To conclude the mammoth Star Wars coverage we’ve given you over the past couple of weeks to celebrate the saga’s release on Blu-ray I’ve got something a little random, but hopefully something you’ll find an interest in.

This visual trip down memory lane finds us back in 1983 with Return of the Jedi about to be unleashed across the world and bring cinema’s most successful science fiction saga to an end (or so we thought).

My Dad, who has written about the films on the site, gathered a lot of the paraphernalia which was published at the time – assorted reviews and magazine articles and the like and I thought now is the time to share them with you.

Not only are there contemporary reviews and ‘first look’ articles (nothing ever changes) but the Look-in covers and ‘fact files’ on the actors are things I remember pouring over as a kid, hungry for anything on my favourite film.

It’s been fun revisiting the series once again, see you all again for the 3D re-releases? No doubt with more little enhancments from the man in Marin County…

Click to enlargify.

And for one final blast from the past here’s a nice little video from a local news programme which gives us a little context on the whole ‘You wouldn’t steal a handbag…’ nonsense we’ve had to endure since.

This came from a site called SW:TOR Strategies. Good for them.

Reviewing this box set when it is out in stores and in all probability snapped up by eager Star Wars fans seems a little unnecessary. The promise of a shiny high def transfer and the long awaited deleted scenes from the Original Trilogy conspire to tempt you to part with your cash once more, to enjoy the long time ago all over again.

But there’s a problem. A wave of negative reaction to some of the changes made by Lucas for this box set became clear a few weeks prior to the release as rumours of some important scenes ruined by needless additions and more handy work by the CG Replacement Bureau. Then video clips were uploaded to confirm the changes and boycotts were threatened and those unhappy with the Special Editions and 2004 DVD ‘improvements’ found new voice and dusted off their VHS copies and chided those who had their pre-orders booked.

So, who’s right? Are the changes too much for those who loved the originals, or is the HD transfer and wealth of extras enough to make the purchase worthwhile? As with many things, both are right, from a certain point of view.

We’ve already looked back over the films this past week in our Video Vault series, so if you’re looking to find out more about Episodes I to VI then click here to read them; there is an assumption that you’re not going in totally blind here. If you’ve never seen the films at all and can spare the cash then this box set is an instant recommendation – just make sure you watch them in the order they were made, don’t be tempted to start your journey to the dark side and out again with The Phantom Menace.

The more pertinent question is perhaps asked of those who already own the DVD set (and probably the VHS copies as well): Do I need to buy this set too?

The HD transfer is most obvious in Episodes IV to VI, and what I found strange were the additions for the 1997 Special Editions and how they showed their age. The advancement of computer technology is so rapid and is  noticeable when some of the visual effects which impressed in the late nineties now look very out of place. The additions to Mos Eisley are not as polished as the 1977 footage, with some very messy compositing of the newer elements over the old and some problems with the focus in certain shots. It surprised me as the original footage looks incredibly sharp for the most part, occasionally there is a very muddy shot in between the crystal clear original footage which itself isn’t completely free from problems.

Looking on the positive side there are moments when I saw things I had never seen before, and I’ve watched these films a lot. In truth I’ve never seen the sparks that fly off the colliding lightsabers in the duel between Vader and Kenobi. At first it looks a little like CGI sweat and it may have always been in there but this was new to me. Obi-Wan Kenobi’s new scream to scare off the Sandpeople is a strange addition to those of us who have known the original but isn’t a huge offence overall. It was a genuine thrill to see the detail and the dirt of the first film in particular, not least in contrast to the clinical green-screenery of the prequels; the forests on the moon of Endor look lush and verdant and the ice planet of Hoth is so sharp you could shave a Wookie with it. The occasional transfer quirks aside this is the most beautiful version of the films we’ve seen and when I first saw the discs at the Big Screen event I was sold.

The additions will irk some, and infuriate others. I’m sure a lot of people may not even notice the newly CGI Yoda in The Phantom Menace or question Vader’s new, and controversial, cry of ‘Noooooooo.’ just before he saves Luke from the Emperor’s final attack, but you’ll know which applies to you. In all honesty the films remain some of the most exciting science fiction films we have and they have never looked better. I’d question the need to buy this new set if you already have the DVDs and aren’t too fussed about the HD, but as we’ll see there is a reason to keep your old copies around even if you do.

The menu system on the main discs are simple and won’t blow your mind but they are a vast improvement over those found on the three discs of extras which invite you to select a film, then a location (Tattooine, Hoth, Bespin etc) and then to select a category (interviews, deleted scenes etc) and then a further click to play them. It’s not fun to navigate this menu every time you want to see a particular special feature. The interviews to introduce each film’s extras are short and drawn from cast and crew and are a nice addition. The deleted scenes are a lot of fun, with the early scenes of Luke and Biggs on Tattooine being the most substantial. The scene with Han and a female companion in the Cantina is here, as is an extended scene in the land speeder with Luke and C3PO searching for R2D2 and while most of these have been seen before on various multimedia releases it’s good to have them all in one place.

What I alluded to earlier about keeping the DVDs handy is one of the more puzzling elements of this collection as the deleted scenes for the Prequel Trilogy do not include those found on the DVD releases. This is a strange omission and a real shame, nice though it is to see a brief cameo by Dominic West as a Naboo guard pushing over a defeated Battle Droid there were some substantial scenes excised from the original cut that would have fitted alongside the new scenes perfectly. Maybe there’s a definitive box set coming our way – maybe when the 3D version are put out…

When I was a kid the only way you could have Star Wars in your own home was as part of the documentaries made and televised at the time of release of the Original Trilogy films. These are included on the final disc of extras and proved a highlight for me as I was hit by a wave of nostalgia. Also included, and perhaps the most intriguing extra, on the disc was The Masters – a discussion of the making of The Empire Strikes Back with the late Irvin Kershner proving a wonderful guide through the difficult second movie.

So in the end I was won over by the new transfer and the decent, if limited, set of extras. If you have the DVDs and are annoyed at the constant tinkering by Lucas then be warned – this won’t light your saber. If you’re a fan and want to see Star Wars in the best way possible then the choice is clear. The galaxy far, far away has never looked better.

This may be an exercise in futility, or at least an attempt to distill down a real wealth of material into a fairly artificial concept, however in honour of the Star Wars franchise finally making its way onto Blu-ray, here are my considered nominations for the best set pieces, one per film, of the whole blessed saga.

You may not (indeed most likely will not) agree with me, which is what the comments section below is for. Let me know what gets your vote, tell me if you think I’m missing an obvious highlight.

In the interests of kicking it a little old-skool, only those set pieces comprised in the original theatrical versions are eligible, so Han’s meeting with Jabba in the Special Edition of Episode IV is out (as if it were ever going to be in), as are any of the seemingly absurd tweaks rolled out for the Blu-ray editions. Okay, enough preamble, let’s do this, in numerical order.

Episode 1: The Phantom Menace – The Duel of the Fates

This is one of the easier choices, though the pod race runs it close. That set piece owes a real debt to Ben Hur and since the whole thing was essentially manufactured in a computer, I’m going to go with something that feels a little more real, albeit it obviously CG-augmented. There are a few really good lightsaber fights in the saga, but this is the daddy, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan at the absolute pinnacle of their powers (before Obi-Wan lost his recklessness and Qui-Gon lost his, well, livingness) and Maul wielding a never-before seen double-ended lightsaber. The surprise of that particular weapon was of course shamefully spoiled by the trailer, but it was still a great moment.

Ewan MacGregor’s penchant for destroying his aluminium prop lightsabers by smashing them too hard and forcing scenes to have to be re-filmed by making sound effects with his mouth while fighting have been well documented, but the sequence is simply brilliant, with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan working together and complementing each other seamlessly and Ray Park’s considerable martial arts ability adroitly deployed.  Although other lightsaber duels would have more narrative or emotional significance, none would match this for fight choreography or jaw-dropping vigour, with John Williams’ soaring choral and orchestral score bringing added resonance. Enjoy. Go on, treat yourself, you know you want to.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones – Little Green Bundle of Fury

That summer, my beloved wife got me tickets for a midnight screening of  Episode II, the first night of its release. As tired as we and everyone else around us were, there was plenty of anticipation. Episode I was by now widely acknowledged as a misfire, but word was this was a considerable improvement. It could hardly have been otherwise. In fact Episode II proved to be, much like the rest of the prequels, a film with some good sequences, frustratingly shackled to narrative imperatives that left in unable to stray into surprising or inventive territory. My selection for Episode II is perhaps the most shamelessly fan-pleasing moment of any of the films. As the film wore on into the small hours of the morning, Yoda shuffles into a cave, with both Obi-Wan and Anakin having been bested and rendered unconscious by Darth Tyranus himself, Count Dooku. Yoda and the Count exchange little blue lightning bolt things, before Dooku announces what we all wanted to hear, that lightsabers would settle this one.

Yoda uses the force to take his lightsaber in his hand, before transforming into a 900 year-old green version of the Tazmanian Devil, leaping, twisting, spinning, fighting, parrying. The entire cinema auditorium cheered. Although on reflection I feel a little sorry for Christopher Lee, already at that point well short of the athleticism needed to do the fight scene justice and reduced to swinging a metal pole at a tennis ball on a stick, the end result is so much fun, so satisfying, that I can think of no sequence in the film more deserving of its place on this most exclusive of lists. Though if it could have been Miss Piggy vs The Count from Sesame Street, that would have been something truly special.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – Rise Lord Vader

So much of Episode III was a frustrating effort to fit a square peg into a round hole, to retro-fit the backstory so that it matched seamlessly with what must happen in Episode IV. Clumsy steps like getting Jimmy Smits to order the wiping of the droids’ memories, or Palpatine’s face symmetrically deforming and wrinkling when trying to zap Mace Windu sit alongside slightly more considered attempts to meld the loose edges. One element that worked pretty well was the destruction of Anakin’s body by Obi-Wan and therefore the necessity of the donning of the suit of suits for Vader. Although with one word (“Noooooooooo”) the entire character, perhaps the whole saga was undone, before that the fitting of the mask, the first rasped breaths, the click as mask, helmet and suit meet up was effectively and affectingly staged.

Obviously the entirety of the arc of the prequels was telling the story of how the boy Anakin became the peerless villain that is Lord Vader and suddenly here he was, that none-more-iconic metallic wheeze, that suit, James Earl Jones’ baritone delivery. As unsatisfying as the backstory with Amidala undoubtedly was, there was still an undeniably strong spine-tingle moment when we finally see Vader as we had always known him to be.

Episode IV: A New Hope – The Trench Run

An awful lot of the content of Star Wars has become iconic. The duel between Vader and Obi-Wan, the visit to the Mos Eisley Cantina, the rescue of Leia and the predicament of the rubbish compactor, Luke & Leia’s swing to freedom, that Stormtrooper who bangs his dead, Greedo definitely not shooting first. The list goes on. The trench run at the end though, as the Rebel Alliance seeks to exploit the weakness of the exhaust port on the newly constructed Death Star, trumps them all.

The initial dog fight between X-Wings and TIE-fighters, before our motley band of heroes hit the deck and try to get to the target before they get blown to smithereens, Han Solo returning to redeem himself, Vader getting in on the piloting action, Obi-Wan’s ghostly voice exhorting Luke to Use The Force, the “now you think about it I can’t believe I didn’t pick up on it before” worryingly Freudian subject of the none-more-phallic small X-Wings shooting into a small opening which in turn leads to the centre of the much larger, spherical object of everyone’s attention. Crikey.

Admittedly now that it is refracted through the prism of the current state of the art in effects, the model work for the surface of the Death Star shows a little wear and tear, but the thrill, the engagement, the emotional pay-off are undiminished. The trench run has become perhaps the most instantly recognisable set piece of the whole saga, second only to the lightsaber in iconic status. The opening credits of Naked Gun 33 1/3 threw the famous flashing lights into the canyon and we all recognised it immediately (try the below clip at 1:56). Watch the scene now, for the zillionth time and you will still find yourself on the edge of your seat. Is Luke going to make it? Will Vader get to him first? Will he hit the target without using his onboard computer? Of course he will, but you’ll still feel tense. And that is what makes the scene great.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – AT-ATs att-attack Hoth

I’ve already cast my vote (as have most other right-thinking people) for Empire as the finest film of the saga. So what is the best of the best? A compelling case could be made for any of the duel between Vader and Luke at the end, Luke’s dream-like walk through the darkness on Dagobah, Lando’s treachery and Han’s trip to the cooler, but the appearance of the AT-ATs does, I would maintain, top them all.

With ILM providing yet more ground-breaking effects and model work, iconic designing and genuine excitement as rebel craft swoop in and out of the marching legs of the advancing AT-ATs, it begins the film at such a highpoint that it takes something as sensational as Vader’s shock declaration to Luke during the finale to return the film to that seemingly untouchable opening level.

To quote Forrest Gump, that’s about all I have to say about that. So I’ll leave you to enjoy it, before pressing on with Jedi.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi – The Pit of Sarlacc

Jedi is a film absolutely packed full of incident. It is only because of the stratospheric quality of Episodes IV and V that it doesn’t get more kudos. Consider Jabba’s palace and the Rancor, the Sarlacc pit, speeder bike chases on Endor, the dogfight in and around the new Death Star, Luke/Vader/Palpatine – there is an awful lot going on and it is all coherently staged and edited, with underlying narrative cohesion to keep us engaged. If only that could be said for all large-scale sci-fi threequels (*cough* Dark of the Moon *cough*).

Choosing the best out of so impressive a bunch can feel a little unkind to what is left out, such is the embarassment of riches available for consideration. But choose I must, thems are the rules. And Sarlacc it must be.

Before Lucas got his hands on the film and decided to stick a Little Shop of Horrors mouth into it, the pit was truly terrifying, at least it was for me, seeing a Star Wars film for the first time at the Enfield ABC with my Dad and big brother. Teeth running down the sides out of sight, sentient tentacles reaching out for prey and the prospect of a millenium-long digestion. Added to that you have a bikini-clad princess throttling a morbidly obese slug/gangster, Boba Fett meeting his demise, Luke behaving like a properly cool Jedi ninja, Lando nearly buying the farm and lashings of explosions and lightsaber deaths.

It is thrilling stuff, operating as a brilliant set-piece, yet feeling like an organic part of the whole, as all the best set pieces should. There is a reason why they find themselves there and a logic to how the scene develops and concludes, showing up so many blockbuster set pieces these days which only serve to enable the director to say, “ooh, look what I can do”. It’s great. Really great.

Well, those are my choices. Other scenes are available. What do you think?

Paul Bradshaw completes the Original Trilogy Video Vault series.

Ah, those blinking Ewoks. A long time ago, 1983 to be exact, Return of the Jedi was loved by critics and fans alike. Grossing more than $475 million worldwide, opening to rave reviews and sell-out audiences, the then third and final chapter of George Lucas’s landmark space opera was lauded the ultimate Star Wars experience.

28 years, three prequels and two messy special editions later and Episode VI, as it’s now been officially rebranded, seems to have aged about as well as a bottle of vintage semi-skimmed milk. Yes, the military might of the Empire is brought to its knees by a handful of teddy bears. Yes, the coolest bounty hunter in the galaxy is given a spectacularly uncool death in the first fight. Yes, the ‘surprise’ sibling revelation adds all kinds of uncomfortable subtexts to the first two movies, and yes – it ends with a stupid singsong, but ROTJ remains the most satisfying, exciting and downright entertaining film of the series.

Coming as it does after the Saturday matinee fun of A New Hope and the moral ambiguities of The Empire Strikes Back, Richard Marquand’s epic finale borrows the best of both before sprawling over a massive 45-minute three-way battle that ends with cinema’s greatest showdown.

Continuing the mid-season serial opening of Episode IV and jumping over the cliff-hanger ending of Episode V, ROTJ throws us straight into a daring jailbreak. With Han Solo frozen solid and sold as a wall ornament to the ‘vile gangster’ Jabba the Hutt, Luke plans an audacious rescue using R2D2, and a reluctant C3PO, as bait. He might look a cross between an inside-out toad and something you find in a festival portaloo, but Jabba remains one of great characters of the Star Wars universe.

Described by Roger Ebert as a ‘Dickensian Cheshire Cat’, the scheming, smirking muppet re-interpretation of Sydney Greenstreet finally gives the boring desert planet of Tatooine a real personality. Lording it over his seedy court and feeding drunks and dancing girls to his pet Rancor, Jabba takes pleasure in being bad. After Empire’s brooding gloominess, Jedi wastes no time getting back to good old-fashioned swashbuckling adventure – giving us pit monsters, bikini-clad princesses and Errol Flynn style acrobatics on the plank of a pirate ship.

The thrilling opening salvo is the last time we see the whole gang working together, and the last time Lucas has any room for simple adventuring. Splitting up to fight the Empire on three fronts, Han and Leia head off to the forest, Lando starts prepping for another Death Star run and Luke gets ready to stand up to his Dad. Splitting the action between dogfights in space, swordfights in the Emperor’s throne room and guerrilla warfare on the ground, Marquand brings the series to a close with an almighty bang.

Of all the planets in the Star Wars galaxy, Endor is surely the most believable. It might look like it was filmed in the woods behind George’s house, but it also requires the least suspension of disbelief – and the least green screen work. Which brings us to the Ewok question. It’s unlikely that anyone who already had an issue with them is going to change their mind, literally, in the blink of an eye – but Lucas’s latest Blu-ray tinkering is an attempt to address what seems to have grown into a problem of Gungun sized proportions for long-time fans.

They might feature in the brilliant Kurosawa influenced speederbike chase and they might take down an AT-ST with a couple of ingeniously placed logs, but nothing can save them from the levels of hatred levied at their furry little butts from grownup audiences – or protect their dignity from the erupting cheers each time one of them catches a laser blast to the face. In retrospect, it’s all too easy to blame cynical marketing and unblinking eyes for something that seems to fit perfectly comfortably within Lucas’s expansive universe. No stranger, cuter or inauthentic than any of the other Star Wars creatures – the Ewoks are surely long overdue for a reprieve.

High above the treetops, the real battle is just getting started. The greatest gift the prequels gave us was repositioning Anakin as the central figure of the series. Finally forced to confront the darkness within, Vader’s final battle with his son is a fitting culmination to the whole saga – losing none of its power to the bolted on backstory of the recent chapters. The new movies might have spinning Yodas and double bladed lightsabers, but you can’t beat Jedi’s epic family faceoff for pure visceral emotion – the moment when Luke starts slamming away at his father’s hand with tears streaming down his face sends shivers down the spine every time. Ruined by the addition of a 6.1 DTS surround sound cheesy scream as he sacrifices himself for his son, Anakin’s greatest moment is undone with a single Blu-ray tweak.

Irreligious tampering aside, the closing scenes of ROTJ represent the very best of Star Wars. With alien creatures fighting robotic walkers, Lando hurtling through the Death Star, love amid the laser battles, Tie Fighters buzzing around X-Wings, Han being witty, Threepio being annoying, the Emperor being camp and Luke and Vader locked in combat – lit only by the glow of their lightsabers – it’s the climax to end all climaxes. Matched with the best of John Williams’s ambitious, multi-layered score and pitched at a level of frantic intensity never yet rivalled in a Hollywood blockbuster it feels, more than anything, like the perfect end to a perfect trilogy.

Forget the Ewoks. Let Boba Fett go. Return of the Jedi is still the ultimate Star Wars experience – Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

Truth be told, there are easier films to revisit than Empire. Not because it isn’t enjoyable to do so (the number of genuinely superior sci-fi films can probably just about be counted on the fingers of one hand), but because pretty much everything that can be said about it has been already. Thus, instead of trying to reinvent the wheel by finding something ground-breaking to say about Empire, I will simply sing its praises, as we all remind ourselves just how good it really is.

*****

We all know how elite a club Empire belongs to – that consisting of sequels that either measure up to or surpass their progenitors. Alien/Aliens, The Godfather Parts I & 2, Toy Story 1 & 2, X-Men, Blade, Spider-man, The Dark Knight. That’s a pretty impressive and select group to belong to. It goes without saying that Empire benefits massively from George Lucas’s commendable decision to hand over the writing and directing reins to others, leaving himself with no more than a “story by” credit.

Just as Harry Potter benefited from the shifts in tone permitted by the departure of the capable but workmanlike Chris Columbus after the first two instalments, so Irvin Kershner’s arrival (with due credit to writers Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett) ushered in an altogether darker, more grown-up approach to the material, resulting in a film not matched for quality by any other in the franchise and well deserving of its place alongside Alien, Blade Runner, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and so forth at the very apex of the genre.

The unprecedented and entirely unanticipated success of Star Wars (Spielberg had said it would make $100m, Alec Guinness had wisely opted for gross points, neither quite realised what was coming) afforded Lucas a lot more freedom and certainly a much bigger budget second time around. Although, as with all sequels, there was a loss of the novelty and originality enjoyed by the first instalment, Empire was very much its own creature tonally and narratively, yet with enough through-put of characters and mythology to enable it to feel familiar yet fresh.

What is it that really marks out Empire? Why is it so good? Let me count the ways…

1. Boba Fett, the coolest character in the entire Star Wars universe, features heavily

2. The AT-AT assault on Hoth is hugely impressive, a sensational opening for the film, throwing us straight into the action

3. In Luke’s dream-sequence fight with Vader, we encounter the idea of him destroying himself in destroying Vader, a moment of unexpected psychological depth and subtlety in a franchise that would eventually give us Jar Jar Binks

4. “I love you!”

5. “I know.”

6. Vader’s revelation about Luke’s father, a gut punch whose impact at he time is nigh on impossible to imagine, so inured to it as we now are.

7. The bleak note on which it ends – Han frozen, Luke handless and devastated, Lando a traitor. Even with the knowledge that the finale was yet to come, U certificated films had no business being this harsh.

It was downhill all the way from here on in. Jedi would have to end more upbeat, it would have been unconscionable for it to be otherwise and much as Revenge of the Sith ended on and contained some pretty dark beats, we watched it with the knowledge of all that was to come and with Lucas tying himself in knots to get the end of one section of track to match up with the beginning of what had already been laid it felt too clinical, too calculated, too lacking in freedom. Depending on your mood, you might rate Star Wars more highly than Empire, but the rest of the franchise can’t come close.

LucasFilm has announced that the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-ray boxset will be released on September 12th around the world and September 16th in the US.

The boxset will feature all six films – A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith – in gorgeous high definition and with pristine, 6.1 DTS Surround Sound, and over forty hours of special features, including documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, commentaries, outtakes, and much, much more.

The full press release of special features is embedded below:

STAR WARS: THE COMPLETE SAGA ON BLU-RAY is presented in widescreen with 6.1 DTS Surround Sound. Special features include:

DISC ONE – STAR WARS: EPISODE I THE PHANTOM MENACE
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Dennis Muren and Scott Squires
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC TWO – STAR WARS: EPISODE II ATTACK OF THE CLONES
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Rob Coleman, Pablo Helman, John Knoll and Ben Snow
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC THREE – STAR WARS: EPISODE III REVENGE OF THE SITH
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Rob Coleman, John Knoll and Roger Guyett
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC FOUR – STAR WARS: EPISODE IV A NEW HOPE
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt and Dennis Muren
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC FIVE – STAR WARS: EPISODE V THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt and Dennis Muren
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC SIX – STAR WARS: EPISODE VI RETURN OF THE JEDI
Audio Commentary with George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, Ben Burtt and Dennis Muren
Audio Commentary from Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew

DISC SEVEN – NEW! STAR WARS ARCHIVES: EPISODES I-III
Including: deleted, extended and alternate scenes; prop, maquette and costume turnarounds; matte paintings and concept art; supplementary interviews with cast and crew; a flythrough of the Lucasfilm Archives and more

DISC EIGHT – NEW! STAR WARS ARCHIVES: EPISODES IV-VI
Including: deleted, extended and alternate scenes; prop, maquette and costume turnarounds; matte paintings and concept art; supplementary interviews with cast and crew; and more

DISC NINE – THE STAR WARS DOCUMENTARIES
NEW! Star Warriors (2007, Color, Apx. 84 Minutes) – Some Star Wars fans want to collect action figures…these fans want to be action figures! A tribute to the 501st Legion, a global organization of Star Wars costume enthusiasts, this insightful documentary shows how the super-fan club promotes interest in the films through charity and volunteer work at fundraisers and high-profile special events around the world.

NEW! A Conversation with the Masters: The Empire Strikes Back 30 Years Later (2010, Color, Apx. 25 Minutes) – George Lucas, Irvin Kershner, Lawrence Kasdan and John Williams look back on the making of The Empire Strikes Back in this in-depth retrospective from Lucasfilm created to help commemorate the 30th anniversary of the movie. The masters discuss and reminisce about one of the most beloved films of all time.

NEW! Star Wars Spoofs (2011, Color, Apx. 91 Minutes) – The farce is strong with this one! Enjoy a hilarious collection of Star Wars spoofs and parodies that have been created over the years, including outrageous clips from Family Guy, The Simpsons, How I Met Your Mother and more — and don’t miss “Weird Al” Yankovic’s one-of-a-kind music video tribute to The Phantom Menace!

The Making of Star Wars (1977, Color, Apx. 49 Minutes) – Learn the incredible behind-the-scenes story of how the original Star Wars movie was brought to the big screen in this fascinating documentary hosted by C-3PO and R2-D2. Includes interviews with George Lucas and appearances by Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher.

The Empire Strikes Back: SPFX (1980, Color, Apx. 48 Minutes) – Learn the secrets of making movies in a galaxy far, far away. Hosted by Mark Hamill, this revealing documentary offers behind-the-scenes glimpses into the amazing special effects that transformed George Lucas’ vision for Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back into reality!

Classic Creatures: Return of the Jedi (1983, Color, Apx. 48 Minutes) – Go behind the scenes — and into the costumes — as production footage from Return of the Jedi is interspersed with vintage monster movie clips in this in-depth exploration of the painstaking techniques utilized by George Lucas to create the classic creatures and characters seen in the film. Hosted and narrated by Carrie Fisher and Billie Dee Williams.

Anatomy of a Dewback (1997, Color, Apx. 26 Minutes) – See how some of the special effects in Star Wars became even more special two decades later! George Lucas explains and demonstrates how his team transformed the original dewback creatures from immovable rubber puppets (in the original 1977 release) to seemingly living, breathing creatures for the Star Wars 1997 Special Edition update.

Star Wars Tech (2007, Color, Apx. 46 Minutes) – Exploring the technical aspects of Star Wars vehicles, weapons and gadgetry, Star Wars Tech consults leading scientists in the fields of physics, prosthetics, lasers, engineering and astronomy to examine the plausibility of Star Wars technology based on science as we know it today.

What do you think? Will you be buying Star Wars: The Complete Saga when it hits stores near you?

Completing their lampooning rampage across the pop culture cornucopia of George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy Family Guy: It’s A Trap! is Seth MacFarlane’s take on Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.

The DVD and Blu-ray of the three special episodes has all the ribald non sequiturs the show is famous for as well as the obligatory celebrity cameos with Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn from Star Trek and Carrie Fisher gamely jumping into the ring with the Family Guy team for this special.

Here’s an exclusive clip from the DVD extras in which the creators talk about setting up the scene on Jabba’s barge. The Blu-ray and DVD set is out on the 27th of December and we hope to have our review of the set up on HeyUGuys shortly.

And as a special Christmas treat here are some stills to wow friends and amuse grandparents.

Olly Moss is a name synonymous with brilliant graphic interpretations of classic films, and his work with the Alamo Drafthouse is a big part of why he is considered one of the foremost graphic artists working today.

It is with great pleasure that we’re able to point you to Wired, who had the exclusive on his latest work in which he has returned to the Star Wars galaxy to bring us these three posters for the films of the original trilogy.

It’s testament to his talent that these posters are as brilliant as they are simple, and any wall would be vastly improved by their presence upon it.

And if you’re really, really keen you might be in luck. The twitter account of Mondo main man Justin Ishmael (@MondoNews) will announce at some random point today that the limited run of 400 prints are on sale for $50 each.

Here are the posters,

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films as ranked by the users of the biggest internet movie site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of the Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case we is myself and Gary) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list. We’ve frozen the list as of January 1st of this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, we are watching them all in one year, 125 each.

This is our 31st update, my next five films watched for the project. You can find last week’s update here.

So far, i’ve summarised the films i’ve written about for the project, but i’m not going to for the Star Wars trilogy. I appreciate there are those that haven’t seen them, but i imagine they’re in the minority. To be honest, so much has been written about the Star Wars movies i’d rather not cover them at all, but they’re on the list, so here are my thoughts on rewatching each film.

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977) – 8.8 No. 12

The idea of Star Wars, and the mythology contained within, are undoubtedly awesome. Say what you want about George Lucas, but the concept of the force, what it is and how it works is a brilliant idea. It instantly adds a feeling of depth and spirituality to what otherwise would be a fairly straight forward space film. Luke, the young farm boy destined for greatness is not on its own an original idea, but transplanted to the star Wars galaxy, where he truly can effectively save the world adds a whole new level to the cliche. The introduction of Han Solo allows humour, as well as presenting a wild card story-wise. Solo is often likened to a cowboy type character, but is far more selfish and self-serving than those from tales of the old west, and you are kept guessing until the very end just what his motivations really are.

The death halfway through of Obi Wan, up to this point an integral character in the movie, is a shock and an unusually brave movie for a fantasy movie aimed at kids. It is pretty dark, and though i don’t remember the first time around, it must have been a blow to the system. Darth Vader and the Death Star are also fantastic works of George Lucas’ imagination, and are the real reasons Star Wars was so iconic. The pace is brilliant, with no wasted motion throughout. The race to destroy the Death Star is brilliantly constructed, and timed to perfection. There is a lot great about the first Star Wars, and to this day i can still understand why it has built up such a following.

OK, the dialogue can be pretty bad at times, but it is difficult to build exposition and background into such a fast paced story. Remember, it is a whole different world we are introduced to, and on that basis i think Lucas did a decent job. The droids ARE annoying. I can see why we loved them as kids, and i understand their function. I can see why Lucas became so enamoured by the idea of seeing such epic story from the point of view of the lowest class of beings, but i can’t help but be irritated when they go about their misadventures. It is the only time the movie slows down, and though i can’t imagine how the overall plot would work without them, i’d like to see a cut that diminishes their role as much as possible to see if the film actually loses anything.

Top 250? Of course. Special Edition? Not actually too distracting in this case, but ultimately pointless.

Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – 8.8 No.10

The ice planet of Hoth looks phenomenal, and the idea of the rebels hiding on an uninhabited, and almost uninhabitable, planet is really cool. The attack by the Imperials, and the AT-AT’s in particular, is probably the best sequence of the Star Wars trilogy, and to be honest, for me the movie suffers considerably from the subsequent slowdown of the pace. The cat and mouse game between the Millennium Falcon and Imperial forces is not particularly thrilling, though the development of the Han-Leia relationship adds a bit of emotional depth to the story. Luke’s visit to Dagobah, though amusing at times, is actually pretty tedious.

Events pick up with the visit to Cloud City. Billy Dee Williams adds some much needed flair to proceedings, and is probably the most charismatic character of the series. Over the course of the movie he shows depth,and presence, and his ambiguity adds some real interest. The big story is obviously the face off between Luke and Vader, with some awesome revelations that you really don’t see coming. The second lightsaber battle of the trilogy is exciting when it gets going, but does not involve quite enough action to provide a climatic finale to the movie.

The dialogue is, once again, pretty poor, and actually more obvious because the pace of the movie is so much slower than the previous one. People call Empire dark, but no major characters die, with Solo effecctively only being kidnapped. The open-ended climax, whilst providing some surprises, doesn’t really feel like a proper ending because it is so heavily aimed towards leading into the final part.

Best of the trilogy? Difficult to choose between A New Hope and Empire. Empire is probably the most well made, with the more in depth story, but as a stand-alone film it has no beginning or end, leading off of the first film and setting up the last. A New Hope is the only film set out as a beginning to end movie that can be watched in isolation, so on that basis it probably works better as a film.

Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983) – 8.3 No. 104

The problem child that nobody loves. The liberation of Han Solo is a bizarre set-piece really. Because of the time that has clearly elapsed but we haven’t seen, we’re met with a Luke that has powers we didn’t see him develop. The battle over Sarlacc’s Pit is exciting, with again some interesting new creatures and the cool sail barge, but feels a little rushed, and dare i say it easy? Jabba is a great character, but is killed off pretty quickly in the film,then we are immediately rushed off to the continuing battle with the Empire, leaving the whole exercise as a really odd feeling segue.

The second Death Star is a lazy idea. The presence of the Emperor at the vital time even more so. The whole battle to destroy it, and the impossible odds beaten in the process wrap up a well imagined story far too easily. The Rebels should have been annihilated, and the idea that such a small fleet of ships could survive dozens of Star Destroyers and an operational Death Star is ridiculous based on what we’ve seen over the course of the trilogy.

That a gang of teddy bears are the ones that facilitate it makes it all the more unforgivable. I don’t have the hatred for the Ewoks that some have, in principal at least. The idea that these primitive creatures can overcome the technology of the Imperial troops on Endor, and the almost slapstick way they go about it, is what really burns. James Cameron clearly bought that idea though…

It’s easy to deride Jedi,and some would say lazy. But it is two distinct stories glued together with more Dagobah tedium in the middle. The culmination of the Han-Leia lovestory is satisfying, and the revelation of Luke and Leia’s relationship is actually pretty cool, but on balance, Jedi is a complete misstep. A real shame, but i think the Star Wars series started going downhill a long time before The Phantom Menace hit our screens.

Saving Private Ryan (1998) – 8.5 No. 47

When it is discovered that a certain Mrs Ryan has lost three of her sons to World War II, the decision is made to send a team to try and bring her fourth and last remaining son back home from the front. Having survived the overwhelming odds of the Normandy beach landings, school teacher Captain John H Miller (Tom Hanks) is charged with leading that team through war-torn France.

Losing several team members along the way, Miller’s men search for the proverbial needle, experiencing the many horrors of war in the process. When they finally find the lost paratrooper, the soldiers are forced into a backs to the wall stand-off with a German patrol in a bid to keep Private Ryan alive long enough to escape to safety.

Steven Spielberg is accused of making movies that are too saccharine, often with a soppy happy ending. There is nothing sickly sweet about Saving Private Ryan. War is laid bare, with the effect it has both physically and emotionally fully explored, with very little respite. From the opening attack on Omaha beach, it is clear this is no fun romp. Spielberg leaves you in no doubt that the attack on the beaches of France was a suicide mission, with the Allied forces breaking through by sheer strength of numbers and blind commitment to the cause. There is no attempt to disguise the horrific casualties sustained, and the massacre is shot in a shockingly visceral style.

We’re given the chance to get to know Miller and his team as they journey across country, making the losses they enduring all the more affecting, and the savage behaviour they exhibit to their German captives all the more shocking.

I have seen Private Ryan before, and remembered the unflinching style of the opening scenes very clearly. I had somehow forgot how bleak and realistic the rest of the story had been. It was a brave movie for Spielberg to make, and a brave part for Hanks to take, as both are famous for sweet family movies with happy endings, and kudos to them both for using their profiles and drawing power bring the casual multiplex audience in and show them the true horrors of war. There are many war movies equally as effective as Saving Private Ryan at giving a flavour of what was endured by the brave soldiers that fought for our freedom, but Saving Private Ryan has probably reached the most diverse audience. For me, a pretty flawless film, and a must watch.

Strangers on a Train (1951) – 8.2 No. 121

Whilst on a train journey, tennis star Guy Haines meets a strange man by the name of Bruno Anthony. Anthony is both overfriendly and a little too interested in Haines’ personal life. He is aware that Haines wants to divorce his wife in order to build a life with his girlfriend, Senator’s daughter Anne Morton. Anthony reveals a plan he has concocted whereby he will kill Haines estranged wife, and Haines will murder Anthony’s father. Haines makes his excuses and leaves, somewhat bemused by the conversation, but Anthony mistakenly believes a deal has been struck.

Anthony carries through on his end of the bargain, but Haines is understandably shocked and scared when he is confronted with what has happened. Haines tries desperately to distance himself from Anthony, but the stranger begins to infiltrate Haines’ life, throwing threats and blackmail at Haines. Will Haines go to prison, or can he put together a plan to expose the deluded murderer and clear his own name?

The idea behind Strangers on a Train is pretty intense. It combines stalking as an art form, not such a common occurrence at the time, with a cold-blooded murder story. Anthony is deliciously unhinged, living in a complete fantasy land. You can’t help but feel for Haines. What would you do? It’s a hopeless situation to be thrust into, and you can genuinely feel his helplessness.

The reason the story is so disconcerting is the performance of Robert Walker as Anthony. His madness is portrayed perfectly, with a wonderful mix of mania and innocence. You can’t help but almost feel sorry for him for alot of the film. He is clearly unhinged,and that is conveyed brilliantly by Walker. This performance makes that of Farley Granger as Haines look pretty bland in contrast. His desperation is palpable, but Granger just isn’t the most charismatic of leads.

For me, Strangers on a Train has a very different feel to the other Hitchcock movies i’ve watched for the project. Whereas his other works have worked by either letting the tension build to boiling point, or using intelligently constructed plots to confound the viewer, Strangers on a Train affects you in a much different way. The situation is off-putting because it is both completely off-kilter, and theoretically plausible. Any one of us could meet the titular stranger on any train one night, and find our lives falling apart around us. A very compelling story to watch unfold.

Come back next Monday for update 32. You can follow our progress at www.twitter.com/baz_mann and www.twitter.com/gary_phillips_

Bazmann

Previewed at this year’s Comic-Con,  the third and final Family Guy Star Wars special is coming to DVD at the end of the year and a few more details have been unveiled.

The episode is called Family Guy: It’s A Trap! and is based on the final film of the original trilogy Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and follows Luke Skywalker (Chris) and Princess Leia (Lois) as they go to Tatooine to rescue Han Solo (Peter) from bounty hunter Boba Fett (Giant Chicken) and the galaxy’s deadliest gangster, Jabba the Hutt (Joe).

Meanwhile, Darth Vader (Stewie) and the Emperor (Carter Pewterschmidt) try to turn Luke into the dark side as the Rebels join forces with Wicket (The Bear from The Cleaveland Show) and the Ewok tribe.

Although it has not been confirmed who is playing Admiral Ackbar, cameos have been announced and they will include Patrick Stewart, Michael Dorn, Rush Limbaugh, Adam West and, of course, Carrie Fisher.

The episode will be released on DVD and Blu-ray December 21st in America and if you have not seen the other episodes yet, fear not as there will also be a complete triple-pack collection of all the Family Guy Star Wars specials.

It has not been confirmed if it will be released in the UK on the same date.

Warwick Davis is a man who has had an acting career spanning over 3 decades. He started acting when his mother put him in to be an extra in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi and through various reasons (described in the interview below), he ended up playing the part of Wicket in the movie which then jettisoned him into a career in film.

8 years later he filmed Willow as the starring role alongside Val Kilmer and now, in 2010, he is filming the final of the Happy Potter movies after appearing in all of them. He was on the show to promote his new book, Size Matters Not but they spent 90% of the interview talking films and focused heavily on the Leprechaun series.

So, for your viewing pleasure, I give you, Warwick Davis.

We’ve all done it.  Anyone who’s a fan of film has integrated film quotes into everyday conversation.  It’s all part of pop culture.  The film could be one that everyone has seen, or it could be one that falls under the cult status.  No matter which part of the spectrum, there are always those films that inhabit your everyday conversations.

When quoting films, one of two things will happen.  The person you’re dropping this little gem on will either get it, or they won’t.  To be in the know is priceless.  To be on the outside is confusing and may cause you to blush.  You’ll either get the high five or the “I can’t believe you haven’t seen that yet!”.

Certain quotes can be worked into the most mundane everyday conversation.  If done properly, the user will be admired for the cunning use of the quote.  When used incorrectly, the user will have to bow their head in shame and wear an “I Love Jar-Jar” T-shirt.  No one wants that.  So please, read on for a list of 10 quotes and examples of how they can be used.

“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.” – The Godfather
This one works great with favors.  If you need someone to help you do something that would otherwise garner a “hell no” from the other party.

Example:
Guy 1: So dude, I was going to ask John to help me move this weekend.
Guy 2: Dude.  No way is he going to help.  He gets mad when people ask him to help just because he has a truck.
Guy 1: yeah, but I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.

This will normally get you an approving nod of the head and an understanding that nothing else needs to be said.

“Go that way really fast, if somethings gets in your way…turn.” – Better Off Dead
I use this typically in the directional sense.  For example: Hey, which direction do I need to go?

Example:
Buddy 1: Dude, I need directions to where we’re going.
Buddy 2: Dude, go that way. Really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.

This one will most likely result in an eye roll and dismissive shake of the head.  Even though the user will most likely be giggling.

“Keep it secret, keep is safe.” – LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring
This one is good for girlie gossip that concerns scandal.

Example:
Girl 1: OMG! Did you hear about Jane?
Girl 2: No
Girl 1: Really? OMG you HAVE to hear this.  But you have to promise to keep it secret, keep it safe ok?
Girl 2: Ok my Precious.

There is no greater promise than to keep it secret, keep it safe.  This is most effective when used in conjunction with a pinky swear.

“That’s a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full” – Top Gun
Normally used when there just isn’t anymore space….for anything.  Or can also be used on kids when they ask permission to do something and the answer is no. Use of this phrase however may result in confusion.  Which will most likely result in eye rolling on the users part.

Example 1:
Girl: Hey guys, I heard you’re all headed out to the club.  Can I ride with you?
Guy: That’s a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
Girl: Huh?

Example 2:
Kid: Dad, Kari wants to know if I can stay over tonight.
Dad: That’s a negative, Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
Kid: Huh?

While Top Gun is a classic in it’s own right, most people come up with the other well known quotes.  That’s what makes this one such a gem.  It mostly receives the questioning look, but is best used if shrugged off as if it’s a perfectly normal phrase to use.  For those who use this, it is part of everyday speech.

“Sometimes you just gotta say, ‘What the f**k, make your move’.”  – Risky Business
This is typical of a peer pressure situation.  Like, say you really want to go that concert your buddy is going to, but it’s on a night you have to work.

Example:
Buddy 1: Dude, you have to go to the concert!
Buddy 2: Dude, I have to work. No way can I call in sick again.  I already called in sick when you got that hair brained idea to drive to Vegas at midnight.
Buddy 1: Dude, it’s called L-I-V-I-N! Sometimes you just gotta say, “What the f**k, make your move.” . CALL IN SICK!
Buddy 2: OK.

This phrase is normally associated with trying to convince someone to do something that is most likely going to result in a sever case of bad judgment.  Use sparingly and with caution.

“These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” – Star Wars

This can be used a couple of different ways.  When you’re looking for something and think you found it only to realize that it’s not what you wanted.  When something unexpected comes up or when a certain 12 year old is trying to pull the Jedi mind trick on her parents.

Example 1:
Girl: Oh good.  I’ve been looking for this forev….oh wait.  These aren’t the droids I was looking for. Damn!

Example 2:
Guy: So you hear about Jack?  He had a meeting with the boss today. He thought he was getting a promotion and he got laid off.
Guy 2: That sucks.  Guess he wasn’t the droid they were looking for eh?

Example 3:
Mom: Do your homework.
Kid: ::Jedi hand movement:: You don’t need to see my identification.
Mom: I said, do your homework!
Kid: ::Jedi hand movement:: These aren’t the droids your looking for.
Mom: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!!
Kid: Alright! Jeez……..

I’m sure there are many other uses for this phrase, but these are the ones that come to mind.

“Come with me if you want to live”  – All of the Terminator films & The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
This should really be used by an extremely agitated parent.  Had this been big when I was young, I’m sure one of my parents, or both, would have used this.

Example:
Mom: C’mon Tracy, it’s time to leave.
Tracy: But I don’t wannnnaaa goooooooooooo.
Mom: COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!
Tracy: er, ok.

There isn’t anything more frightening than an irritated Mom.  Don’t make her use this.  It never turns out good.

“That right R2, we’re going to the Degoba System.” – Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Ok, I’m going to be honest and tell you I’ve actually used this.  On my cat.  You read that right.  My cat (the official HUG mascot) is strong willed.  After being particularly naughty, she looked up at me as if to say, “What are you going to do about it”. I responded by saying “That’s right Kitty, you’re going to the Degoba System”. And promptly removed her from whatever havoc she was creating.

This one can be use similarly with children, friends, relatives and the like.  Anytime someone asks, “Where are we going”, it’s a prime time to bust out this little nugget.

“They’re here.” – Poltergeist

This one is best used when big family gatherings are about to take place.  I’ve heard it used with a touch of dread and a hint of forewarning of what is about to take place.

Example:
Mom: Dinner is almost ready.  The family should be here any minute.
Dad: (from his recliner) THEY’RE HEEEEERRREREEEEEEE.
Mom: ::facepalm::

Depending on the inflection of tone, this phrase can be used in a positive and a negative way.  In the example, or any time it’s used in conjunction with a family gathering….it’s most likely leaning toward the negative.

“Soylent Green is people!” – Soylent Green

This one is great because it’s a bit obscure and not a lot of people know about it.  It’s best used when trying to figure out what an unidentified food item is.  The set up for this one usually pays off for the user, but the other party may just fall into that “confused” category.  If you’re lucky however, the other party will raise fist to the sky and say it with you loud and proud.

Example:
Guy: Ewww, what is this stuff?
Girl: Gross.  It looks like Soylent Green.
Guy: What’s Soylent Green?
Girl: SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!

You can see where the humor comes in.  It makes me giggle every time.  BUT….this is to be used only when it applies.  Do not under any circumstances toss this out as any old response.  Respect the phrase and it will serve you well.

So there you have it class.  I hope you found today’s lesson informative and will go forth and wisely unleash film quotes on the world!  Your homework is to let me know which quotes you use the most and to cite them in an example.  Thanks for joining, class dismissed.

For more of my musings, you can find me on Twitter here: @baddladd

James Cameron’s Avatar is now certain to become the highest grossing movie of all time, both at the domestic US Box Office and internationally, well, sort of. Factor in inflation and things look a little different. Ed crunches the numbers and finds out if today’s blockbusters are really more popular than their counterparts from yesteryear.

Box office analysts, those curious loons who spend each weekend with a calculator in one hand and their pleasure appendage in the other, thought that James Cameron has compressed all their Christmases into one and rendered it in 3D when Avatar inverted the trajectory of the average blockbuster. As any fule no, the release strategy for the Hollywood tentpole is now well established and has generated a model of return which is just as reliable. In days of yore, before home cinema and online theft, a movie, like a fine wine, was given time to breathe. Released in a few hundred cinemas in major cities, it would gradually tour, building word of mouth as it went. It might spread to the countryside, assuming anyone in the metropolis had bothered to see it and after a period of several months, sometimes years, it would quietly fade away, perhaps to be revived in rep a few years later, perhaps to find new life on television. Cinemagoers were often older and perhaps a little more adventurous, propelling movies like The Godfather and Doctor Zhivago to stratospheric box office.

Jaws changed all that. Hollywood learnt that a movie that appealed to a younger audience, a hyperactive, thrill seeking, devil may care audience, could generate enormous revenues, and fast. Jaws’ presence in America’s multiplexes soon expanded and its gross reflected the fact that audiences were returning to see it several times. Without intent, much like the serendipitous invention of Viagra or Penicillin, Spielberg’s film invented a new way of doing business. Now Blockbusters can expect to make most of their money on opening weekend. This is due to a blitzkrieg model in which a new release is relentlessly marketed in the months prior to its reveal then booked into as many screens as humanly possible, usually in excess of 3,000. In this opening “frame”, the movie can expect to make the lion’s share of its final take. Those analysts, who live for little else, keep their beady eyes on the so called sophomore frame, that second weekend in which good or bad word of mouth, coupled with the bulk of the target audience having blown their load, usually leads to a substantial decline. A movie can lose half its audience in the second week so any decline of less than 40% is deemed to indicate that the film has “legs”. Most don’t. Based upon this pattern of decline it then becomes fairly easy for the number crunchers to predict how much the movie will end with. If it flops, no matter – the cinema is only the first market anyway. Those ancillaries, DVD, Blu-ray and soon, legitimate download, may recoup costs, sometimes even turning a profit. But we digress.

What’s extraordinary about Avatar, and it certainly isn’t the plot or the characterisation, is the speed and consistency with which it’s made money. The opening weekend, $77M in the US, was solid but not extraordinary. However, Cameron’s film, just as Titanic had done 11 years earlier, broke the cycle of box office decline and has held on to its audience who seemingly can’t get enough of its gimmicked environs. In that sophomore frame it lost just 11% of its audience, virtually – no pun intended, unheard of and 5 weeks later it remains no.1 at the usually fickle US box office. It is the fastest movie in history to make $500m at US tills, the fastest to $1b worldwide in just 32 days. Screenings remained fully booked and sometime in February it will beat Titanic to take the number one all time spot in the US box office chart. By that time it will easily have assumed the same position worldwide. A gross in excess of $2b is attainable and highly likely. Now that all sounds marvellous and would seem to make Avatar unassailable, suggesting that cinema attendance is in rude health but it is of course, a lie because box office charts only reflect the actual figure amassed. They do not alter this figure to account for ticket price inflation. We, however, will do just that.

The truth is that Avatar is an enormous hit but no more so than several movies from the distant past. When one does account for inflation, as any honest comparison of box office tallies must, then Avatar is currently 32 on the list of US domestic blockbusters, sandwiched between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Ghostbusters, both of which made the equivalent of $519m in 2010 money. Assuming it finishes around the $600-650m range, as it likely, it would be no more popular than The Phantom Menace, Jurassic Park, Raiders of the Lost Ark or, wait for it, The Graduate. If Cameron wants to beat himself and there are many who wish he’d try, Avatar will need to bank $943,342,301 at US multiplexes to make more than Titanic did in 1998. You see, it’s not quite the clean sweep you thought it was.

HUG readers may be more interested to know how Avatar stacks up against their childhood favourites and this is actually a useful comparison because many movies, pre-1980, would only achieve their totals from multiple releases. Even Star Wars, which has a Rancor sized gross of $1.3billion in adjusted dollars – that’s US alone, has amassed that total from $320m from 1977 added to a further $138m from 1997. You then have to look at average ticket prices, attendance, a comparison of average prices if attendance figures aren’t avai- look, it’s complicated alright?

A more pertinent question for the box office analyst, rather than why is Avatar doing so well, might be ‘why don’t more modern movies do as well as Avatar?’ Recent blockbusters, even those which are critically acclaimed such as Lord of the Rings, can only boast no.51 in the chart overall. Johhny Depp’s impression of Keith Richards might have propelled Pirates of the Caribbean to worldwide success but he couldn’t do better than Henry Koster’s 1953 biblical hit, The Robe. Have you seen it? No, didn’t think so. In fact if Avatar does finish where we imagine it will, it will be the only film released in the Noughties to finish in the top 25.

So how do your favourites compare to Cameron’s behemoth? It will end up in Return of the Jedi country ($691m adjusted) but far short of Jaws ($941m adjusted), E.T ($1.04b adjusted) and the all time champ, Gone with the Wind (an incredible $1.48b adjusted). The other bad news for Hollywood on the box office front is that they’re having to swim twice as hard to cover the same distance from a generation ago. JJ Abrams’ Star Trek easily surpassed its predecessor’s numbers with $257.7m last summer, but that looks less rosy when you look at inflation. The previous leader in the Trek canon, 1986’s The Voyage Home, made $100m at a time when tickets cost about half as much. On a $30m budget (about $60m today), it made 80% of Abram’s take. The 2009 film by contrast cost $62m in 1986 money, over twice as much and would have grossed $132m at 1986 prices. A victor then, but not by the margin we all imagined.

If you’re a Hollywood exec trying to work out why you need to spend twice as much and a third again on marketing just to match the kind of grosses movies were making 25 years ago, you could blame the proliferation of home entertainment and the internet, or, if you were being smart, you might think that today’s blockbusters don’t have the same legs because they offer audiences less in terms of plot, character, dialogue and ideas – those essential storytelling elements which endear a film to patrons, drive word of mouth and promote repeat business. The 80s movies that still rank in the top 30 did so with lower budgets, fewer screens and no 3D glasses. Makes you think.

Still, it would be churlish, I mean more so than I’ve been already, to underwrite Cameron’s achievement. The advance in technology represented by Avatar has mouth watering potential which is just waiting to be wasted by poor screenwriters. In any event, he’ll end up with two movies in the all time top ten, an achievement only matched by Steven Spielberg and with that boat movie, he still managed to rake in two thirds of Gone with the Wind’s gross in an era when less than half as many people went to the cinema. Imagine what Cameron could do with a great script as well the promise of never before seen spectacle. It might even beat inflation…for a while.

Continuing our pioneering look at movies from reality’s underside, HUG once again connects to her sister site in a parallel universe to bring you the kind of lowdown that would never make it to a hard copy publication on quality control grounds.

It’s a place where Western Culture has evolved to allow women to walk around bare breasted, where each and every human impulse is catered for in safe booths; there are ones for masturbation, suicide and the consumption of Dan Brown’s novels and in which film history reads differently. To our eyes it would look like the inane etchings of a bored and socially dysfunctional film journalist. You’re invented to be more thorough in your analysis.

In our reality the Star Wars series was dealt a fatal blow by its own creator with the interminable photo-chemical faecal matter known to some as The Phantom Menace (1999). Lucas’ prequel read like a tabloid horror story in which a kind and loving father had snapped and taken a claw hammer to his family as they slept. No-one could understand why he did it. Millions took to the Skywalker Ranch in Marin County to cry in solidarity and hold up placards with the word “why?” scrawled across them. But in a galaxy far far away, the series turned a lot earlier. In 1982 Lucas invited maverick director and neo-noir maremaker David Lynch to helm the final movie in the trilogy, Return of the Jedi. He accepted. What happened next killed a franchise. Now read on for our transdimensional sister site’s review from the archives.

Review: Return of the Jedi (David Lynch, 1983)

Star Wars provided the revenue for George Lucas to fund an empire. With the second movie, The Empire Strikes Back, he built it. As a sat in the Ziegfeld Theater on New York’s West 54th Street watching David Lynch’s conclusion I was a witness to the last days of Rome and that’s not just a comment on the narrative, because in handing this piece to the Eraserhead Director, Lucas might have made the biggest mistake of his life.

As the now familiar chords of John William’s bombastic score sung over the end credits and the title “directed by David Lynch” appeared, almost like a taunt ““ imagine your rapist handing you their business card afterwards, one was struck by the deathly silence in the theater. Three years ago, following the revelation that Darth Vader had spawned weasel voiced Mark Hamill, there had been deafening applause from the Lucasfilm faithful. They whooped, they hollered, they threw Polaroids of their naked partners at the screen ““ the partners moved quickly to retrieve them and on it went. This time however, there was nothing. As a critic I hadn’t seen anything like this since the intermission for Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate; the “End of Part I” announcement after a half day of movie prompting two patron’s to kill themselves and third to kill two patrons.

The Director’s recent Oscar nomination for the Elephant Man brought him to Lucas’ attention but the Star Wars creator was warned that Lynch would insist on full creative control, something he was initially reluctant to cede to another filmmaker. Negotiations between the two men were fraught. Lynch would respond to Lucas’ frequent phone calls by answering in a series of foreign accents, sometimes pretending he couldn’t speak English at all. Consequently Lucas couldn’t be sure who he was talking to and was forced to leave numerous messages which Lynch would later pretend he hadn’t received. Lucas, progressively disillusioned by the lack of progress, was gearing up to hire the pliable membranes belonging to Richard Marquand when a breakthrough occurred. Lynch would settle the matter using the ATARI game based on the original Star Wars picture. If he successfully destroyed the Death Star on a single credit, Lucas would be forced to sign a legal agreement that signed across both creative control and final cut to the maverick filmmaker. If Lynch failed, he’d direct an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune instead. Given the finished product, Lucas will be kicking himself that it didn’t go the other way.

Lynch’s sequel finds the principles in an altogether different league of dire straits, which makes the ending to Empire Strikes Back look happy and confected by comparison. Lucas’ original treatment imagined space gangster Jabba the Hut as a giant slug but Lynch’s conception casts Dennis Hopper as a sadistic, space ore dependent serial womaniser whose palatial den looks suspiciously like an intergalactic harem. Leia (a returning and uncomfortable looking Carrie Fisher), is Hut’s sex slave and the abuse she receives is vastly out of step with the child friendly space operatics of the first two films. She’s obliged to lick Hopper’s face, rest her head in his crotch and beg to be clothed while a manic hopper tosses scraps of meat at her from his throne.

Lynch’s twist on the Star Wars universe is to show the Empire’s rule as a force for perfidiousness in the collective moral psyche. This is a disgusting universe in which cruelty in very much in vogue. If Lucas imagined the Empire as a relatively benign fascist allegory ““ cartoon Nazism, then Lynch is obsessed with the detail of that setup; absurd decadence and sexual violence. When we last saw Harrison Ford’s Han Solo he was encased in space concrete and sent off to Hut as an ornament. Here, that would be an easy let off. Knowing that Leia desires Solo but is repelled by him, Hutt teases the princess with the threat of her lover’s death. Solo is momentarily unthawed, given a drug to induce arousal and re-set. Each time Leia repels Hopper’s increasingly grotesque advances, one part of Solo’s anatomy is blasted off. The climax of this sequence has the unhinged gangster snapping off Solo’s engorged genitals, prompting Leia to grab the carbonite phallus in a fit of intense grief and beat Hutt to death with it. This is a dream for psychoanalysts but a nightmare for Star Wars fans who must contend with the emasculation and death of one of their heroes and the psychological retardation of another in the same scene.

If Lynch wants to unsettle his audience and remind them that no one is safe in his version of the Star Wars universe then he succeeds magnificently. By the time the action shifts to Luke’s encounter with Daddy Vader and oedipal gigantism, we’ve endured the defenestration of Yoda by an angry Luke, an Obi-Wan turned insane in the Jedi afterlife who tells Skywalker the younger that “the stars don’t know shit” and a three minute conversation between space fleas on the floor plate of the Millennium Falcon. The climatic showdown between Skywalker, Vader and his Emperor is unsettling, not least because Luke is converted to the dark side of the force and slaughters his father to become the Dark Lord’s new apprentice. It’s a curious payoff for the millions who’ve made the first two movies in this trilogy box office champions, but that’s Lynch ““ unapologetically unconventional, more concerned with the dark underbelly of human nature than tidy endings and fearless. The movie may bomb, and early figures suggest it will do just that but as I was reminded on the way out by one optimistic fan, it could have been so much worse. “Lucas was going to have a planet of teddy bears in his version” he told me. Just imagine it.

Key scene (screenplay by David Lynch and Lawrence Kasdan):

INT. JABBA’S PALACE – DAY

Jabba is tugging hard on the chain affixed to Leia’s neck.

HUTT

Woah, now now little lady, don’t you be tryin’ to go someplace. Remember, I own you, I own your fucking head, legs, tits, the lot ““ you got that? I’m the overlord of you.

He inhales another line of space ore from the arm of his throne.

LEIA

I have powerful friends Jabba, you may not live to regret this.

HUTT

Oh, you’ve got powerful friends? Powerful friends huh, listen ““ I chewed off a Rancor’s balls this morning. That was breakfast. Do you understand? I don’t do fear. I hand it out, I’ve got the motherload. You think this is hell? This isn’t hell my sweet, hell is what happens when you don’t do exactly what I say. You want me to destroy you? I’ll fucking destroy you. I’ll annihilate your space atoms and suck them up with my ass.

LEIA

I’ll enjoy watching you die.

HUTT

Ho ho ho. Listen sugar tits, I’ll tell you when its time to die. We can all enjoy the moment. Maybe you’ll be nesting on my space wang when it happens, know what I mean?

(Goes on a similar vein for 10 minutes).

Next Week: Michael Bay’s Schindler’s List!

Regular readers will know that HUG is a one stop nexus for all your movie wants but we’re also conscious of the fact that other sites can only provide you with information about the film culture of THIS universe. We strive to do better. Utlilising transdimensional bandwidth, we’ve linked to our sister site in a parallel sphere in order to bring you the first in a series on counterfactual movies from the other side.

We’re going further than your imagination would dare in order to give you the exclusive lowdown on the celluloid that’s inspired a tranche of film fanatics very different to ourselves.

The first in this series takes a look at Stanley Kubrick’s Ghostbusters.

Introduction:

We know Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis’ supernatural comedy as one of the defining blockbusters of the Eighties. A seemingly effortless fugue of Thirties style screwball patter and Saturday Night Live wit, our version is rightly lauded for its humour, high concept hijinks and sense of fun but there’s another version that isn’t so upbeat. In a parallel universe this story of paranormal investigators and ectoplasm is considered one of the most nihilistic movies ever made. Stanley Kubrick’s version refashions the laughs into a meditation on death, mental illness and existential desolation. HUG can now publish her sister site’s review for the first time. Brace yourselves.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS.

Review: Ghostbusters (Stanley Kubrick, 1984)

Ghostbusters is a natural progression for Stanley Kubrick. Since the mid-70s epiphany that saw him move toward genre fare having “wasted a career” in the purview of novels and historical dramas, he’s embraced high concept and defied the critics that saw it as a vulgar capitulation to populist filmmaking. His 1978 acquisition of the rights to DC Comics’ Superman, resulted in a movie that recast the man of steel as a sedentary homosexual who used his enhanced strength and heightened senses for sexual gratification. Brando’s turn as the man of steel shocked audiences raised on the two tone Americana of the source material. Those that balked at Clarke Kent’s kryptonite and cocaine fuelled masturbation were equally unimpressed at General Zod’s coprophic perversions. The ‘tarmacing’ scene, in which Terrance Stamp commands Margot Kidder to “kneel over Zod” before committing the act, was recently voted the 5th most shocking moment in film history by the AFI. But such criticism ( Robert Ebert called the four hour film, “a hallucinatory shock to both the eyes and the intellect”) missed the point. Kubrick was prepared to push the blockbuster into a thematic underpass populated by society’s fringes and cinema has never been the same since. It remains Pauline Kael’s favourite film.

Now, having just wrapped on Star Trek III: Vulcan’s Shame, which imagines Spock’s home planet embracing slavery, he’s retooled a script by comedians Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis; imagining a coterie of academics who abandon their scholarship to pursue the spectral remnants of the dead in New York City.

Malcolm McDowell plays Peter Venkman; an academic grieving for the girlfriend who killed herself. We’re treated to the suicide in a gruesome opening flashback in which Kurbrick’s static camera maintains emotional and critical distance from the woman who disfigures her breasts with a broken bottle before coating the lens with the spray from a severed artery. It’s a horrific, brutal sequence and its shock value is an upfront statement of intent for a film that cuts between sterility and violence with clinical precision.

Venkman, who’s devastated by the death, sees New York as an unmapped necropolis in which his love is trapped in purgatorial torment. Enlisting the help of colleagues Stanz (John Cassevetes) and Spengler (Jack Nicholson), the three invent a technology for detecting and entrapping spirits. As Venkman gets closer to his lost love, the space between the living and the dead begins to collapse, threatening to drive Venkman to a similar fate.

Trust Kubrick to take a script that was originally touted as a comedy and invest it with almost unbearable gravitas. Kubrick’s New York, shot in a bleak, reductive palate, reminiscent of a Rembrandt painting, is a city in which the spiritually decimated walk amongst the dead. More than once, particularly in one heartbreaking scene in which Venkman admits “I envy them, because they at least know they’re gone. We’re obliged to pretend”, Kubrick suggests that the scientist’s obsession with the afterlife has deprived him of any chance of living in the real world. With Michael Nyman’s ambient hum underscoring the gloom, Ghosbusters demands much of its audience and the overall effect is exhausting and occasionally the stuff of nightmares. Like Superman, visual effects are kept to a minimum in favour of emotional realism and psycho-sexual discomfort that batters its audience with stillness, sorrow and existential torment. Special mention should go to Canadian actor Rick Moranis whose turn as a social lepper who wistfully watches ghosts from his apartment window is both haunting and the closest Kubrick comes to a human touch.

A striking and melancholic tour de force.

Key Scene (from the screenplay by Stanley Kubrick):

INT. NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY – DAY

Venkman is interviewing Alice, a librarian who’s claimed to see a ghost.

VENKMAN
Alice, why don’t you tell me again what you saw?

ALICE
It ““ it had arms and legs, and ““

VENKMAN
Alice, I need you to stop talking now. I need you to consider the possibility that as a woman you may be hysterical, possibly deficient in common sense. Do you understand?

ALICE
I think so.

VENKMAN
I don’t think you do understand Alice. I think you think you’re fine, but you’re not. You’re sick. My girl, Dana, she used to say she was fine but she wasn’t Alice. She was very sad. She slit her throat. She couldn’t go on you see. Life, she understood, was a question to which there’s simply no good answer. It’s a trick question Alice. A trick question.

ALICE
Can I go now Doctor Venkman?

VENKMAN
Where would you go Alice? There’s only one destination that awaits all of us. Death Alice. I’m going there soon and I encourage you to follow me. There’s nothing for us here. Nothing.

Alice stares at Venkman, a haunted expression on her face.

Next week: David Lynch’s Return of the Jedi.

"A striking and melancholic tour de force": Ghostbusters

On the 13th November 2009, almost 32 years after the legendary Star Wars film was first released in the UK on 27th December 1977, A good friend (who shall remain anonymous) came to my house to watch the Original Holy Trilogy: A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi for the first ever time.

He is the same age as me (31) and I’m sure he watched the same TV channels as me at Christmas in the 80′s and 90′s when Star Wars was played religiously each year and families crowded round the TV to watch them as they became a part of tradition.

He must have heard about Star Wars in the 80′s but for some reason he never sat down and watched them or even played with the Star Wars toys, which were probably found in almost every home back then.

I know some of his friends and they all have seen Star Wars and so he wasn’t influenced by peer pressure to see them, so what happened?

I personally can’t imagine my life without Star Wars, the good and the bad, and it’s Star Wars that brought me close to my friends when i was a kid. I’m still very close with these friends even today and we still talk about watching the films, the toys or of the times we had role playing Star Wars, I had a black dog when I was a kid who took on the role of Darth Vader that chased me (Han) and my friend Paul (Luke) around the house and garden and those are some of my favorite childhood memories.

How someone has gone their entire life without witnessing these films is quite a shocking thing to hear, he has however seen the travesty that was Episode 1 and i can understand why he didn’t see any Star Wars films from that point, but what happened previously.
He did say when he saw Episode 1 that he was going to watch them in sequence but I’m glad this has been brought to an end!

I thought i would look into what he did know about Star Wars so I asked him what he knows about it, he said just five things (even though he has seen episode 1 which can’t have registered that much)

Darth Vader
Luke Skywalker
Princess Leia
Millennium Falcon
X-Wing

Quite a predictable selection i suppose as peers or popular culture have referenced Star Wars in one way or another over the years and it’s actually impossible to avoid, Like in Friends, Family Guy, The Simpsons, used by comics, sampled in music, mocked in adverts, shown in magazines, heard from work colleagues, friends, friends of friends, family, it’s endless and a phenomenon that has never been matched and i presume everyone has heard of Star Wars in one way or another.

I told a few friends what i was doing with this friend and the similar response was WHAT, HE’S NEVER SEEN STAR WARS!!! and generally that will be the response of a majority of film fans, but my friend isn’t a film fan, he chooses other things in life which is fair enough and i fully respect that, but still, never seen Star Wars, it’s quite a statement.

But the revelations grew, he also shockingly revealed that he has also never seen any Indiana Jones films, None of them! these along with the Star Wars films are surely classic films that I, and almost everyone I’ve ever met in my life have seen, not necessary out of choice but because they are movies you see as a child, as a teenager, as an adult or as a parent.

I asked him why he hadn’t seen the classic Star Wars films in his life and he told me that he never felt the need to, his parents never encouraged him to watch them or offered to buy the toys, so admirably they refused to bow to the imaginable immense pressure to buy these toys for their children in the late 70′s to mid 80′s, he did however own transformers and He-Man toys so he wasn’t a kid who was without the joy of toys, maybe it’s just one of those things that passed him by.

So after over 6 hours of Light sabers, the force, Ewoks, rebel scum, blasters, Death Stars, Storm troopers, Tie Fighters, AT-AT Walkers, shooting first, John Williams genius and all other roll of the tongue Star Wars magic, we finished watching the classic trilogy, during it he showed no signs of real emotion or enjoyment but had quite a philosophical look in his face and the words he used to describe them all were, “brilliant”. He explained it was better than he thought it was going to be and it was fantastically made, especially for it’s time but he said he would never likely watch them again which is understandable, it’s not going to have an influence at his age as it did when seeing it as a kid, but he is glad he did it which is a great thing to hear and my purpose of this experience.

He said he hated Han Solo…..these words brought a gasp to the others in attendance, he said he was a horrible person, selfish and i suppose he is right, this is Han Solo’s character, but as kids we grew up with Han Solo being the coolest character, iconic and someone most boys wanted to be when we re-created Star Wars in the playground or with our Kenner replica’s and we didn’t see that side to him so to us “The Star Wars Generation” we looked through those flaws and just loved him, he flew the coolest ship every created, had the best lines in the film and was our hero and of our mothers really loved him.

He of course loved the sound and the music and of course who wouldn’t, it’s the perfect accompaniment to the film and without it would never have been as successful.

He really appreciated that Luke had to learn and train to become a Jedi and said films today tend to just let the main character have/find the powers and save the day without having to prove they are ready, he really appreciated the progression in Luke’s and all the other characters stories throughout the three films and really felt they all had a real depth which is a great point, It’s what separates Star Wars from other films, the characters are so perfectly brought to life and their story is the quintessential version of the tale of good vs Evil.

He also talked about his theory of the political side to Star Wars and interestingly kind of compared the characters to countries, Luke Skywalker is America and what America wants to be, the good guy of the universe and all that’s good and Darth Vader is the bad of the world. I don’t personally believe in this, but as a grown up seeing it for the first time i suppose you want to see beyond the meaning of the film and try to make political references or find the true meaning of what the story is trying to say. But for me it’s a simple story that that was inspired by George Lucas love of the genre and brought to the big screen in a truly devoted way that’s not been bettered since.

Another thing he pointed out was that Princess Leia was the only woman who made an appearance in the films and he is quite right, there were the odd roles like Mon Mothma and a few extras but Leia was the only woman to have a major role, in his opinion she’s not that attractive but due to her being the sole woman in a notable role in Star Wars he bet that she would have been top of most men/boys wish list, fair point but he did say that the slave outfit was one of the most sexiest things he had ever seen, SO SAY WE ALL!

So to round up it was a really interesting experience for all, I was fascinated that someone had never seen Star Wars and i wanted to know what their reaction to seeing it for the first time would be. Obviously there is no answer as to why, it’s a choice in life and one that seems so alien that it shocked me, so i felt the need to show them to him as it seemed the thing to do as it’s one of those things in life i feel you should be able to say you’ve done in life

Even today you make new friendships in life and it’s likely that the conversation will eventually lead to Star Wars, and now of course we were so spoiled with the three amazing original films that they were tainted a bit with the abomination of the new trilogy and so it gave another angle to discuss Star Wars but in the end it will always be known as one of the most popular and phenomenal success in film of all time, how many of you clicked on this post because it had the Star Wars Logo? it’s a magical, life shaping film.

And now some of the best of Star Wars comedy, It’s an endless source of enjoyment.

Clerks do the Death Star

Eddie Izzard does the Death Star Canteen

Kevin Spacey does Star Wars – Genius!

Dead Ringers – Obi Wan buys a car