pan and scan): I sure don't miss only getting to watch 2/3 of the movie, or having stuff stretched/squished weird.     There were zero official widescreen/letterbox tape releases until 1992 (and even that was a fancy big box collector set), meaning they were fair game for Last

Return of the Jedi Radio Drama Best scene in the ROTJ drama, and possibly the whole trilogy. The Return of The Jedi  adaptation has an interesting backstory. After Reagan cut NPR's funding, they weren't able to produce a Return of The Jedi  adaptation in the 80s. Highbridge Audio, the company that did the home releases for the first two dramas, eventually got most of the cast (minus Mark Hamill and Billy Dee Williams) and crew signed back on in 1996 so they could sell my dad a Return of The Jedi  cd to put in my Christmas stocking. They did still get an NPR premiere. I'm kind of surprised we didn't listen to them live. My dad was an PBS/NPR fan who loved radio dramas, and I obviously loved Star Wars. Seems like something we'd have gone for. It's the last thing Brian Daley worked on. He died a few hours after recording wrapped. Because it wasn't produced until the mid 90s, it contains a few references to the expanded universe. Mara Jade gets a cameo to narrat

The Empire Strikes Back Radio Drama or here After the very successful ANH  radio drama, NPR decided to go for a repeat two years later with Empire Strikes Back . It's a largely similar affair, most of the writers, directors, etc. come back as well as the majority of the cast (the largest replacement being Wedge), sound effects, music, etc. Billy Dee Williams steps back in as Lando, which was a pleasant surprise. It's all in all a less inspired affair, in my opinion. Despite Empire  being a smidge longer, the production drops over an hour of length. In particular, Ken Hiller's narrator gets the short end of the stick, doing a lot less of the mythology building that's so charming in the original. Overall, it's harder to follow (I think you could keep a good picture of what's going on in ANH  in your mind without seeing the movie. ESB  is a little confusing at times even having seen the movie a bunch.) Daley continues to lean into his over-characterization of Han (

 Marvel Star Wars Comics 1977-1986 It takes a lot longer to listen to audio than to read, so I'm doing the comics as a quick buffer. I have a lot of driving to do this weekend, so I should be good to finish up the radio dramas next week. Technically the Marvel comics were the first post ANH  Star Wars material, with issue #3 coming out about two weeks after the film.  Much like the video games, I wasn't interested in reading over a hundred issues, so I looked at about a half dozen random of them throughout the run. All panels in this entry are from issue 56 (the introduction of Shira Brie/Lumiya AKA proto-Mara Jade). Long story short, they're bad.  When I was reviewing the early books I often said something like, "They're generic 70s/80s sci-fi, which is fine if that's what you're looking for." The comics are goofy 70s/80s sci-fi, but poorly written (and the art isn't winning any awards either.)  The biggest issue is that they're wordy. Yes, ol

ANH Radio Drama I've talked before about how the radio drama is my favorite adaptation of the OT. In many ways, it serves the role often played by a novelization by expanding on the original story moreso than the actual novels (particularly ANH). If you haven't listened, bounce over to Youtube: Or The Internet Archive  and have a listen. George Lucas cut the University of Southern California (his alma mater) a sweetheart dollar deal to license the story, music, and sound effects. Brian Daley (who wrote the Han Solo trilogy earlier) did the scripts. In the modern era of big budget podcasts and audiobooks, it's a little harder to express how freaking cool these were as a kid into Star Wars in the 90s (though the Jedi adaptation wasn't produced until 1996). I literally wore out my cassettes. Long story short, these are professionally produced, well directed, and make great use of John William's score (with a few additional cues recorded for the occasion) and a full cas

There's a lot of Star Wars TV in the 70s and 80s. It's mostly bad. But, in an effort to fully appreciate the state of play pre- HttE  I watched (some of) it. THE HOLIDAY SPECIAL! What hasn't already been said about this? Yes, it's bad. No, it doesn't make sense. Yes, they ran out of Wookie outfits, leading to this: (Wookieepedia) I'm not going to be the 501st person on the internet to rehash all this. What does  it do? It gives us the first appearance of Kashyyk (and, honestly, it hasn't changed that  much in 45 years), Boba Fett (who is aggressively incompetent pre-1990s), and LIFE DAY!  Beyond that, make sure you watch a version with commercials (AND BUY UNION!). Honestly, I think they could've cut out an act or two, and come up with a passable hour long special here. The cooking bit is half decent. The cartoon is weird, but not unsalvageable. I read there's ~30 minutes of untranslated Shyriiwook, so that's an easy cut. It's the 70s, variet