Monthly Archives: June 2013

Gong – German Star Wars Empire Strikes Back Photo book

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Here is the second collection of German Gong Magazine pages that make up the Empire Strikes Back photo book. I believe the pages come from 47 different issues of the weekly magazine, published some time in the mid/late 1980s. The Star Wars Gong Collection is also available here on thestarwarstrilogy.com.

Das Imperium schlägt Zurück

Die Abenteuer in einer I unendlich fernen Galaxis gehen weiter. Commander Luke I Skywalker (Mark Hamill), der I ehemalige Schmuggler-Pilot Han Solo (Harrison Ford) und die schöne Prinzessin Leia (Carrie Fisher) haben den To-desstem von Lord Darth Vader vernichtet. read more

Siskel & Ebert Star Wars Special 1983

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Recorded on June 16th 1983 and broadcast on August 26th 1983, this special episode of Siskel & Ebert At the Movies is devoted entirely to the original Star Wars Trilogy. I think the special must have been considered a success, because that October, Siskel & Ebert created another special, this time about James Bond 007.

Gene Siskel attributes the success of Star Wars to the fact that all three of the movies offer a “child like good time at the movies”, and because the quality of the films is so high, especially when compared to other (mainly low budget) Pre-Star Wars science fiction movies. Another strong element, they argue, is the extensive and familiar mythology: read more

Gong – German Star Wars Photo book

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I don’t see any publish dates, but I believe this German collectible dates back to 1985 or 1986, based on the phrase “‘Krieg der Sterne’ der vor acht Jahren” which means “‘Star Wars’ of eight years ago”.  Star Wars was released in Germany in February of 1978. I’m pretty sure that each issue of Gong magazine that followed contained only one or two pages of the story, so you had to collect the weekly publication for months (years to collect all three photo novels) to get the whole set, which makes a complete collection pretty rare. Look out for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi ‘Foto-Romans’ in future posts… read more

1983 Return of The Jedi Burger King TV Commercial

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Last time we looked at some of the commercials that aired around the time of the Star Wars Special Edition Re-releases of 1997, today you can compare those ads to one from 1983, promoting Return of The Jedi and Burger King with four collectible Star Wars drinking glasses. Luke Skywalker, The Ewoks, Han Solo, and Jabba the Hutt – Collect them all!

(This video was kindly provided by Ray Glasser)

EDIT: While looking for video of Walter Cronkite’s “Universe” Visiting ILM I found a higher quality version of this same Ad among the EditDroid Features: read more

PepsiCo Backs `STAR WARS’ SE with Cosmic Promo Blitz

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This article from a January 1997 issue of ‘Advertising Age’ reports on the promotional campaign by PepsiCo for The Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition re-release and a new Star Wars film due in 1999 from Lucasfilm Ltd. PepsiCo committed two billion dollars to promote the trilogy. Although Roger Enrico, chief executive officer of PepsiCo talked about the synergy the related efforts would generate, some franchisees and bottlers were wondering if competition and confusion would not be the actual result: read more

An Interview with Irvin Kershner

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An Interview with Irvin Kershner, Director of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

By DAVID HOUSTON

Samuel Goldwyn Studios, Hollywood, Calif., February 21, 1980. “Why are you so irritable?”

The voice is Carrie Fisher’s; it rings from the closed doors of Looping Room D, where director Irvin Kershner is supervising the laying-in of the last layers—sound effects and dialogue corrections—of the new Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back.

Harrison Ford’s voice answers Fisher’s irritably, and then there is what sounds like a volley of laser fire.

After the unmistakable gibberish of a soundtrack being rewound, the whole sequence starts again at the top. “Why are you so irritable?…” read more

The original Star Wars trilogy as playful pulp novel covers

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In the alternate universe of Timothy Anderson’s Star Wars pulp covers, Star Wars started its life as a series of novels, but ended up retitled with a set of salacious pulp novellas.

Anderson has prints of these imaginary book covers up at his store, where he also sells prints of his Star Wars spaghetti western poster series, Guerre Stellari, and other really cool artwork.