Star Wars on the Small Screen

Star Wars on your TV? No way!

Within the Grand Geekdom of Star Wars, it seems that the producers of said saga have always relished in the scapegoating of the now infamous television one-off, The Star Wars Holiday Special, which has long been regarded as the "red-headed stepchild" of the entire pew-pew franchise. This funky two-hour special was originally broadcast in 1978 and featured musical numbers by Jefferson Starship, comedy skits with Harvey Korman and Bea Arthur, and the public's first introduction to space-opera's greatest bounty hunter and general badass, Boba Fett. But I think it's a bit unfair for Lucas and company to shrug off this classic 70's variety show as if it were their only foray into total goofiness, because I recall more than a few odd appearances by Luke Skywalker and his galactic buddies on the small screen during that quiet period between the first two films, which, although I didn't realize at the time, mostly served to keep the giant Star Wars publicity machine rolling until the next flick was released. After all, you gotta keep selling action figures during down time, right?

So in order to support my ongoing quest to prove that I'm right about everything, I present to you one of my favorite retro moments featuring disco, droids and Jedi in hopes that you'll all come to see that George Lucas has, perhaps, a few more skeletons in his closet than he'd like to admit to. Enjoy.

YOU SAY YOU'VE SEEN DANCING STORMTROOPERS? NOT UNTIL YOU'VE SEEN THIS.

BONUS VIDEO:
MUPPETS MEET STAR WARS…AND 30 YEARS LATER DISNEY BUYS THEM BOTH.

An Even Longer Time Ago...

Back in 1974, a young George Lucas, who was still feeling the high from his Best Director nomination for 1973's American Graffiti, had just completed his first draft of a film about space knights and starships called The Star Wars. You know how the story goes, Kane Starkiller and his sons Deak and Annikin all live on the fourth moon of Utapau but after a Sith Knight attack, they escape their self-imposed exile and return to their home world of Aquilae where the wise King Kayos and Queen Breha rule the galaxy. OK so that's not the Star Wars most people know, but it is the story featured in Lucas' first draft of what would eventually become Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, which we all know is really just called Star Wars. In fact, if you refer to the original trilogy by their correct titles, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, thereby excising the Roman numerals, you can then neatly ignore the F**KING AWFUL prequel series and you're back to just episodes one, two and three. No Jar Jar...no J.J...just the classics. Wow, sorry for the rant. So anyway, Dark Horse Comics, known for having produced the Alien Vs. Predator series, which also lead to two F**KING AWFUL movies, just released the first comic books, sorry graphic novels, from their adaptation of the 1974 Star Wars rough draft. I've read the first book already and the differences are notable. It's an interesting story with a lot more talky talky than the original trilogy. In fact, it sort of resembles the prequels and…crap. Oh well, I'm enjoying it so far. Check out the video I lifted from an NBC affiliate, it explains everything nicely from the point of view of people who don't know jack about what they're reporting on.

LucasArts Says "No More Games"

Ah, Disney. You great absorber of American cultural icons. First the Muppets, then Pixar, later Marvel and now of course, Star Wars. And while just about everyone on the planet is excited about the prospect of a stream of new Star Wars films coming our way, the bajillion-dollar buyout was not without its casualties. Specifically, I'm talking about the LucasArts game division, known for such retro classics as 1990's The Secret of Monkey Island, 1992's Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and 1995's Full Throttle. For whatever reason, Disney has put the kabosh on the long-time producer of video-tastic hits and game-horrific misses, and in doing so has killed off an American institution that has been chugging along since before your mama was knee-high to a cocktail arcade machine.
The story of what most folks call LucasArts actually begins around 1983 after a successful joint venture between Lucasfilm and Atari which produced the quarter-sucking-classic Star Wars: The Arcade Game. Back then, Star Wars ruled the universe and every kid alive wanted a piece of that laser-blasting action. So for years, the video game industry (along with the movie industry, TV industry, etc.) shamelessly ripped-off the look and feel of Star Wars as much as possible, often without even trying to hide it. Realizing the massive potential for profits to be gained from expanding into other media outlets, and having tasted extraordinary success with their earlier venture into the arcade, Lucasfilm teamed up once again with the other "ruler of the universe" of the time, Atari, to help them with their foray into the world of video game development. The result of this second collaboration was the formation of Lucasfilm Games, which would eventually be reorganized into the gaming division of  LucasArts Entertainment Company in the early 1990s. So in 1984 with the fresh smell of success of still under their noses, Lucasfilm Games blasted out of the gate armed with two now-classic 8-bit games that pushed the boundaries of what was then thought possible with 48K of RAM and a 1.79 Mhz processor: Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus. If you aren't familiar with either of these ground-breaking games, do yourself a favor now and head on over to Atarimania.com where they've posted hi-res scans of the original Electronic Games Magazine article from 1984. It's a fascinating and informative read for any retro-gamer or Lucasfilm fan.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE IN ELECTRONIC GAMES

Return of Them Damned Jedis

But what about Chewie?

With all of the talk about Star Wars Episode 7 coming our way, the hot question on everyone's lips has been whether or not the original heros from a galaxy far, far away would be rejoining the saga. And while just a few weeks ago, Carrie Fisher stated that she was on board with the new project, what everyone really wanted to know was if scoundrel and ladies man, Han Solo, would be returning to the big screen in the form of Harrison Ford. Well, this is where it gets tricky. Read on...

Ford told WGNTV, "I think it's almost true...I'm looking forward to it....It's not in the bag but I think it's happening."

...and in an interview with Bloomberg's business week master-creator George Lucas had this to say...

"We had already signed Mark and Carrie and Harrison -- or we were pretty much in final stages of negotiation. So I called them to say, 'Look, this is what's going on," Lucas said. "Maybe I'm not supposed to say that. I think they want to announce that with some big whoop-de-do, but we were negotiating with them. I won't say whether the negotiations were successful or not."

...of course, what would the Star Wars saga be without the chosen one himself (Mark Hamill), who chimed in with this...

"They're talking to us. George [Lucas] wanted to know whether we'd be interested. He did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts - they would write us out. ... I can tell you right away that we haven't signed any contracts. We're in the stage where they want us to go in and meet with Michael Arndt, who is the writer, and Kathleen Kennedy, who is going to run Lucasfilm. Both have had meetings set that were postponed -- on their end, not mine. They're more busy than I am."

It sounds hopeful but who knows? Keep your fingers crossed and hope none of them dies of old age before they get to this next trilogy!