The Star Wars Album

In November 1977, Ballentine put out this 75 page Star Wars Album featuring tons of color and black and white photos from the movie and behind the scenes shots. The contents seems to fall into three sections, this first of which is a look at the influences on the movie. Everything from early sci-fi like H. G. Wells to Flash Gordon, robots in movies (i.e. Metropolis and Forbidden Planet), comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy, westerns that influenced the character of Han Solo and the whole cantina scene, monster movies and Errol Flynn swashbucklers are referenced. I like this bit as it's easy to think of Star Wars as its own entity nowadays rather than the throwback to old fashioned adventure serials it was originally intended to be.

The second section is a breakdown of the movie's plot accompanied by many pictures.

The final part of the book is devoted to behind the scenes stuff with articles, pictures and concept art.

Topps Trading Cards: Series 2

Series 2 here (#66 - 137) with the red borders.

Most of the backs of the cards feature either 'Movie Facts' or 'Actor's Profiles'.

Two jigsaw puzzles can be put together from the backs of certain cards; a Sandperson and good ol' Chewie.

Famous Monsters of Filmland #142

It's been a long time since I blogged. Things have been chaotic but the good news is that a new job = an increased income so I have hunted down a few items I'll be taking a look at over the next few weeks.

First up is this issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland from April 1978 featuring the Dark Lord of the Sith himself on the cover. This was the 20th anniversary issue of the magazine that began in 1958 and it's a whopper of an issue at 132 pages.

Star Wars had been released nearly a year previously and was still a hot topic in many magazines. FM takes a look back at the movie in an article entitled 'Lord Darth Vader: Badnik or Merely Misunderstood?' which, (well ahead of its time), points out that he may not be such a bad dude after all.

Being the 20th anniversary issue, a ton of film stars and film makers wrote in and sent signed photos wishing FM all the best. Here's one from Lucas himself and appears to be a behind the scenes shot from the movie.

There's also an abundance of Star Wars related ads including a fantastic one for the Kenner figures which I've never seen before.

Artoo Detoo's Activity Book

Random House put out a bunch of these activity books in 1979 filled with the usual word searches, puzzles as well as a few oddities like Star Wars based recipes and ideas for things to make. Although this one is called 'R2-D2's Activity book' it really belongs to C-3PO too and is mainly based around their Tatooine adventures.

Marvel #38 - Riders in the Void

We come now to the final issue of Marvel's Star Wars comic book before it began its 'The Empire Strikes Back' adaptation. This issue from August 1980 is known for both its superb and fantastically weird artwork from the hand of Michael Golden and the story line which runs into deeper sci-fi than the usual swashbuckling action Star Wars is known for. This was the issue that should have been part 1 of The Empire Strikes Back, but due to a reshuffling in Marvel, fans got this off-beat one-shot while the long awaited Empire #1 was postponed til the following month.

While on a mission for the Rebels, Luke and Leia are attacked by an Imperial Star Destroyer and narrowly escape into hyperspace with their crippled craft. Dropping out, they discover that they have gone beyond the borders of their own galaxy and are drifting in a starless void. Sucked up by a large alien ship which appears to be more organically grown than constructed, they find the ship deserted and soon are up against the games of its supercomputer which views them as part of a training simulation.

Luke first goes up against a lightsaber wielding robot which he defeats but both he and Leia soon find themselves being sucked out of the ship. Upon witnessing their compassion for each other, the ship lets them live and tells them its story. Once a humanoid, the ship's pilot fled his home world which was destroyed by war and after drifting for so long in the void, pilot, computer and ship became fused as one. Luke and Leia have reminded him what compassion is and he agrees to take them back to their own galaxy.

Upon arrival they find the Star Destroyer that caused all the trouble and the alien ship blasts it with anti-matter pods, letting Luke and Leia ago free in their newly repaired ship.

Kenner 3-3/4" Action Figures - The Droids 2

Kicking off Kenner's second wave of action figures from 1979 here with three droids. Pretty much the whole second wave consisted of background characters (other than Luke in his X-wing gear and Greedo) which gave Kenner the excuse to make a whole bunch of weird aliens and robots much to the delight of young fans who were hungry for more Star Wars figures.

Probably one of the cuter Star Wars action figures, the Power Droid (or 'Gonk' droid as he came to be known) can be seen wandering around in the background of the movie supplying power to ships like some kind of walking battery.

He's quite a simple action figure with the feet being the only movable parts. Like R2, his stickers have a tendency to wear off over time and there are a couple of patches of orange paint that can also get worn.

The Death Star droid is often assumed to be wrongly named as this droid can clearly be seen in the Jawa's sandcrawler. In fact there is one on the Death Star (just when Luke, Han and Chewie head into the elevators) so he's something of a generic droid seen throughout the Star Wars galaxy.

Very similar to the C-3PO figure, the stiff joints quickly become extremely loose and his silver paint job is tricky to find in good condition. In fact he's pretty much a silver version of the 3PO figure with some different details on the head and torso.

Poor old R5-D4. If his motivator hadn't blown at a critical moment, Star Wars would have been a very different film. Denied his moment of fame, R5 was relegated to being little more than a background character.

Essentially this is R2-D2 with red markings and a different head. Still, quite a nice addition to a growing collection and the Jawas are hardly complete without some droids to sell.

MAD Magazine: January 1978

Some say that parody is the highest form of flattery. If this is true then Mad magazine must have really been kissing Star Wars' butt in its January 1978 issue. Their 7-page ribbing of the previous year's biggest blockbuster entitled 'Star Roars' makes all the gags you might expect (and have probably seen since countless times in the last 30+ years) and a few that you might not. I had actually never considered that if a starship can fly beyond the speed of light, and has lasers that travel at a bit less than the speed of light, would it be possible for a starship to shoot itself down? A few other things tickled me too like the sign on R2-D2's body that says '25c to see what the butler saw'.

Anyway, the artwork is superb and really gets the actors spot on. Mad isn't for everyone but you can't deny the cultural factor here. It's been around since 1952 and, like Star Wars, it is a part of American culture. In those early days of 1978, Star Wars had no chance of escaping the eventual Mad treatment.