And, notably, the year after Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. I don’t remember, did that have “Star Wars Episode V” at the time?
Big Ass Ham and Oprah were on the “Top 10 Things That Sound Romantic When Barry White Says Them” If James Earl Jones list was during Dave’s Oprah feud phase, she probably was included in that list as well.
Okay, I’m going to go out and make another statement here that will be doubted (I haven’t checked my Star Wars tape yet – I spent last night scrubbing stain off my bathroom walls)
1.) The Empire Strikes Back definitely DID have the “Episode V” thing above the crawl, right from its first release. IIRC, there was a sidebar in Time magazine commenting on this in the issue with Darth Vader on the cover preceding the release of Empire, since the original Star Wars didn’t have such a chapter title when it was first released.*
2.) I thought that they added the “Episode IV” thing above the crawl for the original before Empire, but I could easily be wrong. The 1981 re-release wasn’t the first re-release — they were able to re-release the original Star Wars to major theaters when they issued the TRAILER for Empire Strikes Back. the series was so insanely popular that people willingly paid to see a movie that recent just to be able to see the Coming Attractions for the sequel. I’d thought they put it in for that re-release.
*Giving the impression of starting a serial in media res wasn’t exactly new. I was confused as hell as a kid by a Mighty Mouse cartoon that began “…in our last episode…” and went on to detail how it was that Mighty Mouse ended up in the fix he was in. Yet i never saw any such previous episode, or subsequent episodes, for that matter. all Mighty Mouse cartoons were free-standing entities. I didn’t realize that the cartoon was poking fun at the traditions of the Movie Serials at the time. i don’t think I’d even seen such a serial at that time. (Although I did soon enough afterwards. Officer Joe Bolton and other kiddie TV show hosts started running some of the old serials, an episode per day, on their shows after that.)
I have the same recollection, right down to the sidebar in Time magazine. I have no idea about videos or theatrical rereleases, though.
Time Article
(not sure if you have to be a member or not, but give it a shot)
The look at what he says about the full story is a little interesting, if people can’t read it I’ll post more clips of the article.
Regarding Obi-Wan’s death, I believe it was in Skywalking, George Lucas’s early biography, where it talks about how he had serious writer’s block with how to deal with the Obi-Wan character, since after the Death Star there wasn’t anything for him to do, and that’s how he came up with the idea of killing him. And yes, Alec Guiness, according to the book, was pissed off. That’s where that story comes from, IIRC.
I’ve heard this before and I still can’t grasp it.
Without Happy Gilmore, Christopher MacDonald is nothing more “somebody’s dad” in like 90% of those movies. And nobody remembers “somebody’s dad.”
Somebody’s evil dad. Isn’t he always a conniving bastard?
I Am Not Spock, originally published in 1977.
I Am Spock, originally published in 1995.
Certainly not. Sometimes he’s even noble and self-sacrificing: http://www.planetspace.de/startrek/shows/showimage.php?show=tng163
I take extreme offense to this, actually. He’s Jack Barry. He’s…Jack Barry. He’s JACK Barry. He’s Jack…Barry.
You were taken in by that goody-goody act? I saw a malicious schemer desperate to return to his own timeline so he could continue to screw over his estranged wife in their divorce proceedings. (She didn’t exist in the new timeline.) He was going to kick some Romulan butt, then beam over to the courtroom and lie about all of the assets he had transferred to a hidden account.
Did you say Emily Dickinson?
Does that count as a name change? I don’t recall the film ever being called anything other than simply “Star Wars” until the post-Phantom DVD release…
Joe
WAG: I don’t believe there was a need for the subtitle A New Hope to be widely known until the prequels because it was just Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. Once Phantom Menace came out, suddenly people who’d only known ANH as Star Wars were wondering why Phantom Menace was being called Episode 1, and the focus on the numbers for the original trilogy increased. Also, now that there’s an entire six movies in the Star Wars setting, it’s more precise to call Star Wars by A New Hope.
But yes, since 1981, the technical full name of Star Wars has been Star Wars Episode 4: A New Hope.
I like Christopher McDonald, I really do. I think he’s one of the all-time great “That Guys.” But seriously, look over his credits and see how many times he’s in a movie as “[main character’s] dad” or “[main character’s] brother” or '[main character’s] husband" or “Guy on TV.”
He’s known as Shooter McGavin because that is his biggest (and most memorable) role. Plus, there’s the whole evil-schtick that Snooooopy pointed out. Shooter’s pretty evil and so he’s pretty easy to remember.
Not to hijack this into a Chris McDonald thread, but he has a great line in American Pie: Naked Mile.
Paraphrased from when his son is caught jacking off:
"You’re a Stifler. What are you doing hanging around the house, pulling dick?
That’s a good point. In cases I would encounter the name of Sir Alec Guiness without his having been in Star Wars, he would have been an old-school british actor with whom I would have little to no relationship with.
I do feel, however, that some of the reactions here are a bit exaggerated. Yes, he got wealthy with Star Wars, at least I assume so. But when doing Star Wars he was already 63 years old. All the billions of dollars in the world can’t change the fact that he was coming to the age where he would look back at his career and life and see what he has accomplished and most of all, what he would be remembered by.
And while it is a big feat to help an indie film like Star Wars reach such enormous popularity, I can certainly understand that from the view of a professional actor, his previous accomplishments have a much bigger relevance to him.
The annotated scripts mention that Lucas felt he didn’t have much for Obi-Wan to do, which is why he killed him, but before that I also read (maybe in Skywalking) that the reason was that Lucas decided it was too easy for the heroes to have escaped from the Death Star unscathed.
I’ve never heard that Guiness had anything to do with it, and I doubt a professional actor would even suggest such a major plot change.