A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Photo Credit: National Archives via US Navy   Hi there, Dear Reader. Well, today is Friday, September 18, 2020, and right now it is late afternoon in my corner of Florida. According to my phone’s AccuWeather app, it’s hot – Africa hot, as Eugene Jerome liked to say in Neil Simon’s Biloxi Blues. It’s mostly cloudy and the current temperature is 89 ˚ F, but with 62% humidity and a westerly breeze of 6 MPH, the feels-like temperatures are 95 ˚ F in the shade and 98 ˚ F in the open. Not as bad as yesterday, but it’s still summery rather than getting close to autumn. That’s what living in the subtropics entails, really; we are spared from the bone-chilling ice and snow of northern climes, but by the same token we need to live in houses and apartments with functioning air conditioners and endure the six months-long hurricane seasons. Photo illustration courtesy of Pixabay Today was a productive day, at least on the writing-blog-posts front. I actually wrote two posts in A Certain Point...

Hasbro's 100th 6-in. Star Wars: The Black Series figure is based on Luke Skywalker as he appears in the Throne Room medal ceremony on Yavin 4 at the end of "Star Wars: A New Hope." © 2019 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In 2019 ﹘ the year that marked the 42nd anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope and the release of the final Skywalker Saga film ﹘ Rhode Island-based Hasbro, Inc. rolled out a new wave of figures based not just on characters from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker but from other components of the franchise, including The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Rebels, and the original Star Wars film. Appropriately, the 100th figure in the Star Wars: The Black Series 6-inch scale collection is Luke Skywalker (Yavin Ceremony). It was released in a wave of figures that includes Jannah from The Rise of Skywalker, First Order Jet Trooper from the same film, and Cara Dune from The Mandalorian.  Hasbro's 100th figure in its Star Wars: The Black Series 6-inch co...

© 2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Six years ago, Pawtucket, RI-based Hasbro introduced its ongoing Black Series of licensed Star Wars- related action figures, vehicles, games, and other toys and collectibles that celebrate the characters and situations from Lucasfilm's space-fantasy saga set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Although the Black Series has followed Kenner and Hasbro's 41-year-old tradition of producing the 3.75-inch action figures that revolutionized movie-based merchandise for kids and adult collectors alike back in 1978, it also introduced larger and more detailed 6-inch scale action figures that feature more articulation points, accurate detailing, and photorealistic sculpts that make them resemble their onscreen counterparts more closely than ever. Since 2017, I've acquired a modest number of these larger figures. I don't plan to go out and collect them all; I don't have unlimited amounts of either display/s...

© 2017 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) Why was Luke Skywalker made to look so weak and cowardly in Star Wars: The Last Jedi and is it possible to bring him back? Luke Skywalker was neither weak nor cowardly in  Star Wars - Episode VIII: The Last Jedi.  Only those viewers who either don’t understand human nature or invested much of their devotion to the “lore” of the  Star Wars  Expanded Universe like to think that the Luke they see in  The Last Jedi  is a coward or weak. As a matter of fact, the old EU (now wisely called Legends) Luke Skywalker was  never portrayed in a way that was either believable or consistent . Only a few writers, including Hugo Award-winning Timothy Zahn, ever wrote stories or plot lines that showed Luke as a realistic character with human flaws or weaknesses. In those stories and specifically Zahn’s  Thrawn Trilogy,  EU Luke was so faithful to Original Trilogy Luke that I could hear actor Mark Hamill’s voice in my h...

In Star Wars could the “Chosen One” apply to all Skywalkers? No. The “Chosen One” that the old Jedi prophecy from  The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones,  and  Revenge of the Sith  refers to was, is, and always will be Anakin Skywalker. The messianic figure who we met as a young slave on Tatooine, saw grow up into a conflicted Jedi Knight, then turned to the Dark Side and became Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith was the realization of the Jedi Prophecy: " A Chosen One shall come, born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored. " That’s per the creator of the  Star Wars  Saga, writer-director George Lucas. In many interviews and - most importantly - the behind-the-scenes materials (featurettes, audio commentary tracks, making-of documentaries) in the DVDs and Blu-rays, Lucas does not veer away from this through-line:  Anakin, even after becoming Darth Vader, was still officially the Chosen One and not Lu...

Owen Lars, Luke Skywalker, and Beru Lars. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. In the original Star Wars films (before Return of the Jedi ) were there any clues given that Darth Vader was Luke's father? In  Star Wars  (aka  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ) there were no clues that Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith, was the father of either Luke Skywalker or Princess Leia Organa. All of the available evidence (story treatments, film outlines, internal memos, and various drafts of the screenplay) points to Vader being a separate and distinct individual from “Luke’s father.” Now, it’s possible, however unlikely, that  in his mind  George Lucas decided that Vader and Luke’s father were one and the same during principal photography, thus explaining why Uncle Owen is so reluctant to talk about the subject of his supposedly dead father and his connection to the mysterious “Obi-Wan Kenobi” in the dinner table scene in Act One of  Star Wars....

In the classic Hildenbrandt Bros. Star Wars poster, Luke's lightsaber is yellow. © 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In Quora, Sam Lee asks: I f Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber was green, how did it turn blue in Star Wars: The Force Awakens? My reply: It seems, my friend, that you need a little refresher course in  Star Wars  History 101. Recall, please, that Luke Skywalker used two lightsabers as a young Jedi-to-be in the Original  Star Wars  Trilogy ( Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back,  and  Return of the Jedi. The first lightsaber Luke possessed was originally his father Anakin’s; it was retrieved from the ashy ground of Mustafar by Obi-Wan Kenobi after his fateful first duel with the newly minted “Darth Vader,” the Sith identity Skywalker  pere  adopted when he was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. Obi-Wan kept his former Padawan’s “laser sword” hidden away for 19 years during his exile on Tatooine, waiting till Fate - or th...

What was known about Padme, Luke and Leia’s mother, prior to the release of the prequel trilogy? Before the run-up to  Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace’s  release in May of 1999? Certainly not much. And what little we  did  know was either wrong or was learned from tidbits in action figure packages in late 1998, when Hasbro added a  Flashback  line of  Star Wars  figures from the Classic Trilogy but with Lucasfilm-supplied nuggets of information about major characters from the upcoming film. For instance, a  Power of the Force  figure of Princess Leia Organa with  Flashback  packaging was my first inkling that Luke and Leia’s mother was Queen Amidala of Naboo and that Leia was not just royalty by adoption, but she was also royalty - of sorts - by heredity. Hasbro’s writer did not divulge the fact that on Naboo “royalty” was elected and wasn’t necessarily  hereditary,  but Lucasfilm kept a lot of pesky ...

Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. Packaging design ©2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) When I began to collect Star Wars action figures in 1978, I decided that I would not try to be a "completist" and stick to the small 3.75-inch scale figures that were all the rage when Kenner introduced them early that year. Even at the age of 15, I suspected that I'd never be able to afford every collectible Kenner produced, let alone every collectible made by all of the other licensees that belatedly jumped on board the Star Wars bandwagon in the late 1970s and early '80s. I couldn't afford it all, and even if I could, where would I store it? Over the years, my collection grew from two action figures (R2-D2 and C-3PO) and one vehicle (Luke's Landspeeder) to several hundred figures and at least 15 vehicles, most of them in the aforementioned 3.75-inch scale collections made by Kenner Toys and its eventual parent company and successor, Hasbro. And as toymaking tec...