A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Photo Credit: Nathan Patrick Butler. © 2012 Nathan Patrick Butler. Star Wars logos and content © 1977 Lucasfilm Ltd.  Pros:  Contains all three of NPR's  Star Wars  radio dramas; impressive presentation and nice extras Cons:  None A long time ago, in a bedrooom not very far away, I was a bored and somewhat restless teenager in one of those  I've done all my chores and my homework assignments for my high school classes, there's nothing good on TV, and I really don't have anything to do  moods that 18-year-olds without much of a social life often get into. At the time, I had a small black-and-white TV set and a radio in my room; VCRs were still very expensive and the only one I'd seen was at a friend's house, so watching a video was not an option. I also didn't yet have an Atari 2600 console...nor cable TV...and my friends didn't yet have cars, so my options for getting out of that feeling of "mindless tedium" were to read, li...

(C) 1987 Viking One of the things I like about Stephen King is his versatility as a storyteller. Yes, he focuses on horror and the supernatural -- telekinetic teenagers, vampires, creatures from other dimensions and even a really "killer" flu -- and is therefore not considered to be a "serious" writer. However, considering the vast output of King books and his longevity as a bestselling author, if nearly 45 years of novels, short story collections, screenplays, original teleplays and a loyal fan base doesn't make him a serious writer, I don't know what would.  I used to buy each new King novel either in paperback or, when I could afford it, in hardcover. Gradually my tastes shifted to military fiction by Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts and Harold Coyle, but I never stopped liking King's books.  One of my favorites is his 1987 excursion into fantasy, The Eyes of the Dragon . Essentially a story for younger readers -- aimed at kids 12 and up -- and beau...

(C) 2002 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Pros:  Nice detailing, good sculpt, and packaging lends itself for collecting Cons:  May be too scene-specific; available mostly online. Character Background:  Just as Darth Vader's Nazi-like helmet, skull-like breath mask and black armor-and-cape outfit indelibly branded him as the face of the Galactic Empire's evil in the Classic  Star Wars  Trilogy, Darth Maul, the seven-horned, red-and-black tattooes Iridonian Zabrak apprentice to future Emperor Palpatine's Sith alter ego Darth Sidious, was supposed to be the incarnation of Hate itself in  Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace. If one watches the Prequel Trilogy carefully just for thematic purposes, it becomes evident that Maul personifies one of the three aspects of Anakin Skywalker's transformation from earnest but troubled Jedi Knight to Sith Lord: anger and hate. (Count Dooku, of course, represents Anakin's ambition and the fact that a...

(C) 2014 LucasBooks and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Cover art by Tom Jung In 1991, Bantam Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. reinvigorated interest in the  Star Wars  universe (well, galaxy) by gathering a diverse group of noted science fiction writers and starting an ongoing series of novels set in the time period which follows  Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi .  Timothy Zahn's  Heir to the Empire , the first volume of a three-book cycle, was almost an instant phenomenon when it was published in hardcover. With its depiction of the continuing battle between what is left of the Galactic Empire and the fledgling New Republic, this novel cleverly mixes the characters from the Classic Trilogy with a cast of newly created heroes and villains, some of whom will make appearances in other authors'  Star Wars  Expanded Universe works.  As  Heir to the Empire  begins, the New Republic has been engaged in a five-year long campaign to mop up the remnan...

Pros: Good, if sometimes flawed, visuals; nice mix of sound and image; not kid stuff Cons: Slow-paced; no stereotypical space battles; no easily-interpreted ending It's hard to believe that 50 years have passed since Metro Goldwyn Mayer released director Stanley Kubrick's enigmatic-yet-somehow-captivating science fiction classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a serious (if not very prophetic) look at a future that could have been but wasn't. Conceived by Kubrick and the renowned science fiction author (and inventor) Arthur C. Clarke as the "proverbial good science fiction movie" in 1964 and involving a long production process that lasted nearly three years, 2001 tackles several Big Topics, including the notion that human evolution may have been given a boost by extraterrestrial intelligence, the dangers of mixing national security interests with scientific exploration, and the strange double-edged sword of humanity's dependence on technology (a them...

Pros: Nice views of Squaw Valley and naked actresses Cons: Bad, predictable script. If you came of age - or were the parent of a teenager - between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, you probably remember the romantic-comedy sub-genre known as the "Horny Teens Movies."   These were usually low-budget projects that married bare-bones plots centering on sports, cars, or any other male-oriented activity with a story which provided a bevy of hot-looking young women to shed their clothes and grant all kinds of erotic favors to even the nerdiest of the men. Most of these "Horny Teens Movies" were variations of themes explored in such efforts as Private Lessons, Meatballs, Porky's, and My Tutor, in which guys - most of them virgins and labeled by the hot chicks as "nice" or "nerdy"   - simply had one goal in mind: to get laid. Written by Mike Marvin and directed by Peter Markle (Bat 21), Hot Dog...The Movie is a...

(C) 1998 Del Rey/Ballantine Books and Lucasfilm, Ltd. (LFL) Pros:  Contains the entire screenplay by Kasdan and Lucas; storyboards are included Cons:  None. Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE has begun construction on a new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star. When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of Rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy.... -- Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas, Return of the Jedi When George Lucas set out to create a youth-oriented "modern myth" set "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" in the mid-1970s, his first script was so large that he had to break it down into three smaller 120-page screenplays. No, they weren't fully fleshed ...