A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 2014 Quirk Books and Lucas Books/Lucasfilm Ltd.  What if William Shakespeare had created Star Wars a long time ago in Elizabethan England far, far away? What would George Lucas’s late 20th Century techno-myth be like if his classic trilogy had been written in iambic pentameter - and for wooden stage sets? Most of us who have experienced Star Wars as a cultural phenomenon know that Lucas’s six-film saga, (not to mention the more recent Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and the forthcoming Star Wars: The Last Jedi )  were created in the Age of Cinema. From 1977, when Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope premiered, to the 2005 release of Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith,  millions of moviegoers saw Lucas’s space fantasy depicted on film and home video as ultra-modern special effects extravaganzas. Because Lucas’s films are written for modern audiences in casual American English, the notion of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Sol

(C) 2015 PBS Home Video This review focuses exclusively on the techie features of the 25th Anniversary Edition. For a review of Ken Burns' documentary, please see: 'The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns - DVD Review.' On October 13, 2015, PBS Distribution and American Documentaries, Inc. released “The Civil War: A Ken Burns Film – 25 th Anniversary Edition,” a six-Blu-ray disc (BD) set that presents the widely-acclaimed 1990 series on high definition video for the first time. To commemorate both the series’ Silver Anniversary and the 150 th commemoration of the Civil War’s bittersweet end, Burns’ Florentine Films and PBS digitally remastered the series’ nine episodes and its assorted extra features from standard definition (SD) to the state-of-the-art Ultra-High Definition 4K format. This remastering project was carried out as a joint effort between Florentine Films and the George Eastman House, the repository where “The Civil War’s” original 16 mm negative

(C) 2015 Quirk Books and Lucasfilm Ltd.(Lucas Books) THREEPIO, THREEPIO, WHEREFORE ART THOU, THREEPIO? Join us, good gentles, for a merry reimagining of Star Wars: Episode I as only Shakespeare could have written it. The entire saga starts here, with a thrilling tale featuring a disguised queen, a young hero, and two fearless knights facing a hidden, vengeful enemy. ’Tis a true Shakespearean drama, filled with sword fights, soliloquies, and doomed romance . . . all in glorious iambic pentameter and coupled with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations. Hold on to your midi-chlorians: 
 The play’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the rise of Anakin! - From the dust jacket blurb, William Shakespeare’s The Phantom of Menace Star Wars. Since its premiere on May 25, 1977, the title of George Lucas’s space-fantasy set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” evokes futuristic images of speedy starships, flashing laser swords, and snappy dialogue written in modern Ame