A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation Ben Kenobi  and  Obi-Wan Kenobi  are the same individual. “Ben Kenobi” is an alias that the former Jedi Master and General of the Grand Army of the Republic adopted soon after arriving on Tatooine 19 years before the events depicted in  Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  Due to the fall of the Republic and the rise of Sheev Palpatine’s First Galactic Empire, the once-respected Obi-Wan must go into self-imposed exile on the desert planet of Tatooine and assume the role of a “crazy old hermit” to (a) keep an eye on Anakin Skywalker’s son, Luke, and to escape the attention of the Empire and its sinister agents, including Palpatine’s enforcer Darth Vader. Lucas, of course, is not trying very hard to keep that fact hidden from the audience. I mean, if his intention was to mislead anyone but the in-universe Luke Skywalker, he’d have picked an alias that didn’t include Kenobi’s surname. The ruse might fool, oh, I don’t know, a seven-year-old c

Publicity photo (a rare space battle one, at that) from 1977. © 1977 20th Century Fox Film Corporation As an original fan has the mainstreaming of  Star Wars  caused you to lose any passion for it? Star Wars  has always been a mainstream franchise. Always. From the day it was conceived as a fun, exciting, fit-for-the-whole-family space-fantasy by a 29-year-old filmmaker just off his first hit film,  American Graffiti,  to this very moment,  Star Wars  was never a small niche film meant to be seen as a “cult” hit aimed at a tiny percentage of the moviegoing audience in 1977. While it is true that George Lucas never imagined that his space-fantasy set “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” would be a huge blockbuster, he and his creative team set out to make a film that, in Lucas’ own words, would have the broadest, i.e. “mainstream,” audience appeal. I think that anyone who goes to the movies loves to have an emotional experience. It’s basic — whether you’re seven, s

Photo Credit and © 2018 Hasbro, Inc. and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  Hi, there, Dear Reader! It's Thursday, March 28, 2019, and it's a nice spring day in my corner of Florida. And, as you can see, it's time for another Star Wars action figure review. In this installment of A Certain Point of View, I'll be talking about the Star Wars Black Series 6-inch scale action figure based on Grand Moff Tarkin, the Governor of the Imperial Outlands and commander of the Galactic Empire's ultimate weapon - the Death Star. Released early last year as part of a consignment that included Death Star Trooper, Han Solo, Jawa, Range Trooper, and Lando Calrissian, Grand Moff Tarkin (Black Series figure #60) marked the debut as a 6-inch figure of the fearsome Imperial villain from Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope. Hasbro intended it as an April release to whet fans' appetite for Solo: A Star Wars Story and related merchandise, but many retailers put this wave of figures on store

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

When I first watched  Star Wars  at the age of 14, I thought Darth Vader was the main villain of the movie for maybe the first 30 minutes. In this scene, as well as all the others set aboard the  Tantive IV,  the guy in the black armor seemed to be in charge of the Imperial army. He gave orders, the scary-looking stormtroopers and the various officers deferred to him and called him “Lord Vader.” And younger  Star Wars  viewers thought  he  ran the entire Galactic Empire. Then I saw  this  scene and realized that Vader, while clearly a powerful Imperial leader, was assigned to  assist , not lord it over, Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, Governor of the Imperial Outland Regions and commander of the Death Star. Vader  could  give orders to field grade Imperial officers. And, even though the film never made this clear, he had an Imperial-class Star Destroyer (the  Devastator ) and its entire complement at his disposal. He could also intimidate Imperial admirals and generals with h

On Quora, Cameron McCall asks: Which came first, Star Trek or Star Wars?  Star Trek, or as it is known today, Star Trek: The Original Series, was created by ex-pilot, World War II veteran, L.A. Police Department police officer, and television writer Eugene Wesley Roddenberry in 1964, sold to Desilu around that time, and approved for a network run on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) in late 1965. It premiered (with The Man Trap ) on September 8, 1966 and ran on NBC for three seasons until its cancellation in March 1969. Star Wars began its long creative development as early as 1971, and by 1973 George Lucas, a graduate of the University of Southern California’s film school, had a first draft for a screenplay then titled The Star Wars. After shopping it around to the big studios, including Universal Pictures, he sold the script to 20th Century Fox after finally convincing Fox’s VP for Development Alan Ladd, Jr., who didn’t quite understand the story but nevertheless ha

© 1977 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation  Star Wars  (as the film originally was titled) underwent many story changes from 1973 (when George Lucas first had to come up with his own space fantasy after Universal Pictures denied him permission to make a film version of  Flash Gordon ) all the way to 1976 (which is when principal photography began). Lucas went through four drafts of the  Star Wars  script before filming began, and in most of them, Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi survived and escaped from the Death Star with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and R2-D2. Up until the fourth unrevised draft, Ben lived on and stood by Leia’s side in the Rebel base during the climactic Battle of Yavin. However, Lucas (and perhaps even Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the writers of the  American Graffiti  screenplay and uncredited script doctors for  Star Wars ) ,  realized that after having established that Obi-Wan was not only a veteran of the Clone Wars and a powerful

Cover art by Ernie Chan. (C) 1978 Marvel Comics and 20th Century Fox Film Corp.  Photo Credit: Wookieepedia I was 15 years old and still getting used to living in a new townhouse in a still-new development called East Wind Lake Village in unincorporated Dade County when I first saw a copy of Marvel Comics' Marvel Special Edition #3: Featuring Star Wars. Even 40 years later, I can recall with startling clarity walking into the neighborhood's Top Banana - a convenience store owned and operated by Miami-based Farm Stores, a company famous for its drive-thru convenience stores. This particular Top Banana was only a few blocks away from the new townhouse, and every so often Mom would ask me to walk there to buy a gallon of milk or a pint of Farm Stores ice cream. Like many convenience stores, the Top Banana at the Blue Grotto shopping plaza had a large magazine display stand next to the cashier station, and in addition to the usual mix of issues of Time, People, TV Guide, and

Cover art by Larry Rostant (C) 2015 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On March 3, 2015, Del Rey Books, the science fiction/fantasy imprint of Random House, published the hardcover edition of Kevin Hearne's Star Wars: Heir to the Jedi. Set shortly after the events of the 1977 movie Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope, Hearne's story focuses on the early adventures of a young Luke Skywalker in the aftermath of the Battle of Yavin and his decision to join the Rebel Alliance. Originally planned - in 2012 - as the third and final volume in an Expanded Universe (EU) trilogy titled Empire and Rebellion , it became a standalone canonical novel (one of four such works) after The Walt Disney Company-owned Lucasfilm and its Story Group declared that the EU was being relegated to "Legends" status and that all of the post-2014 novels would be part of the Star Wars canon. This means that Heir to the Jedi (the title is a tip of the hat to Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: Heir

(C) 2007 Del Rey Books/Random House  On Wednesday, May 25, 1977, 20th Century Fox released writer-director George Lucas's third feature film, Star Wars, with little fanfare and only in 32 theaters across the U.S. The studio had such low expectations for 'that science film" that it told many theater owners that they could only exhibit Fox's alleged shoo-in for box office success, The Other Side of Midnight, if they agreed to show Lucas's space-fantasy film about "a boy, a girl, and a universe."  Now, looking back across the gap of 41 years, it's hard to remember a time when Star Wars was not a part of our culture, much less the cornerstone of a multi-media franchise that includes three Saga trilogies, two CGI-animated TV series (with a third series, Star Wars Resistance ) on the way, and a series of stand-alone Anthology films that includes 2016's Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and this year's Solo: A Star Wars Story.    But until the s