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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."
What's the interest in Star Wars movies anyway? Star Wars in general mixes mostly Holy Roman Empire time with the arenas, races and idea behind jedi's with future living in space. We don't really live like that, do we? I don't personally understand the geeks fanware behind it either, it's more like soap opera in space. It would be interesting to see a James Bond like movie in space setting, because at least then
This spiritual tale of a knight on a strange quest was inspired by Christian's near-fatal fever when he fell ill in Mexico ...
That is oddly similar to the car crash that Lucas experienced shortly before graduating high school in his Autobianchi Bianchina on June 12, 1962. It was a bad wreck that I guess was highly improbable for him to survive. He was going to be a mechanic and race cars until that accident. He is also said to have conceived the idea for "the Force" as it would grow (by assimilation of aspects of some Eastern spiritual philosophies) into the "hokey religions and ancient weapons" of Star Wars. Proof that near death experiences have a very profound effect on people.
I'd provide a citation but I remember reading that off the back of a Topps Galaxy Star Wars card when I was a kid.
My work here is dung.
But do your other plans for the Black Angel story make you think twice about releasing it?
Do you know something? I'm wrestling with this. I was talking about it yesterday. I still get letters, still get emails, there are threads on the IMDB going on and on about it - people guessing the story and how much it affected their mindsbut I just wonder if I brought it out now, thirty years later
I haven't seen it in thirty years myself, but I wonder if its imitators have devalued it a little, the way seven years of The X-Files made Silence Of The Lambs look dated
Exactly.
It might look like a copy of the films and TV that it inspired, which have been in circulation ever since.
I assure you that I am quite capable of appreciating Kurosawa's Yojimbo and Sanjuro despite the fact that I had already seen Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy which massively borrows from them. I'm certain you were able to appreciate The Hidden Fortress after making the Star Wars Trilogy as well. So why do you doubt my ability to appreciate Black Angel?
... even if it's just a reason for people to brag that they've seen one of the original fantasy films ... even if it's just a chance for me to one up another person in conversation and promote my anti-social tendencies ... why wouldn't you release it in someway for the general public to digest in their homes?
I mean, if you choose not to release it then you have no intent to capitalize off of it and you should release it online via Veoh or YouTube or some video hosting site. Wouldn't the popularity and enjoyment from the film reward you in some way -- with it being your first film that you labored over?
I mean, even if it's just film snobs to appreciate it
My work here is dung.
"While James Cameron was on a trip to Italy he became very ill with high fever. One night he had a terrible nightmare about a huge robot with red-glowing eyes that was trying to kill him."
Adding Jar-Jar to the Executive Producer's Cut re-release was a huge mistake and totally ruined the film for me. Everything Lucas touches turns to crap! Stop raping my childhood!
/Never actually saw the film.
for another Star Wars film.
One word: marketing.
Yours In Astrakhan,
Kilgore Trout
In those days history was lost because of issues with physically duplicating things. Nowadays, it is being lost because we don't own the keys to the digital locks. Perhaps in twenty years we'll come to our senses and retroactively permit the breaking of today's encryption then - for what survived.
Shh.
I mean, if his _Battlefield Earth_ is anything to go by..
Also, did he hold the camera straight?
I saw TESB the first week it was in theaters (I think it was like day 5). I distinctly remember the theater, the standing in line wrapping around the building in downtown DC for like an hour, and I think I can even picture the interior of the theater, but I do not remember this film. Perhaps it was just too weird for me, but somehow I'd think that it would've been talked about amongst my friends and such.
So was this included with all prints, or just selected theaters in selected cities?
The movie to see was the one that (more or less) accompanied the original Star Wars in 1976 -- namely "Alice in Wonderland: An X-rated Musical Fantasy". By far the better movie, a great piece of art that should have been the one that bore 5 sequels.
Joss Whedon's new urban spin-off of Angel with Samuel L. Jackson as the vampire cursed with a soul... "Welcome to the Hellmouth," mother-fucker.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Okay, checking on IMDB it seems like this was only released in the UK and Canada. So my memory of, Christ, 30-year-old movie experiences, is not yet faulty.
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Allow me to be one of the many who will posit
ZOMG TORRENT PLZ
I saw TESB first night (at midnight, thank you) in Southern Maine, and I don't recall anything about this 'short'.
And I was checking the room, and had to stay to the first reel.
So where indeed was 'Black Angel' shown? Not out in the woods, I can tell ya.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Yeah, one of the more disappointing aspects of them canning the series was the fact that some story lines didn't get completely evolved, and Book was a great character.
I really don't know why shows like this do get canceled, when there is such utter derivative crap on TV - actually come to think of it almost everything I see on TV these days is utter derivative low-budget crap...
When they added all those other channels, the amount of money available for TV show production remained a constant I guess, so now instead of a few channels producing shows worth watching, we have hundreds of channels each producing piles of steaming shit for the masses on almost no budget.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
The picture I see from the link reads:
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That sure sounds dark and futuristic.. maiiseeqwell
so that he found a copy, where can we download it? :)
It's ROI.
Shows like Survivor, American Idol, and other "reality" shows garner huge ratings, big advert revenue, and supplementary streams with the $1-per-vote call-ins. They cost less than shows with CG and writing and make more. You can't sell against that.
Book's past wouldn't have ever been revealed. He gave up his past life and forgave himself. The guy he used to be was dead and there was no need to speak of him.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
A spiritual work set in the middle ages with amazing cinematography and music, Black Angel took the gritty medieval realism of Monty Python And The Holy Grail and returned it to its roots in Mallory, Tennyson and Kurosawa.
I don't know - here's the Holy Grail returned to another root....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luVjkTEIoJc
Space epic.... coincidence? I think not!
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
Finally, I find this by chance and find the name of the short film I've been trying to find out about for the last 30 years...
And it's not available to buy... *sigh*
See the "The Seven Ups" car scene.
IIRC it was directed by the same guy that directed the French Connection car scene.
The end when they ram into a parked 18-wheeler is especially stunning.
Otherwise, merely an OK movie. A passable C-.
Seven Ups was a 1973 Roy Scheider (Jaws, 2010, French Conneciton) film, and available on Netflix's VoD.
Book's past wouldn't have ever been revealed. He gave up his past life and forgave himself. The guy he used to be was dead and there was no need to speak of him.
Quite likely, you'd only be allowed to learn his past in a final series finale. But my question was not where did he come from, but where is he going.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Isn't there some law that says you have to put these kinds of films on YouTube? Anyway, there ought to be.
You cannot just announce that a really influential film was made and not put it on YouTube. That's unfair. It's like eating a chocolate bar in front of your friends and refusing to share it.
I am anarch of all I survey.
What I'd like them to unearth is the television series My Living Doll.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Before reading TFA, my first thought was that someone had finally made a movie of this most excellent short story. Oh well, I can hope.
Marco...that was Portugese.
Now where's my natalie portman and hot grits?
Now I have no idea if I am talking about the same movie, but when I was very small, my dad took me to see ESB (I was a SW nut at that point, being about 6 years old). The theatre that showed it was running two films one after another - and I remember being quite disappointed when we walked in - I briefly saw the end of the previous film (ESB, the starscape after Luke gets his hand repaired, Han buggers off in t'Falcon), then a pause and then... This incomprehensible short film about a knight in some dark woods - followed by the main event. I have no idea what that film was, but this sounds eerily like it. Possible?
10 PRINT "SCUNTHORPE"(2 TO 5): GO TO 10