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Archive for Star Wars

My son takes his first step into a larger world…

Posted in movies, Star Wars with tags movies, pop culture, Star Wars on August 16, 2011 by Paxton

One of our friends here in Jacksonville is a member of the 501st Star Wars costuming group. They were having a fund raiser at a Chik-fil-A here in town this past weekend so Steph and I took PJ down to see all the costumes. Here is PJ just after meeting his first Stormtrooper (or, technically, a Sandtrooper).

PJ was not too sure about the man in the scary costume at first. You can see he’s a little concerned in this picture. However, after about 10 minutes he became somewhat fascinated by all the costumes. Even going so far as to grab the Stormtrooper’s gloved finger and shake it. It was a lot of fun.

What made it even more fun was the fact that I got to see a Tusken Raider think it was a good idea to climb into a Jump Castle with like 15 kids. He came to regret that decision.

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A look at the Star Wars Q&A Book about computers (1983)

Posted in 80s, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology with tags Book Report, books, computers, movies, pop culture, reviews, Star Wars, technology on August 15, 2011 by Paxton

I love vintage kids books. I love vintage pop culture books. I also love vintage books looking at early computing technology. This week, I get all three wrapped into one. I’ll be looking at three early 80s activity books featuring awesomely retro computing technology. Being a tech guy and a pop culture guy sure pays off some days. The first book I’ll be looking at is the Star Wars Question and Answer Book about Computers from 1983. Yes, I know, mixing Star Wars and computer technology? Yes, please. And the book is filled with some of the most awesome artwork mixing R2-D2 and C3PO and computer machinery. The artwork in this book is by Ken Barr. Ken Barr is a comic artist. He’s done a lot of work for Marvel, especially back in the 70s and 80s with titles like Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Doc Savage, Savage Sword of Conan and Rampaging Hulk. Most of that work being for Marvel magazines that showcase the really nice painted look of Barr’s creations. You can see a lot of that here, too. This book is mainly an information dump about computers, how they began and what they can be used for. Much of the information is surrounded by Barr’s gorgeous paintings. However there are also pages without artwork but instead use photographs of actual computer machinery.

Here’s the intro to the book explaining about computers. Next to the intro is another information page featuring a picture of an Apple II. Click the images to make them BIGGER.

Here are some pages talking about computers and video games. You can see an adorable picture of R2-D2 playing chess against a computer and both Artoo and Threepio playing an upright arcade machine. I’m seriously in love with that arcade machine painting. See it much bigger here. Continue reading →

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A Cavalcade of Collector Cups

Posted in advertising, fast food, McDonald's, movies, pop culture, Star Wars, Tron with tags fast food, movies, nostalgia, pop culture, Star Wars, Tron on August 12, 2011 by Paxton

I’ve talked about fast food collector glasses before. But that article covered collector glasses made of actual GLASS. There are also a plethora of plastic collector cups. A few weeks ago Nerd Lunch talked about super hero cups. So, I thought I’d throw my hat in the ring and talk about a few of my favorite collector cups that have been given away at movie theaters and fast food chains.

I have each of these cups in my collection right now.

This is the Capt America The First Avenger Tri-Color Coolatta Cup. My boy CT from Nerd Lunch discussed this back in July. There are three sides/sections. Each section holds the red (cherry), white (vanilla) and blue (raspberry) flavors of Dunkin Donuts Coolattas. You can see the second side here and the third side is here. The cup is sitting next to the stars and stripes donut that also promoted the Capt America movie. They were both good, but I won’t lie, after consuming both for breakfast it felt like Cap and the Howling Commandos were fighting World War II in my colon.

This was the collector cup given out at movie theaters in 2000 to promote the first Singer X-Men movie. I like the tapered base of this cup so it fits in your cup holder. Many cups now don’t do that. And check out the web address of the movie with all of those dashes. http://www.x-men-the-movie.com. Hello late ’90s.

Everyone remembers the Star Wars cup toppers from 1999 during the whole Episode I merchandising frenzy. There were 12 cups and figure toppers you could collect from KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut. Well, those toppers were based on an earlier promotion for the Star Wars Special Edition in 1996-97. It was a set of 4 and featured C3PO, R2D2, Vader and a Stormtrooper. There were two versions of this set. Above left you can see the set that came from the Las Vegas FAO Schwartz store. They had setup their own version of the Mos Eisley Cantina including themed ICEE drinks (like Jabba Juice). I had visited Vegas in 1998 and was able to buy these at the store. Click the image to see it bigger and to see the commemortive FAO Cantina cup. The other version of this set on the right came from Pizza Hut and Taco Bell stores overseas (I don’t believe they were offered in the US). The toppers were exactly the same but instead of the FAO cup it had a blue cup with a picture of the character on it (see the Stormtrooper above). You can see how these influenced the Episode I cup toppers. For obvious reasons, only the R2D2 was reused in the 1999 Episode I promotion.

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Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire released 20 years ago

Posted in books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars with tags anniversary, Book Report, books, movies, pop culture, Star Wars on June 1, 2011 by Paxton

Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire was released at the end of May 1991 which makes it 20 years old. Heir to the Empire was the first “expanded universe” Star Wars novel since the Lando Calrissian solo novels in the 80s. It would become immensely popular and spark an avalanche of Star Wars novels that continues to this day.

The next two books in Zahn’s “Thrawn Trilogy”, Dark Force Rising and The Last Command, were released in 1992 and 1993 respectively.

The characters Zahn created in his trilogy became extremely popular and would be used by other authors for years afterward. Grand Admiral Thrawn, the Empire’s strategic military genius, would be one of the more popular. However Thrawn as a character would not really be written by anyone other than Zahn. Mara Jade would be used by many authors up until the current day. She would go on to marry Luke and have his children. Talon Karrde, smuggler extraordinaire would also prove popular and show up in novels from time to time, as would the New Republic’s military strategist, General Garm Bel Iblis. Zahn’s three books would also popularize the idea of clones in the Star Wars Universe as well as be the first to use the formal name of the Imperial homeworld (and current Republic homeworld); Coruscant.

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A closer look at the Shadows of the Empire art by the Hildebrandt Brothers

Posted in Boba Fett, Empire Strikes Back, movies, Star Wars with tags movies, pop culture, Star Wars on April 28, 2011 by Paxton

I discussed the 15th anniversary of Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire on Tuesday. In that article I mentioned that a set of trading cards was created for that event featuring awesome artwork by the Brothers Hildebrandt. I want to look at the paintings that made up this set.

You get a great look at the creation of these paintings in this book:

The above book goes into a fair amount of detail about the Hildebrandt creative process. It’s fascinating. The book mostly covers the creation of the paintings for the Shadows of the Empire card set. But it provides a lot of information about that set. It’s a really good read.

Now let’s take a look at some of my favorite of these Shadows of the Empire paintings.

These are the heroes of the book; Luke, Leia, Lando and Chewie. I created a custom Jedi Luke figure based on the Shadows of the Empire book cover. See that figure and card here.