The Cheese Triangles arc (Pt.1)
The boys get into deep stuff, about the point of one’s existence! And I’m glad to be back with a new page after such a long break! (sorry)
The Force Awakens – is here!
Life imitates Art Imitates Life at ‘The Force Awakens’ screening larger view »
I saw the long-awaited new Star Wars film: ‘The Force Awakens‘ on opening day, last Thursday. What an experience that was. So many mixed emotions! I could barely believe what I was seeing as the new scroller worked its way up the screen, “Am I – am I – really here?” The Millennium Falcon appeared! – and then Han and Chewie! “Can this really actually be happening? Right now? After 38 years?!?!”
The B*W strip about the big day: « Seeing Star Wars for the first time
Yep. It was. And that’s right: it’s 38 years since « I sat in the local Dara cinema in Naas town, County Kildare, Ireland. In 1977, ‘Star Wars. changed my young life, as it changed the lives of so many others.
I still can’t quite believe what I saw last Thursday. I know I was there, but it’s like a half-remembered dream now. There’s so much to think about and reflect on. And the more I think about it, the better it gets.
Who’d have thought we’d be doing this again on 2015?
The critics – in the main – are raving about how great the new film is. But to be truthful, I was of two minds as I left the cinema. I suppose I wanted my mind to be blasted into a million pieces as I went on the most magical, time-traveling, nostalgia trip of my life, and in many ways it really was that! But not all of the critics are fans, like we are. They don’t have as much emotional investment in it. And now, as I go through each day letting it all sink in, discovering what the writer and director intended, gaining fresh insights and realisations of my own, it’s just growing – and growing – and GROWING in my imagination. I can’t wait to see it a second time (and a few times more).
Dean Mayes’ Blog: ‘Force Awakens’ Review
Here’s a very nice The Force Awakens review by my also very nice pal, the novelist Dean Mayes, in Australia. Dean writes beautifully. And after you read this NON-SPOILERY review by him, I also recommend his other lovely Star Wars related article, on the same blog about his local town, and seeing Star Wars at the local cinema there, way back then. Watch out too, for the comment left there on the latter article, by the late Richard LeParmentier, AKA ‘Admiral Motti‘ of Star Wars. For the uninitiated: Motti’s the guy who Vader half-choked in the Death Star conference room! “Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, Lord Vader!”
Dean Mayes’ Blog site
Star Crash & The Humanoid
Back in those days, we couldn’t just stick Star Wars in a player, or go online and watch it whenever the fancy took us. That’s what made all the comics and books and collectible cards so important to us. So sometimes, in order to get our Sci-Fi fix, desperate measures were required! Such as watching…
Star Crash: Not actually as good as Star Wars…
The Humanoid: Not actually as good as Star Crash!
** Stay Groovy, all you 1970s kids! **
– John White
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Thanks!
Yay Dune novel! I remember reading it and the floating-poison-needle sequence really getting me hooked. For me at the time, it wasn’t so much Kung Fu as ninjas, something passed down from my older brothers. They got a bunch of throwing stars from somewhere and we’d throw them at slabs of cardboard in the basement and backyard. The neighbors loved that! They were usually a good influence on their young sibling, though.
That WAS a great scene, Phil. The Hunter-Seeker. It was great in the film too!
You threw ‘Throwing Stars’? They actually work then – they’re not just something out of fiction!
Kung-Fu – Nijas – Samurai? I doubt that I knew the difference or what country they were even from.
We’d throw those things overhand, and they’d sproing off in random directions as often as sticking — very exciting! And nunchucks, or “Nunchaku” as we’d try to say, we messed with those too. My brother broke his bedroom mirror once with them. I don’t even remember my parents getting that mad about it. They just replaced it. Ah, 70s!
Ah yes, the nineteen-seventies indeed. When a kid could do whatever he or she liked, provided it was dangerous.
Probably about a year before David Lynch’s Dune came out in theaters, I figured I’d start reading the book, even though it was so long and lacking in pictures. That’s what I did in those days, read the book before seeing the movie. I even read the novelization of Empire Strikes Back before seeing it in the theater! So I experienced the Vader reveal on the printed page, first. I don’t remember why I was doing that. It was the right choice with Dune, at least. I got into it and read it pretty quickly. Much better than the movie. I loved Star Wars VII! No novel for that one. I stayed as spoiler free as I think I could have, which made it cool.
I read Empire before the movie too Phil. Didn’t ruin it one bit!
My mum bought DUNE for me, second-hand when I was about 11 or 12 and I was surprised at myself, that I really liked it – despite being the hugest, most grown-uppest book I’d ever read at that time.
Later I saw the film and was so disappointed! It seemed to erase all of the images that I’d created in my own imagination. It was also very rushed!
Nowadays, I love the film for all of its flaws. I saw it in the cinema last year and it was one of the best cinema experiences I’ve ever had!
i must watch it again soon!