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Galaxy of Fear #1: Eaten Alive (1997) by John Whitman

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Star Wars Goosebumps Holo Covers, so hot right now Summary:  Zak and Tash Arranda are Alderaanian orphans that've been adopted by their shapeshifting uncle *Redacted* Hoole. They go to a planet that eats people. What it introduces: Project Starscream: Imperial bioweapon project number 9001. Makes living planets now. Zak Arranda: The sporty boy twin. Tash Arranda: The not-quite-nerdy girl twin. Uncle Hoole: Spooky shape shifting alien uncle with vaguely implied dark past. DV-9: The least annoying C3PO stand in yet! Commentary: This is a smorgasbord of mid 90s YA. Cliff hangers every chapter, body horror, shape shifting, skateboarding. It's the Star Wars, Animorphs, Goosebumps hybrid that I was probably asking for at the time? I read this as a kid, but don't really remember it. Whitman's writing is functionally solid, better than most of the other juvie novel writers I've looked at so far (and a few of the adult ones). Luke, Han, Chewie, Leia, and the droids feature p...
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Episode 1 Trailer (1998)

 NO EMBED, YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT AND WATCH IT LIKE IT'S 1998. After doing "The Saga Begins" on the other blog, this felt appropriate for today. Watching it today, I have four takeaways: 1. It's aggressively weird.  The opening shot of Gungans in the mist plays up the "what's going on here?" angle more than almost any other Star Wars media. 2. All the advertising, including this trailer, is really playing up the Anakin angle. In reality, he's only in ~30 minutes (I'm seeing mixed counts. Might be faux-special editioning). I get that OMG VADER is the tag line, but that's not what the movie is. 3. They're really showing off all the new stuff of it. What's that ship? Who's that alien? There's two things that stand out here. First, this trailer is the first official Star Wars pre-OT material other than a few comics, and the first new film in over a decade. The trailer introduces almost as much stuff into the canon by itself as any ye...
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The Microtech X-Wing knives are on sale...

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 So tempting... Update: I did not get it. Putting the word "X-Wing" in the name does not justify a $200+ purchase.
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Shadows of The Empire: Video Game! and Wrap Up

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  What the fuck is wrong with his face? I like that it gets Hoth out of the way early. You have to put it in every game from this period. It's interesting how similar (annoying) the tow cable mechanic is to the one in Rogue Squadron a few years later. Overall, not a great game today, but you had less about 10 choices for the holiday season in '96 if you wanted to give your kid a Nintendo Sixty FOUURRRR AAAHHHHH (He's uglier than the droid) So, Shadows of The Empire : 1. Cool idea to do this big transmedia project, especially centered on a book. 2. Almost everything about it was bad! 3. The comic is the definitive version. Ties into the rest of the EU well, focuses on the more interesting parts of the story. It's amazing how much of a difference putting someone actually invested in the universe on it makes.
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The soundtrack is decent.

 Let's whip some llama ass and do this from Archive.org instead of Youtube. https://archive.org/details/StarWarsShadows?webamp=default 1. Main Theme from Star Wars - Leia's Nightmare : Yep, that's the main theme alright. (These speakers suck, I might regret this.) And then a bit of a generic medley afterwards. 2. The Battle of Gall : McNeely does a great job of evoking a John Williams feel here. It opens with some "Droids on Tatooine in ANH ", before transitioning into a bit of droid-army. Kind of impressive since this is three years before  TPM . Not sure about an 8 minute track on a 10 track -- 50 minute album. (More than half the total length comes from this and 2 other tracks.) 3. Imperial City : At this point, besides the movie Imperial March and Emperor themes, there's also all several video game tracks for Coruscant. This sounds like none of them. Besides some vocal sections, there's a string part that's way to upbeat. This is really more of a ...
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Trading Cards Too!

 https://www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/72997/1996-Topps-Star-Wars-Shadows-of-the-Empire The make it sound better written than it is.
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And a toy line!

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  I don't think I had any of the full size figures, but a few of the MicroMachines look familiar. The MicroMachines were really where it was at for me as 90s Star Wars kid. https://www.rebelscum.com/SOTE.asp I would just like to reiterate that it is insane that they put out that absolute pile of slop novel and built this whole merch line around it. Honestly, I always thought of the video game as the "flagship" product. It's the one that focuses on Dash the most, and he's then new character.
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