Studios Prepare for Star Wars

Stephen Legge writes "Here's an article from the Toronto Globe&Mail about studios shuffling their spring line-up in anticipation of a chaotic Phantom Menance opening." Also worth noting, they've moved the release date from the 21st to the 19th. It still overlaps Linux Expo. Are we gonna rent a theater out or what?

Comments

Why Star Wars.

[AJWM]

For the youngsters here that don't remember life before Star Wars, some who wonder what the big deal is, let me take you back a bit. It was long long ago, in a galaxy far far away -- at least compared to today.

The first trailer appeared in late 76 or early 77. I don't remember the exact time, or even what the feature movie was, but I do remember seeing the trailer, and thinking "damn, I can't wait".
You have to remember that for us SF fans, things had been bleak for years. Star Trek had been off the air for years (except syndicated reruns some places), the Apollo program was long over with the first shuttle flight still years in the future, and cinematic SF had been a wasteland, with the high points, the high points, being the Nth sequels to Planet Of The Apes. There was no such thing as personal computers - there were a few, and expensive, "hobbyist computers" like the Altair, the SOL, possibly the Apple I. Most computer geeks (who were damned rare by comparison) programmed mainframes, as often as not using punched cards.

And into this cultural (ok, nerd culture) vacuum came Star Wars. The title "A New Hope" didn't show on the original film, but it was that to all of us nerdy SF, space, robotics, etc. fans who'd about given up on ever seeing again anything that lived up to "2001" or even - and this tells how desparate we were - the original Star Trek.

Sure, Star Wars was "scifi" (a somewhat derogatory term to true hardcore SF fans) what with the sounds in vacuum and aerodynamic manoeuvering of space vehicles, but that was OK, we also understood the need for popular dramatic appeal, and at least you didn't see the goddamn wires holding the spaceship models, and the robots didn't look like humans in cardboard boxes and heating duct. Heck, C3PO's design even paid homage to one of the classic SF films.

The release of subsequent episodes was nearly as exciting, but not quite the, revelation?, that the first was -- we had some idea what to expect, and we knew the characters. You youngsters that grew up with the Star Wars series on videotape don't, can't have the same appreciation.
Well, some of you perhaps do. The brief theatrical re-release of the (updated) originals a year ago may have damped some of the anticipation, but that aside it's been over two decades since theatrical release of a new Star Wars episode. And this one (with a couple of obvious exceptions) has all new characters, new worlds, and some new filmmaking technology. Still, it won't quite be the revolution the original was -- we haven't had the same dearth of scifi flicks in the last few years - the studios know now that you can make money on them if you're halfway serious about doing a good job. (Which still excludes some of the bombs we've seen).
But for us old geezers :-) who remember the first (I was barely out of college then), the prospect of a new Star Wars will always be something special.

Even if it is only a movie.

-- Al