Star Score

Hearing John William's music score for Star Wars live "surrounds us, penetrates us and binds the galaxy together"

I may have waited half a year for this birthday gift from my wonderful wife, but it was more than worth it. Saturday, August 3, saw the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s live performance of the Star Wars soundtrack in Christchurch, accompanying the film projected on a gigantic screen above them. (Yes, I know Lucasfilm marketing long ago demanded we call the film 'A New Hope', but it was just Star Wars when I first saw it, and forever will be to me.)

A very long and snow-plagued drive saw us arrive too late for a photo opportunity with Lord Vader or Chewbacca at the venue, choosing instead to order much-needed food and a glass of wine. Oh how age and maturity changes one’s priorities in life…

Wookiee and Sith Lord console each other over their missed
chance of a photo opportunity with Rose

Back in 1977 (the year of Star Wars) my greatest Christmas gift ever was the The Story of Star Wars album on audio cassette. Essentially the abridged audio track from the film, with rich, deep linking narration by Roscoe Lee Brown , I literally played this so many times the recording completely wore off the tape. So not only is all the film’s dialogue indelibly imprinted on my nerdy brain - but every musical cue as well. Every nuance, phrase, reprise and theme - and if this live performance varied even the tiniest bit I would notice. 

See - it's not called "The Story of A New Hope" is it?
(thank goodness)

 
Not that I feel in any way entitled to pass judgement on the NZSO, or believe that anyone else should give a Wookiee’s hoot about my opinion - but I just literally wouldn’t be able to help it.

I needn’t have worried. From the opening 20th Century fox fanfare to the last fading note of the end credits theme, the NZSO were outstanding. I might have been able to detect a tiny difference in the sound of some horn sections but otherwise it was utterly perfect. Rose, (who’s had this film inflicted upon her many times), said she could completely forget the music was being played live, and was hearing the original recorded soundtrack. Not being even remotely musical, the sheer genius of coordinating a large orchestra to perform in perfect synchronisation with the live screening of a film just staggers me. 

People forget how genuinely funny, and brave, Threepio was in this film.
He got the biggest laughs of the night, and later offers to 'gladly donate'
his own circuits to save Artoo Detoo. (image: newlyswissed.com)

In terms of the music itself - sure, The Empire Strikes Back has the foot-stomping Imperial March. But Star Wars introduces possibly the world’s most recognisable title music, Luke, Leia and Ben’s themes and the stirring medal ceremony fanfare at the film’s conclusion. It also features my own favourite musical section, the almost staccato ’Tie Fighter Attack’ theme. Swelling from the gently ‘see sawing’ strings as Luke and Han climb into the Falcon’s gun turrets, to the full-blown horns heralding the imperial fighters all-guns-blazing appearance, it is pure musical adrenaline.  And perfectly compliments the frantic cutting and pacing of this sequence, which helped set Star Wars apart from anything ever seen before. (The clip was heavily used in the film’s original promotion). It must be hell to play - and is brilliantly analysed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOV0KmLoLiQ

The final Death Star battle famously sees composer John Williams repeatedly flick his character motifs back and forth, from Luke, to Ben, to Vader - once again, surely not easy for even a national orchestra. And to actually see the ominously booming kettle drums played live as Tarkin gives his final “You may fire when ready” was yet another special moment for me.

Yes, I may at times have shed silent tears in the dark , like a sad old geek who’s spent too much of his life watching this film. But isn’t that kind of response the measure of any truely great live performance of much-loved music?

Tarkin it to the limit

This year has brought disbelief in many ways - but I never thought we’d reach Christmas 2016 with Peter Cushing trending on social media.

Seasons greetings, and apologies to anyone who actually does look in on this blog. I have been criminally neglectful of poor Phasmatodea, (3 years old this past October) in recent months.

Apart from ever-increasing work commitments (which is never an excuse) I have been commissioned to write a book.  Or more accurately, write, research, design, illustrate and lay out a book, which is obviously going to absorb my spare time until delivery date mid-next year.

I will post about it in more detail later, but in many ways it’s a culmination of what keeping this blog has prepared me for - trying to find new ways to discuss and analyse genre films which I’m passionate about. For now, I’ll simply state that the subject ties-in peripherally with the main topic of this entry. Let’s just say it’s going to be 'Hammer Time'...

Now back to this post. Since the ‘House of Mouse’’s acquisition of Star Wars in 2012 we’ve been promised a visit to a galaxy far, far away every year. And this December we got a ‘side-ways’ addition to the saga which I have to confess I never had high hopes for.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’s trailers seemed to offer a collection of cold and unappealing characters, and Director Gareth Edward’s last big budget film, Godzilla, actually made me think more fondly of the 1998 Roland Emmerich version.

I reluctantly predicted Rogue One would be an unsuccessful experiment in offering something new, outside the main Star Wars storyline., News of extensive studio-instigated reshoots made me think this might even damage the brand more than the prequels did.

The one thing which did keep my interest was the possibility of seeing one of my favourite characters, and actors, return to the screen - the late Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin.

"...and I want proper images, instead of these screen caps, released immediately!"

Although initial, and to me very exciting, talk of a computer generated Peter Cushing seemed to go quiet, I kept hoping. Given the film’s setting immediately prior to Star Wars episode 4: A New Hope, I couldn’t see how Tarkin couldn’t be at least referenced. I cautiously expected that we might see a cutaway shot, (maybe manipulated unused footage from 1977), and perhaps a significant sound-alike line delivered. Glimpsed on a view screen or as a flickering hologram, something like that. Then no matter how bad the film was, I’d be happy.

The one thing I had never expected was that Tarkin would get more screen time and lines in Rogue One than when Cushing was alive…

The character has been posthumously represented for many years...

I’d never gone to a Star Wars film with low expectations before, and I left with my face aching from continuously grinning like a loon through most of the final hour. Let’s be clear, the first half is a little turgid and choppy, but the second is sheer TIE Fighter fuel. In its final act Rogue One felt to me like the most 'Star Wars-y' film since 1977, and unlike last year’s the The Force Awakens, the audience applauded at the end.

As far as Tarkin is concerned, it seems that those in the audience not in the know either don’t notice or wonder why this character was computer generated, while OCD Star Wars nerds either applaud the technical advancement or moan about video game rendering. And although some Cushing fans question the morality of digital resurrection, most seem rapturous over this respectful interpretation.

(Left to right) Tarkin from the Rebels animated series, Guy Henry, Tarkin from Rogue One and Peter Cushing from Star Wars: A New Hope.

My own expectations for the appearance of Tarkin were tempered - I knew it could never be perfect. Cushing was a tall man for his times but the actor who performed the role and wore later ‘wore’ the pixels; Guy Henry, is a good 3-4 inches taller. Cushing was also a master of ‘eye acting’, knowing how to use available light to make his pale blue gaze steely or compassionate where required - whereas in Rogue One the environment dictates that the Grand Moff’s eyes are more often in shadow.

But the biggest adjustment for me was not the visual, but the audio - because nobody else sounds like Peter Cushing.

It’s been said that in casting he and Alec Guinness in Star Wars, George Lucas inadvertently brought the best diction in the acting profession to his galaxy far, far away.  

Peter Cushing overcame a serious dental issue and his south counties accent to develop a cut glass voice which somehow found more syllables in words than anyone else suspected ever existed, decisively clipping them only after every vowel and consonant had been properly honoured. And he could roll those r-r-r-rs like no-one else not from Scotland can.

That being said, Tarkin’s most famous line, (beautifully honoured in Rogue One) urbanely draws the first word out without finishing it: “You may fa-h-h when ready.”

As far as Henry’s delivery is concerned, in fairness perhaps a slavish impersonation of Cushing would only sound like mimicry rather than a performance.

Wayne Pygram's makeup as a younger Tarkin in the closing moments of
Revenge of the Sith, (2005), was best seen from a distance.

Personally, I am delighted with the result and find it mind-boggling that when a digital recreation was finally attempted as a significant and sustained performance in a major film, it was done so with my favourite actor.

Last years The Force Awakens felt like an early Christmas present, But the last act of Rogue One makes you feel like a Star Wars fan finding everything you’ve ever wanted under the tree.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

"I cast him the first moment I met him.
There was no doubt in my mind that Peter Cushing was perfect for the role of the
sinister Grand Moff Tarkin... he was not only a very talented actor, but he even
looked the role – exactly what I imagined Tarkin to be."
George Lucas

May the Scores be with you

Happy Star Wars day - here’s a tune which made Williams...

Much is made of the fact that the Star Wars orchestral film score was a massive hit, despite rubbing shoulders with Donna Summer and the Village People beneath a Death Star glitter ball at the height of disco.
Embryonic Star Wars geeks allowed to stay up late to watch the 1978 Oscars, as I was, were rewarded with this glorious affirmation - when ‘John met John’.

But perhaps it’s sometimes forgotten that record producer and musician Meco (Domenico) Monardo also took a disco-fied version of the Star Wars theme to the very top of the US Billboard charts for two weeks in 1977.

It spent a lot of time on the New Zealand charts, which made friends and I very happy, because that meant it featured on weekly music chart programme Ready to Roll.

We could just about wrap our heads around the idea that this wasn’t the genuine Star Wars theme, but a pop-orchestral knock-off which, despite sounding a little like ‘Born Free’, went down a storm at lunchtime discos.

But what was even weirder was the fact that Ready to Roll often presented us with a completely different version again. It appeared to be a quartet of middle-aged brass musicians possibly bringing a hint of jazz to the proceedings. But what made this unbearably awesome for us all was the generous intercutting with that ubiquitous pre-release teaser (the film was still a good six months from these shores) - footage of the Millennium Falcon’s escape from the Death Star.

As dearly as I’d love to track down this ‘music video’ I haven’t met with any success.

But I did find the following clip, which gives some idea of Ready to Roll’s own Oomph dancers, when they choreographed something similar back in 1977. No, don’t thank me, really...

Back in Force

It’s a poignant experience revisiting childhood friends to find them older and greyer, but still very able to pick up again where you last left off.

WARNING: Mild spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens follow
— read responsibly, or see the film first

<Mild spoiler warning>

This film did not leave me with the instant buzz of euphoria which Star Wars (A New Hope) did back in 1977. 

And I’m not alone, given the somewhat muted applause which The Force Awakens end credits received in a cinema packed with costumed Star Wars fans.

What I am still processing, a mere six hours later, is more complex and reminiscent of the first sequel back in 1980. It’s a mixture of the joy of seeing beloved characters again and meeting exciting new ones, the kinetic thrills crafted by a skilled, fully invested director armed with technology pushed to it’s limits, and the sting in the tail which The Empire Strikes Back delivered. 
But this time the resolution is punctuated with an implacable exclamation point, rather than a hopeful question mark.

What at times seemed a playful and almost self-knowing reworking of the beats of the first film, a droid carrying an important message, a gifted youth propelled from a backwater planet into a galactic conflict, a masked villain and a vast super-weapon with an Achilles heel, is transformed by this plot turn into far more profound drama.

But despite the spoiler warning I won’t dwell on the end of the film (I went in with no idea what was going to happen and I sincerely wish everyone else can too) but focus instead on the new hope which The Force Awakens brings.

Our new characters Rey, Finn and BB8.

The new characters are instantly watchable, particularly Daisy Ridley as Rey, who not only brings balance to the woefully male-centric Star Wars universe but also gives budding young female Jedi viewers a very capable and competent role model.  Ridley is a very welcome addition to the pantheon.

But the biggest delight, and recipient of the loudest applause, was the heart of the original trilogy. Weathered, but still instantly recognisable and more than capable of carrying the film’s most exciting scenes: The Millennium Falcon.

Still evading TIE fighters, most of the Falcons scenes are in broad daylight
and pretty damn spectacular.

Harrison Ford returning as Han Solo is wonderful in itself, but I was unprepared for how large a role he actually plays, still cracking the best lines from the corner of his mouth and regularly demonstrating the total inadequacy of storm trooper armour against “a good blaster by your side”.

Best of all for me was the depiction of the character.  Rather than settling down to become a responsible leader of the republic and devoted husband to Leia, as the plethora of post-Return of the Jedi novels always assumed, instead we find him returned to his original smuggler’s life: reckless, up to his neck in self-inflicted trouble and desperately improvising his way out of one tight spot to the next with a certain faithful Wookie by his side.

Despite the white hair, this is Han doing what he’s always done, because at the core of his character he will never change — He’ll never grow up and we fans probably won’t either.

Humour is a welcome factor in this film — breezy, wittily delivered lines ‘pop’ as they should, and even Threepio is allowed to be genuinely funny.  Incredibly, even our new masked villain is responsible for a couple of the most amusing sequences. He is a ‘Vader wannabe’ in every sense, and knows it.

And this brings me to one gripe.  Max Von Sydow is briefly in this film, a consummate veteran actor with serious science fiction villain form.  But instead, our ‘big bad’ is flippin’ Andy Serkis with spots on his face, bringing another artificial-looking pile of pixels to unconvincing life.  

It is even more disappointing given JJ Abrams’ stated preference to use practical character effects whenever possible.  However, this is mitigated slightly by the fact that we do have a convincing and endearing CGI character elsewhere in this film.

Old meets new behind the scenes of this photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

But the rest of The Force Awakens fairly glows with the love, attention and respect for the original trilogy heaped upon it.  I knew this would be the case when I saw the last sentence of the traditional justified-text introductory crawl ending with a grammar-busting four ellipses, followed by the downward pan to a nearby planet and the rumbling entrance of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

"freedom to the galaxy, dot, dot, dot - and dot."

So we’ve had the best ‘the greatest hits album’ ever as an early Christmas present, and now the next films are tasked with showing us exciting new things which can be done in the Star Wars universe.

The Stormtroopers are actually precise shots in this film - but so is Chewie.

The Force Awakens is a film I thoroughly enjoyed a few hours ago, but which I know I will love when I see it again.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 Death Stars

Count to the end

The last great horror star has died, and with him the modern world's final living link to a magical cinematic past.

Sir Christopher Lee's career is measured in numbers of decades, not years... and his films literally in hundreds. With a career so vast, it's a mistake to try and review it before attempting to write about what his passing means  - the facts, dates, accolades and achievements can drown you.  Even I, who have his autobiography and own documentaries about his career, have been bombarded today by new insights into his life and work which I never knew.

I recently finished reviewing all of Lee's Hammer Dracula films on this blog, and in my heart he'll always be the lean and thirsty Count. But it made me smile today to hear the younger people I work with talking about Saruman and even Dooku  - they all know Christopher Lee, but a different aspect to me.

In actual fact, I also came to his films when his Hammer days were behind him, and to me Christopher Lee was triple-nippled Scaramanga, the sinister Nazi in 1941, Cardinal Richelieu in the Musketeers films...  I knew he was Dracula of course, I believe my mother might have unnecessarily reminded me of the fact every time he appeared on screen, but it took a long time before I saw his unforgettable interpretation for myself (thank you yet again TV2 and the Sunday Horrors).

But he brought infinitely more to British screen, before leaving for American shores in the mid seventies.  The genially implacable Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man, Mycroft Holmes in Billy Wilder's stab at the canon of Conan Doyle, and the entire back catalogue of screen monsters from Frankenstein's creature, to the Mummy to Mr Hyde (sort of).  He gave each interpretation so much more than the films often deserved , a quality he shared with his friend Peter Cushing.

International directors who'd grown up on his films gave Lee his unexpected late resurgence - Joe Dante, Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton cast him in memorable cameos, while George Lucas and Peter Jackson elevated him once again to super-villain status.

I smiled when I read an interview with Samuel L Jackson who shares a brief scene with Lee in the second Star Wars prequel.  He admits to being star struck, barely able to get his line out because of an impulse to break into a grin and exclaim "How you doin' , Mr Lee?"

There's surely nothing more tragic than a middle -aged horror fan fighting an unswallow-able lump in his throat and oddly prickly tear ducts over the passing of a 93 year old actor he's never met.  But I've spent many, many happy hours in Christopher Lee's company (although he never knew it, of course), and like the hordes of mourners all over the world today, I feel his loss acutely.

 I watched a documentary recently, where the man himself takes us on  guided tour through some of his own film memorabilia, and recounts anecdotes about each.  The last items he shares are two framed photographs: in each he is laughing in the company of a very special friend. He only gives their first names; Vincent and Peter, and talks about how much he misses them.

Sir Christopher, thank you for all the thrills and chills - and I know the three of you are enjoying  a wonderful reunion.

Chris, Vincent and Peter with John Carradine (bottom left).

The Art of Wars

At last, I've remembered to post about Star Wars on May 4th. The film of course debuted on May 25, 1977 but the pun is too fourthful to resist, making today the official commemoration.

At the height of Star Wars fever, the wall facing my bed looked something like this.

And while suffering the height of glandular fever in 1978 there was little I could do but stare at these three posters between bouts of sleep and vomiting. In fact, I often had a ghostly negative after-image of Darth Vader flitting about in my vision when it didn't hurt too much to move my eyes. The robots poster is of course an enlarged still from the movie's opening moments. Owning this long before I ever saw the film, I experienced an almost audible click of recognition when Threepio struck that pose for a second as he hears the main reactors shut down. Suddenly I wasn't looking at a cinema screen but, weirdly, my bedroom wall along with hundreds of strangers.
But it was the centre poster which has quite rightly assumed iconic status, it's painterly magnificence long outlasting publicity shoots and movie stills, and even transcending the film itself to become an emblem of the 1970s.

Odd really, as Star Wars is so much about clean metallic lines and sharp-edged, high contrast design, that an artistic impression devoid of accurate likenesses or genuine scenario embodies that first film like nothing else.
Odder still when you consider that this art, painted by the brothers Hildebrandt, wasn't even used as the cinema poster. In America, it was this image by Tom Jung (which the Hildebrandts used as their reference).

And Britain used this piece by Hammer poster stalwart Tom Chantrell, (which is possibly why it features Peter Cushing). And it is utterly magnificent for completely different reasons.

The Hildebrandt art was instead used widely on merchandise from T-Shirts to Clarke's shoes to an art print and the public quickly recognised what the studios had not. It might not have been in cinema lobbies but was hanging in bedrooms everywhere and became, then and forever more, the definitive Star Wars poster.

In the panic and anxiety leading up to Star Wars' release in 1977, Lucasfilm apparently decided that the Jung artwork (with its snarling Vader) was 'too dark' and so Fox hired fantasy artists Tim and Greg Hildebrandt, to paint their own interpretation. But they evidently didn't think to provide them with reference of Carrie Fisher or Mark Hamill.
The Hildebrandts were twin artists with painting styles so similar that promotional material of the time suggests that they each painted one side of the resulting poster. Greg Hildebrandt recalls:
“The reason they called us is because Tim and I had just done the Lord of the Rings calendar, and we had a fan following. We had come through literally overnight for them on a poster for Young Frankenstein. It wasn’t used, but we did it overnight, so they called us and said we need a poster fast.”
The Hildebrandt's created their original painting in just 36 hours, but revealed a last minute amendment at the director's bequest: "George Lucas asked for the droids to be added and for our signatures to be larger. We made those changes at the ad agency, and off it went!”

Where are the droids you're looking for?

Although the finished poster wasn't used in US cinemas,  Japan, Norway and Israel merged accurate likenesses of Fisher and Hamill with the Hildebrandt art in their own campaigns. However, Tim and Greg eventually had their day fifteen years later when their painting was finally used in theatres to promote a Star Wars anniversary re-release.

And for many of us, there will always be an alternative Star Wars universe where the rebel attack on the Death Star was launched from Tatooine, Luke spent a lot of time at the gym and Leia's dress sported a most unPrincess-like split right up to her royal navel.

Happy Star Wars day!

Bargain beyond the Stars

Some claim that Star Wars got its blend of genres exactly right - but what would the result have been with half the money and twice the ingredients to mix?

This post is synced with:
Cayman of the Lambda Zone: http://jamasenright.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/that-7-samurai-movie-in-space-you.html
Space Cowboy: http://jetsimian.blogspot.co.nz/2015/04/fakes-seven.html

The legendary Roger Corman was responsible for classy and opulent Edgar Allan Poe adaptations, and also some of the schlockiest exploitation cinema ever produced by AIP studios.  So when he jumped on the Star Wars band wagon (a little belatedly) back in 1981 with Battle Beyond the Stars, some wondered which result we were going to get.

Looking back now, I'd conclude the answer is both. A science fiction adaptation of the Seven Samurai/ Magnificent 7 is an obvious but sure-fire concept which would be far more difficult to fail with than extract fun from. Getting composer James Horner to bring one of his back-up Star Trek movie themes with him certainly doesn't hurt, and neither did employing someone called James Cameron to direct the rather brilliant miniature effects (I wonder whatever became of him?) Bringing Robert Vaughn in to reprise his performance from the Magnificent 7, and Sam Jaffe for a cameo also adds lustre.

One of Battle Beyond the Star's more subtle homages.

So much for the aspirations towards worthy artistic endeavour - now for the cheese board:
When George Lucas took almost every staple of the fantasy and pulp adventure genre for Star Wars, some were surprised that he totally ignored a critical element. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Alex Raymond brought us many a scantily clad space heroine - George gave us a snitty tomboy clad from neck to ankle in a virginal white cassock.

Ride of The Valkyries - St Exmin racks up another kill

Roger Corman bless him, was having none of this and brought us a Teutonic Goddess in the unforgettable shape of Sybil Danning as St Exmin - showing us that, contrary to popular opinion, apparently it isn't very cold in space. The shock waves from her devastating impact upon our then-developing libidos can still be felt today. There's a joy to watching Danning so clearly aware of exactly what she is bringing to the mix and gleefully working it for all she's worth.

Sorry?  I haven't seen anything until I've seen a Valkyrie do what..?!

Moving on, when Corman did adhere to the Star Wars formula he came somewhat unstuck.  Luke Skywalker was a farm boy, wasn't he?  Well lets get a 'real' one for our film: John-Boy Walton! Han Solo was kind of a space cowboy - lets call our one...ummm... 'Space Cowboy'. That Force pseudo-mysticism seemed to go down well - lets make our's even more incomprehensible - and have a xylophone which causes landslides!

George Peppard brings flossing to the peoples of the galaxy

Battle Beyond the Stars is an oddly schizophrenic film: In the space of seconds it moves from a wonderful performance or beautifully shot miniature effect, to a Sid and Marty Kroft set with drapery sale costumes.  Director Jimmy Murakami can inject real excitement into a battle scene, but then seem to deliberately work against the intent of a light exchange between characters or comedy relief sequence.

Gestalt being Nestor enjoys a hotdog in one of the film's cleverer scenes.

But is it fun?  Hell yes.  Dodgy main villain Sador only wanted to live forever - but against all odds this film just might.

"Lazuliii!!" - We used to shrill Cayman of the Lambda zone's battle cry
when plunging from the high board of our town pool.
No-one we knew wore a St Exmin inspired bathing suit, though.

The Ford is strong in this one

Just as we were about to disappear beneath an ever-rising flood of Avengers promotional trailers, a few seconds of two old friends from 'A Long Time Ago' appears to have pulled Marvel's plug.

I wasn't going to post anything this weekend, as we have another syncronised retrospective of a post-Star Wars 'homage' coming up in the next couple of days.  But perhaps appropriately,  the second teaser for Decembers Star Wars: The Force Awakens has taken the internet, and at least two Newspapers I worked on last night, by storm.

It's hard to describe what it means to see Han and Chewie back together again, but perhaps this video of Matthew McConaghey's reaction to the teaser sums it up most eloquently:

Naturally everyone's favourite space smuggler is now grey, but the lop-sided grin and trademark drawl are present and correct. Welcome home Captain and first mate of the Millennium Falcon, suddenly it really does feel like December will be an awakening.

Light Savour

Star Wars fans have felt the disappointing side of the Force many times in recent years, so did the teaser for the latest instalment strike back with the return of a New Hope?

Yes.
Proper, and subtly updated, storm troopers (instead of those prequel pixel-monkeys):

A Swiss/Sith Army lightsabre with extra attachments (can-opener and corkscrew?)  Be careful how you hold this one:

And best of all, if you aren't going to show any familiar faces in what is after all just a teaser, then give us something just as familiar and beloved - the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs.  The Millennium Falcon is lovingly trailed by a swooping, tilting camera in a bravura shot which homages old-school Dykstraflex. Oh, and some TIE Fighters:

Welcome back, Star Wars!

Love over Gold

Captured by scrap dealers, blown to pieces, then made to appear in the prequels, all nothing compared to the 'dark side of the Paws'...

 In the distant 1970s, and probably for many years afterwards, New Zealand Television had a magazine programme for younger viewers which screened early on a Sunday evening (possibly to help deaden the pain of school the next day) called Spot On.  Based on Britain's Blue Peter, a trio of young-ish presenters, enthused their way through semi-educational , handy-crafty, odds and bobs.
In late May 1977, as the evenings were getting cooller and darker, I sat in front of our black and white telly, and all-but dropped my cheese-on-toast into my lap as I unexpectedly had my tiny mind blown.  Spot On reported that a new movie was breaking all kinds of records in America, and they showed a clip...
The next day at school this flurry of images, never seen or imagined before, was all anyone could talk about. "That ape thing - flying the spaceship!" "The 'astronauts', firing at those things!" "that girl with the buns on the sides of her head!" We were soon to learn their names in a very short space of time, but what impressed me the most was the shiny robot who's eyes glowed when the cockpit lights went out.
I could never understand the attraction of Artoo-Detoo - he was just a noisy appliance, whereas See Threepio was a beautifully-sculpted suit of golden armour.  Even when I got my first inkling of his voice and personality (on an episode of The Donny and Marie Show, for heavens sake) I still loved him.  Planet of the Apes had been the biggest sci-fi sensation up till now, and to me, Threepio sounded like Roddy McDowell, but from the other side of the Atlantic.

I gave most of my Star Wars  drawings away, but this is probably
the very first one I did of the robots, when I was eleven. I recall I only
had a tiny black and white newsprint photo as reference, and it shows!

Star Wars mania gripped the country and I soon realised, but never understood why, that preferring Threepio over Artoo seemed to put me in a minority of one.  But I wasn't partisan in the thousands of drawings I made - I drew them both and reached the point where I had memorised all of the fiddly outer detail and it's exact correct position on both droids.

I might have been the only little boy who got a See Threepio kitset model that Christmas, and sadly, being my first kit I made something of a Bantha's ear of the poor, long suffering protocol droid. Alas, nothing of him even remains now.

With his oversized head, the original MPC kit looks a little
like a Thunderbirds version of See Threepio.

Many years later I won a beautifully-sculpted vinyl kitset Threepio at a science fiction convention art competition, and this time was determined to make a better job of him.  I'd put quite a few models together by this time, and had learned some tricks, and most importantly: patience.

I did the best job I could, filling the hollow vinyl parts with plaster to give some stability, highlighting the surface detail with delicate 'weathering' and then painstakingly coating the finished model with many layers of gloss varnish to give him a metallic shine, just like the real one (in the final scenes of the films, at least). The result was very striking, even if I say so myself.
An eventual  house move saw Threepio and my other precious and delicate kitsets carefully bubble-wrapped and placed lovingly in a large cardboard box, awaiting proud relocation to a suitably prominent shelf.

But before this could happen two very boisterous new kittens found their way into the room, and the forest of cardboard boxes became their favourite playground.  I can confidently speculate that during one particularly rambunctious session, they both fell through the taped up top of the kitset box. Finding themselves suddenly in a strange environment of bubble wrap, tissue paper and very delicate plastic, eight small paws rapidly shredded, scratched and snapped everything within reach.
Some kits will never recover - the delicate filligeree of my best made model, the imperial speeder bike from Return of the Jedi, is beyond saving.
Threepio was almost completely dismembered, but perhaps because of his sturdily reinforced plaster of paris innards, the individual 'body' parts remained intact. Much like his real self in The Empire Strikes Back, this was only a temporary inconvenience.

Threepio goes to pieces, again.

But if the protocol droid had cause to complain about the delay in reassembling him in that film, he was actually well-off: it's taken me four years to get around to my own Threepio reconstruction.
The model is so beautiful that I could justify having him in public view, so set about trying to reassemble Threepio as carefully as I originally put him together.  Refitting the limbs and head only increased my admiration of the original sculpt, and the resulting stance is 110% Threepio: redolent of actor Anthony Daniels channeling the restrictions of the suit to create an expressive and instantly recognisable body language.
This time I wanted to give the model a base, as much as I love the fact that he is freestanding, it also makes him very vulnerable to toppling.  I searched everywhere, imagining that a clear perspex disc might be my best option. Having no luck, I accidentally stumbled across a recently damaged motorcycle wing mirror lying in the gutter, and after removing all of the shattered glass and respraying the matt black finish, it has proved ideal.

It's good to have this representation of 'nobody else's favourite droid' back in one piece.  The much-hated Ewoks have one redeeming feature: they worshipped him!

A lol cat.  I can sink no lower...

Eee, buy gum!

A long time ago, Star Wars was chewy, and I don’t mean the Wookiee…

Like many of my peers, George Lucas’s 1977 Space fantasy whipped up an all-encompassing mania for me.  I was probably just the right age to be completely absorbed by the mythology and magic of Star Wars, and my fanaticism was nothing short of an out-of-control firestorm.  Fortunately, a conflagration of this intensity couldn’t last, and burnt itself out after a couple of years - to the extent that I didn’t even bother to go and see the first sequel in 1980 (always from one extreme to the other, with me). Naturally, I’d missed the very best the Lucasverse had to offer, but that’s another story.
At the height of Star Wars mania in early 1978, a classmate gave me this at our school sports day, claiming he’d found it on the side of the road.

Two things struck me about this generous gift, the first being that this was obviously part of a greater collectable set, and secondly: as everyone knew I alone loved See-Threepio, the co-incidence of this card featuring nobody else’s favourite droid seemed fishy. The truth came out.  My young colleague had been secretly collecting the whole set in some kind of covert competitive exercise, but finally decided to let me in on the wonder that was Star Wars collectible bubblegum cards.

Topps bubblegum cards had been around for a very long time, the grayish-pink, reputably chewable tiles of gum packaged with cards mostly featuring American sporting stars.
But the previous year,  a set emblazoned with images and pre-production artwork from Dino De Laurentis’ King Kong had been all the rage (I might even have got the whole set of those), and with Star Wars now
changing the face of marketing forever, Topps wasn’t slow in gaining similar rights from 20^th Century Fox.
Allen’s and Regina (“A&R Playtime Gum is fun!”) distributed the product in New Zealand.  Printed either here, or by their affiliate, Scanlens, in Australia - this might explain why there weren’t any ‘movie facts’ on the reverse despite the promise on the wrapper.
However, you could piece together a crude re-interpretation of the famous Hildebrandt poster artwork (used on the gum packaging in the US), and the much-used still of Chewbacca, Ben, Luke and Han gazing out of the Millennium Falcon cockpit (also featured on card 31), by turning the cards over and using them like a jigsaw puzzle.

 
There were 72 cards to collect; 1-66 based on the original blue-bordered American set, and then 67-72 (of which my Threepio ‘gift card’ belonged) were reprinted artwork from part of a set of stickers only available in the US.
These garishly out-lined ‘portrait’s actually turned out to be the only kind you would get from a particular Dairy. Somehow they had been sent an entire consignment of packs containing numbers 67-72 only, and the blameless proprietors lost our custom as soon as the discovery was made.

But mainly we were all happily experiencing the thrill of tearing open the yellow paper wrapping (which surprisingly featured Threepio – maybe because he was gold, and Artoo-Detoo already had his own ice-block with collectible stickers) to see what card was stuck to the elastic, fleshy-coloured wafer within.

Another friend showed me how an empty cassette case with the interior spindles broken off made the perfect container for these cards, and our collections (and jaw muscles) grew throughout the late summer.
Ultimately, I think my natural frugality was my undoing here.  If I’d spent a tiny bit more money, I might have got the full set.  Friends moving on to other things tended to give their cards to me, so I stood a very good chance – one even gave me the box which the packs came in (empty, though probably worth something today if I’d kept it!)
But suddenly, they just weren’t available anymore.  Star Wars bubblegum disappeared from dairy shelves seemingly overnight I was left stranded with a tantalising six cards left to collect.
I realise now that I could have written to Allen’s and Regina and they’d probably have completed my set, although it didn’t matter; it had all been fun while it lasted. 
But to this day, I still have no idea how to blow a bubble with gum.
(With thanks to the NZSW site)