The Lost Film That Accompanied Empire Strikes Back

An anonymous reader writes "'Alien' and 'Star Wars' art director Roger Christian was given £25,000 by George Lucas in 1979 to make a 25-minute medieval B-feature called 'Black Angel.' This spiritual tale of a knight on a strange quest was inspired by Christian's near-fatal fever when he fell ill in Mexico making 'Lucky Lady.' 'Black Angel' made a huge impression, not least because it shared the dark tone of 'Empire Strikes Back.' John Boorman showed it to the crew of 'Excalibur' as a template for how he wanted his film to look, and 'Black Angel' went on to influence films such as 'Dragonslayer' and 'Legend' throughout the 1980s and beyond. But it has not been seen by anyone since 'Empire' finished its theatrical run. Two weeks ago Roger Christian unearthed a print of a film that was thought lost forever, and in this interview he talks about 'Black Angel,' and provides the only picture from the film that has ever hit the Internet."

Comments

Re:Oh Just Release It to the Public Already!

[pthisis]

A better example might be people seeing the French Connection and complaining that the car chase is too much of a cliche in a cop movie. (When they aren't aware that the French Connection is the *reason* every cop movie made since has a car chase.)

I think Bullitt has more of a claim to fame as the *reason* every cop movie made has a car chase. Friedkin himself says that it was the Bullitt car chase that inspired him to try to outdo it in the French Connection.

Whether he succeeded in doing so is a matter approximately as well-settled as the question of emacs vs. vi.