Saturday, February 23, 2008

The First Half-Wookey

Here's a scan for Encounter Critical fans and other aficionados of the absurd.

From "The 'Star Wars' Log: The Master Plan for Future Space Films", originally printed MAD #230, 1982 and reprinted in MAD about Star Wars: Thirty Years of Classic Parodies. Which my awesome sister got me for Christmas.

11 comments:

  1. It's Varga's smile that really sells the whole thing :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. The irony here is that the MAD parody never came up with anything as dumb as Midichlorians.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gadzooks, there are First Trilogy snobs lurking here? Entertained, was I, by the later films too. It's not like any of the six approached 'Citizen Kane'.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gadzooks, there are First Trilogy snobs lurking here?

    Yes. The host is among them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. For the record, I can't possibly qualify as a "first trilogy snob" since I consider Return of the Jedi to be a pile of bantha poodoo.

    And, just between you and me, I think the original film was awesome for its time, but it would have been much better paced with a more talented director. Beru's lapels were totally hot, though.

    So ... Empire Strikes Back snob, thank you very much ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I used to be that way, but watching the original trilogy with my daughter really helped me to see the mindless fun of Jedi. It's her favorite of the lot. And the original film will always be awesome. Not as polished as the first sequel of course, but still awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm not sure I could get away with putting an ad in the paper saying "Needed: One young daughter for an afternoon of watching Star Wars trilogy. Will return when done."

    There's just a ... a vibe there that can't be swept away with different wording ... and using Craigslist instead of the paper would only make it worse, IMO.

    So: Empire Strikes Back forever :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. (And I agree that the first film will always be awesome, it's just that in my private universe there's a version starring Han Solo, with much tighter editing, and that's my favorite Star Wars movie ever). ;)

    ReplyDelete
  9. You know what would have made RotJ awesome/more awesome?

    Replace Endor with Kashyyyk and the Ewoks with Wookies. Instant awesome.

    It's not a far stretch, too, since Wookies had become a slave race used for manual labor, and I imagine the construction of the new Death Star would have required a lot of labor.

    ReplyDelete
  10. erin, as far as I know that had been in the original script; the ewoks are a last-minute Wookiee replacement (the word Ewok is a corrupition of "Wookiee" with the syllables transposed, E-wook).

    My favorite trivia about Ewoks, though, is simply this: that the word "Ewok" became a household word known to children and adults the world over, despite never being uttered once in the film. Thus is the true power of the Force (by which I mean ... toy marketing and other tie ins) revealed, and such is the true Genius, for better or worse, of George Lucas ;)

    ReplyDelete