The footage below was made available to the press in early 1997 around the same time that the Star Wars Special Edition trilogy was about to hit theaters. It is unedited, about 6 minutes long, and was to be used primarily by news and entertainment shows to provide viewers with a quick peek behind the scenes. Typically, only a few seconds of it would be shown in any one broadcast. Also included in the press kit were trailers, interviews, sound bites, and more, which will all be posted here in due course. Luckily for us, “Babyhum” preserved the entire press kit on a DVD, which is where we took this from. What I find most interesting about it is how old all the “state of the art” technology looks now – huge CRT monitors showing Windows 95 applications!
Category Archives: TV
Star Wars TV trailers from 1979
Like Monday’s Droids promo, these trailers were captured along with some Saturday Morning Cartoons (Popeye, Godzilla, Jana of the Jungle and Jonny Quest), this time on CBS during the summer of 1979. Star Wars would not be available to rent or buy on Video tape until 1982 so it was enjoying another re-release in theaters that August. It’s easy to see kids jumping up from watching cartoons and urging their parents to take them to see Star Wars again…
Thanks to Tony Loccsta for making this content available.
Rare Droids TV Promo
The mid-eighties animated Star Wars show, Star Wars: Droids ran for only one season (and a primetime special) on ABC beginning in the fall of 1985. This 25 second promo for the show was recorded on video tape that summer along with a bunch of Saturday Morning Cartoons (including Superfriends, Rubik The Amazing Cube, and Scooby Doo). Thanks to Tony Loccsta for making this content available.
Maria Shriver interviews Mark Hamill (1983)
Maria Shriver interviews Mark Hamill for PM Magazine and gives viewers a sneak peak at Return of the Jedi, circa 1983. At one point Hamill talks about how he may one day reprise his role in about 20 years – turns out it would be 30, but I’m glad he’ll get the chance.
The Great Heep
If you took a look at the Ben Burtt article posted last week, you may have spotted the sidebar about an hour long Droids Special, written by the Sound Effects Designer:
The Great Heep is probably the least seen Star Wars spin-off. It aired in 1986 at a time when one generation of fans was drifting away from the fold and a new generation hadn’t quite gotten involved yet. It has never been re-run or released on video.
The Great Heep was an hour-long Droids primetime special written by sound maestro Ben Burtt and produced by Nelvana—the Canadian animation house who did all the Star Wars animation including the legendary Boba Fett sequence from the Star Wars Holiday Special. Nelvana currently produces the Saturday morning hit WILDCA.T.S.
Billy Dee Williams on Dancing With The Stars
Billy Dee Williams appeared on Dancing With The Stars (the American version of Strictly Come Dancing) last night, surrounded by Storm troopers and cheered on by Ewoks and R2D2. There were certainly better dancers on the show, but while the actor may have gained a few pounds, he appears to have lost none of his charm. Like the Star Wars franchise, ABC Television is a Walt Disney Company, so it is certainly possible that we will see more of the characters dancing with Billy Dee in the future, assuming of course he survives the vote…
Star Wars Meets Pigs in Space
The history of Star Wars has long been entwined with that of the Muppets, puppeteer Frank Oz who performed Miss Piggy, Animal, and many others, also performed Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi; and Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) would go on to help Jim Henson with the Dark Crystal and other projects. Some years later, Muppet Babies would also pay homage to Star Wars.
In July 1980 Starlog featured this recap of an episode from Season 4 of the Muppet Show which featured special guests Mark Hamil, C3P0, R2D2 and Chewbacca:
Star Wars – Rebels
Entertainment Weekly showed a preview of new Star Wars Rebels animated Series in last weeks 2014 Preview Issue:
A New Hope for fans of the Original Trilogy
These are the stormtroopers you’re looking for. Disney XD’s animated series, the newest entry in the Star Wars saga, takes fans back to the 1977 film that started it all. Rebels will embrace the more grounded look and feel of the saga’s first film for a Rebel Alliance origin story that’s set between Episodes III and IV. Exec producer Simon Kinberg even mined original-trilogy artist Ralph McQuarrie’s previously unused concept art for aliens, planets, and vehicles to help populate the show. “We wanted to have that hand-made quality of the original films,” he says. Expect a mix of familiar characters and new ones—such as the Inquisitor (pictured above), a villain who’s tasked with killing the remaining Jedi. Says Kinberg, “He’s able to tap into people’s emotional weaknesses as much as their physical weaknesses.” Impressive! Most impressive…
Star Wars Re-imagined As a 1980’s Anime
Remember The Mysterious Cities of Gold? Battle of the Planets? Imagine for a moment that Star Wars had only been a badly dubbed and translated import of a 1980s Japanese anime. Yep, this is exactly how it would have looked. Love the nod to the original Famicom Star Wars game in which Darth Vader transforms into a huge scorpion with a human face!
Star Wars Connections with C3P0 and R2D2
This introduction to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Special Edition was recorded on Thursday, April 25th 2002 at 8 pm from a local Fox TV station in the US by “videoholic” Ray Glasser. Part of the Star Wars 25th anniversary celebration, the segment runs approximately 5 minutes. In it, C3P0 and R2D2 recap some of the events of the Star Wars saga, bridging the gap between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy by explaining how Jango Fett’s young son grew up to become the fan favorite villain, Boba Fett. Despite captivating the Ewoks with his tale in Return of the Jedi (complete with sound effects), poor scripting here leaves C3P0 living up to what he originally told Luke Skywalker in Star Wars: “I’m not much more than an interpreter and not very good at telling stories. Well, not at making them interesting, anyway.”
