A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Photo Credit: Hasbro, Inc. © 2017 Hasbro and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In the Spring of 2018, even weeks before its scheduled April 13 rollout, many retailers began selling Death Star Trooper, the 60th figure in Hasbro's Star Wars: The Black Series collection of 6-inch scale action figures. Based on the black-garbed Imperial personnel assigned to serve aboard the original Death Star seen in 1977's Star Wars (aka Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope ), Death Star Trooper is a well-made repainted version of 2017's 40th Anniversary figure, Death Squad Commander and was part of a The Black Series wave that included Jawa, Han Solo, Grand Moff Tarkin, Range Trooper, and Lando Calrissian.  Two Death Star Troopers guard the conference room in the Empire's original planet-killing battle station in this scene from Star Wars: A New Hope. © 1977  20th Century Fox Film Corp.  In the original Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983), the black-clad Imperial troopers are seen primarily a...

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...

Star Wars: The Black Series #69 Rebel Trooper. © 2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  In February 2018, Hasbro unveiled three new figures from its Star Wars: The Black Series collection at its showroom in the International Toy Fair , which was held in New York City at the Jacob K. Javitz Convention Center. Based on characters from Solo: A Star Wars Story, Star Wars: A New Hope , and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back , the trio was made up of #68 Tobias Beckett #69 Rebel Trooper #70 Han Solo (Bespin) The six-inch scale figures hit shelves in both online and brick-and-mortar stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico that July, joining the growing number of the coveted Black Series collectibles introduced by Hasbro in 2015, the same year that saw the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens . What's In the Package?  Recently I decided to splurge on a few Star Wars figures of The Black Series collection; in addition to Emperor Palpatine and ...

© 2019 Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)   On September 22, three months before the theatrical premiere of Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, Buena Vista Home Entertainment reissued the Blu-ray editions of all of the 10 live-action Star Wars feature films released by both 20th Century Fox and Walt Disney Motion Pictures since May 1977.  This re-issue, the first since The Walt Disney Company acquired 20th Century Fox earlier in 2019, includes all of the Skywalker Saga films, as well as Lucasfilm's Star Wars Anthology entries, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Solo: A Star Wars Story.  Promotional photo showing the new packaging for the "Multi-Screen" 2019 re-issue. Note that The Force Awakens Blu-ray is placed with the Prequel Trilogy, and that the two Star Wars Story standalone films are not pictured. ©2019 Buena Vista Home Entertainment and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) In the video trade, this re-issue is dubbed the Multi-Screen ed...

On Quora, Mike Austin asks: Why has Disney-owned Lucasfilm focused so much attention towards the time before Star Wars: Episode IV with all of their spin-off material? And here's my reply:  That’s not entirely accurate. But we’ll get to that in a bit. I’m not an employee at Lucasfilm Ltd., the folks at the creative end, nor am I privy to the corporate doings at The Walt Disney Company (other than those that we know about from reports in the media). Thus, any answer I give is purely speculative, though it’s based on observation of how the franchise has evolved since 1977. I think that Lucasfilm has chosen to focus on the period that leads up to the Galactic Civil War and the Battle of Yavin because, for many fans, that is  Star Wars.  The Rebel Alliance’s conflict against Emperor Palpatine’s New Order is what the Generation of 1977 grew up/grew old with, and even though the non-canonical Expanded Universe told one possible version of the aftermath of the E...

Poster art by Greg and Tim Hildebrandt. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  On Quora, member Kisty Arant asks: How did George Lucas finance a big-budget movie like Star Wars when he’d only directed two movies previously? George Lucas did not self-finance 1977’s  Star Wars.  He had to get a major studio to put up the money in order for Lucasfilm Ltd. to make the film, and it was no easy task. First of all, while Lucas had helmed two feature-length films ( THX-1138  for Warner Bros. and  American Graffiti  for Universal), only one was a box office smash. Second, even Universal’s Ned Tanen, who appreciated the success of 1973’s  American Graffiti,  was reluctant to invest the studio’s money into such an iffy proposition as a space fantasy film aimed at young people. In the 1970s, American moviegoers tended to eschew escapist fare in favor of more gritty and realistic films. Furthermore, science fiction and fantasy films tended to cater t...

1977 poster promoting Star Wars. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation On Quora, Marielle Jenna asks: What is the name of the first Star Wars movie of the Original Trilogy? My reply: Officially,   the name of the first  Star Wars  movie of the Original Trilogy is  Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. Originally, though, 20th Century Fox released writer-director George Lucas’s now-iconic space fantasy adventure on May 25, 1977 as  Star Wars. The studio, which financed, marketed, and released the film (indeed, owning the rights in perpetuity, although that’s now a moot point since The Walt Disney Company now owns Fox  and  Lucasfilm) allegedly refused to allow Lucas to include the  Episode IV: A New Hope  subtitle in the main titles sequence. Per Lucas’s account in the director’s commentary, Fox executives feared that audiences would be put off by seeing an “Episode IV” subtitle at a time when no other  Star Wars  ...

On May 19, 1980, fans saw the first use of the numbered episode/subtitle format in a Star Wars Saga film. By then, Lucasfilm had already decided to rename the original 1977  Star Wars film as Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope, but the new title would not be seen on screen until 1981. © 1980 Lucasfilm Ltd.  On Quora, Henry Hunter recently asked: When did the Original Trilogy of Star Wars movies adopt the Episode IV, V and VI subtitles? Was this met with confusion at the time? My reply: In November 1979, Ballantine Books published the original edition of The Art of Star Wars. In Part One: The Script, readers discovered the new Episode number and subtitle scheme for the first time. I remember buying this book a few weeks after seeing The Empire Strikes Back. Oddly enough, even though I went to bookstores as often as I could as a teenager, I did not see any copies of Titelman's book in stores until the Summer of 1980.  © 1979 Ballantine Books and Lucasfilm Ltd...

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....