I Love Star Wars

AAAWWW STAAAR WAAARS!!!
Nothing but STAAAAR WAAAARRS!
Please let those STAAAR WAAARRS......*leans in, puppy dog eyes*...staaaayy!!

And hey! How about that Darth Vader in his evil mask!?
Did he SCAAARE YOOOUUU? He sure scared MEEEEEE!!!!

Sorry about no entry yesterday, got caught up in X-Mas presents.

So, here's one made (mostly) of reruns....new stuff (hopefully) tonight to offset the loss of yesterday.


Star Wars

The film/history-

From here...

Ah, yes, as I said before, my memory record sort of begins here.
Don't remember seeing it, but remember remembering it, because I acted the whole damned flick out with the figures.
Did the themes even, Vader's song, whole deal.
Yes, dammit, at two.

So, from here again...(first time was from here)

Well, I have some fuzzy memories of being in a crib, and a playpen, but my first clear memories start at two, with receiving my first Star Wars action figures.

A bunch of other stuff happened, I'm sure, but the next clear memory that's left is of Dad handing me my first comic, Batman issue 307.

My next memory, and where my memory record finally gets perfectly clear, is of the Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk series.

Then bam, next comes Superman The Movie.

That's it, no going back, geekdom had taken hold. :)

And, it played a big role in my lifelong religious de-conversion.



The Empire Strikes Back

The film/history-

From here...

Ahhh, the masterpiece of the Star Wars saga.
And even the special-special edition hasn't managed to ruin it.

Star Wars shit dominated my play life for a long damned time.
Which isn't so bad, cuz Star Wars had a little bit of everything.
Cowboys, knights, wizards, princesses, black knights...

A better, happier, introduction to human myth than religion, if you ask me.

Always been grateful for that.

It also played a part in the "help me, Smee!/Laugh it up, fuzzball", story.


Return of the Jedi

The film/history-

From here again....

Ahh, yes, the saga is complete.
I was 2, 5, and 8 when these came out.
Well, a lot of online geek assholes slam on this one, but screw them.
Leia's metal bikini, Jabba, Han finally unfrozen after 3 years (that felt like a fucking decade when you were a kid) the unmasking of Vader, I felt like I got my ticket's worth.
I almost levitated out of that fucking theater.
Anyone who says that movie let them down as a kid is a fucking liar.
If you saw it as a jaded teen, or adult...oh well *shrug*
And if you aged into a sourpuss that hates this flick now, oh well *shrug*
It was better'n stupid fucking A-Team or Dukes Of Hazzard, or whatever you thought was so great, so kiss my ass.

My only complaint...that another one didn't come out in '86.
Seriously, I waited for it.
You're an asshole, George.
A fuckenasshole.
Two shitty Ewock TV movies, then nothing, then special editions, and prequels.
Well, least there was the Thrawn novels.
Woulda been happier seeing those on the big screen with Mark, Carrie, n' Harrison, and no damned prequels.
Man...you're really an asshole, George.


The Thrawn Trilogy

The novel/history-

From here...

Star Wars: Heir To The Empire

The first of what I consider to be the Star Wars sequels.
These should have been movies with the original cast.
And this bullshit that Lucas was waiting for CGI to get good enough to make the prequels is..well, bullshit.
We've all seen the shitty things now, is there anything in there that justified 16 fucking years of thumb twiddling?
No, there fucking wasn't.
There was ample technology for films in 86, 89, & 92.
Particularly the Thrawn trilogy.
They were written with the 80's style in mind.
There was no dinosaurs, or liquid metal men or nothing.
They could've gone for it.
Hell, what little bit of CGI they might have needed for say, Kashyykk, or Coruscant...they HAD.
Fuck, they could've kept going, and done films in 95, 98, and 02, and STILL worked in the stupid prequels.
I dunno, second trilogy could've been...Jedi Academy I guess.
Anyway, these were great books, they were worthy of being films, and George Lucas really screwed the pooch.
But, least I got the books, I guess.
I'll just pretend they happened.

Did some reminiscing about these in this location blog too.


Dark Empire

The book/history-

From here again...

Another Star Wars classic.
The Luke/Vader/Emperor fight was the juiciest bit of Jedi, and here we get a sequel to just that bit stretched out.
Palpatine comes back as a clone, Luke becomes the new Vader, Leia's gotta save him, and along the way, Emperor gets re-cloned into a younger version that can sword-fight.
Y'know, before the bullshit prequels said old Palpy could.
That's pretty much all you have to know.
Oh, and Boba Fett comes back (armor protected him from digesting).
It's just pure fun.
Nothing super deep.
It's Star Wars, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.
You want less fluffy, reread the Thrawn books.

Anyway, this too, would've been a good film, or two, or three.
They did a sort of radio play of this that was pretty decent.
Which further backs my point.
Tragic that comic book weenies could make better Star Wars than its own creator.
But, this all ties into my over-arching point about geek culture being the real culture of the 90's.
The mainstream was rotting, geekdom was where it was at.


There was a rumor circulating around that Han died in this.
Um, whomever started that rumor, kindly go gargle a bucketload of horse semen. Thanks.


Shadows of the Empire

The novel/history-

From here yet again...

Speaking of N64...
This was one of the great games of the system, I count this as a bona-fide Star Wars movie.
It was done up with all the bells and whistles of Star Wars, and fits into canon nicely.
But, the game was part of a larger thing, a media tie-in event described as "everything around the movie but the movie".
So, if you pretend there was a movie for Shadows, this was all the stuff for it.
There was the novel, the comic, the audiobook, the soundtrack, the toys, the game, the whole shmeal.
But, I think the novel and game accomplish the existence of the movie well enough.
And it's a neat story.
Worthy of being a film, along with the Thrawn novels, and Dark Empire.
But noo, we got prequels instead....
Yeah, a bunch of the snobbier geeks turn their nose up at this whole deal as merely merchandising, but..in the end, all films are products, even their most beloved stuff, what makes it more than that, is if the artists involved gave a damn, and put some heart into it.
Well, Shadows isn't friggin' Kubrick, but neither is the classic Star Wars trilogy.
So, y'know, get over it.
Shadows is good enough for what it is.
That being, Star Wars.


Star Wars Special Editions

The films/history-

From here yet again, again....

Well, in hindsight, I can see how these shouldn't have been fucked with, and it chaps my ass how Lucas refused to release the old versions alongside the SE, and even went so far as having old prints destroyed.

Back again to swine destroying what I love.
*Head shake*

But, the bright side, was seeing these in the theater again took me back to the first times.
I could barely remember seeing the first one when I was two.
Of course, I'd seen 'em a million times on HBO, and VHS tape leading up to this, but man, it was fuckin' STAR WARS in the theater!
It was great to see it for the first time again.
I missed (SE) Empire, I still kick myself for that.
But, my memory of ESB from '80 is still pretty clear.
And, then, I saw Jedi.
Didn't hit me like it did in '83, that's damn near impossible, but it was still neat.
And, I didn't hate the "enhancements", yet, so they were fun to spot.

And anyway, what else was in theaters at the time?
Anaconda?
Blah.

The Phantom Menace

The film/history-

From here one last time....

Okay, like I said with my ramble for "Spawn", (see here) I walked out of this with a deadened disapointed feeling.
But, I'd waited for this fucker for so fucking long, I immediately started rationalizing, and defending this piece of shit.
I fought people to the hilt on message boards.
Again, I'm sorry.

Well, the Plinkett review lays out every single miniscule thing wrong with it.

Okay, so why include a bummer of a flick in a list of stuff I liked?
Well, for one, because it was a historical occasion.
And, because, like the Special Editions, it had its silver lining.

The long wait for this thing dragged me along through all the good Star Wars stuff, even if it was under the assumption that the prequels would blow it all away.

Then, I realized, all that "filler", was the real good Star Wars.
It was the Star Wars I wanted all along.
And it was there under my nose.

Like how a guy in an 80's teen comedy realizes the brunette tomboy best friend is his real girlfriend, not the stuck-up blonde cunt he's been chasing the whole movie.

So, yeah, yay for perspective.

And speaking of that...

Hey...y'know, the 90's were actually pretty damned good to me.
And y'know...I think BETTER than the 80's, when I think about it!
I mean, I had all this cool stuff of the 90's, AND I had my 80's nostalgia on top of that, that I got to take along with me!

I mean, I may get misty about the 80's, but I didn't have no fuckin' COMPUTER in the 80's.
And if I had, it woulda been a crappy APPLE IIC, or a black n' white Mac.
80's computers were shit!
90's computing was where it was at!
Fuck yeah!

And yeah, my folks wouldn't have let me read "Private Parts", if it had come out in the 70's or 80's.
It would have been one of those things I missed out on like "Taxi Driver", and "The Warriors".

Most of what's on this list I woulda been sheilded from.
And there's so much MORE of it!
Fuck, the 90's were fuckin' AWESOME!

What was I thinking, thinking that they sucked?

I was so damned lucky to have come into adulthood in this time.

Yeah....there was a lot of miserable shit, and VH1 put it front and center on their shitty lists, but even then, there was a sprinkle of good even on those ones.

And there was a lot of miserable shit in the 70's and 80's, but I payed it little to no heed.

Man...all this time, I've been looking at this decade from the wrong angle.

Well, I hit the goal I set out on with the first one, I found the good 90's.

There's a good version of every decade, I'm sure of it.

And the shitty-90's?
Like I said in the first one, marketing bullshit.
Toss it in the bin.

I'm cured, the 90's won't haunt me anymore.
The shitty-90's are defeated.
 So, I guess I'm finally done, and can move on to the 00's now... 

Attack of the Clones

The film/history-

From here...

By the time this one rolled around, my disapointment with TPM had started to register, but I hoped this one would prove my theory that if we saw the whole trilogy play out, everything would hook together, and the first one would be redeemed.

Wroooong-guh!!

Well, I did enjoy it more in the theater.
You had more action, more force stuff, and Yoda's swordfight didn't seem ridiculous then for some reason.

The love story shit was always painful and clunky.
Argh.

Well...at least the kid was gone, and there was less Jar-Jar.

And Jango-Fett used all the Boba gadgets, confirming many fan theories going back to my playground days in 1980.
So, there was that teensy bit of wish fulfillment.

But...there was still this "eh...", feeling walking out.
Those few scenes weren't enough to sustain the buzz one would get off a WHOLE good movie.

Once again, Plinkett's dissection nails everything wrong with it.

Star Wars: Clone Wars

The films/history-

From here again...

These teensy little cartoons were better than the 3 prequels combined.
This really felt like the Star Wars of my childhood.
Fun stuff.
Truly.

I haven't gotten too into the CGI ones...
I dunno, after 6 years of disapointment, I'm prequelled out.
It's probably not at all fair to the show, and if I'm wrong, I'll catch up to it on DVD, or whatever the future medium will be.
But, for now...pass...


Revenge of the Sith

The film/history-

From here yet again....

Well, this had a bunch of good stuff that made up for the suckage of the previous two...but...still weak over all...

At least I didn't have that lump in the gut feeling walking out like "The Phantom Menace".
I was genuinely entertained, and I was buzzed with the sense of completion.
The "there, that's finally over", sense, y'know?

Something that was on the horizon for almost 20 years was finally in the rear view.
It was a surreal feeling.

And with this, I was more or less done with Star Wars.

It'll take something really huge to hook me back in, and make me love it the way I loved it in the days of the original trilogy, and again in the 90's, with the first batch of books.
I'm not holding my breath.

It was a good ride, overall.
Thank you, Star Wars.
And thank you, George Lucas.
Even if you are a fuckenasshole.

Anyhoo, once again, Plinkett dissects this one with tweezers.


Star Wars DVDs

The films/history-

*Eye roll*
More changes...at least he took the Luke scream out of ESB....


Star Wars Blue-Ray

The film/history-

Really? MORE fucking changes?

Blinking Ewocks? The "NOOO!", in Jedi?

Fuck you, George, fuck you!
FUCK!! YOU!!

That's it, I was done before, I pretty much got off the ride at the DVDs, but now I'm as done with Lucas's little ego parade as I am with Frank Miller's fascist paranoia.

Everyone, pirate the laserdisc rips of the classic trilogy.
Those are the films we grew up with in their cleanest versions.
Lucas has made it quite clear, he's not going to stop raping these films until nothing is left.
He's left us no alternative.
I see no other path.
We have to be The Rebel Alliance.

Anyway, even though Georgie tried to poison the well, and salt the earth, I have a nice chunk of positive Star Wars memories, and he can't take that away from me.
From us.