Question for [fellow] Star Wars Geeks

[pricciar]

Just to back Ursa up, here is an excerpt from the Star Wars FAQ. http://www.hol.gr/cine/cstarw.htm#1

     An interesting point is that the "Chapter IV: A New Hope"
     sub-title did not appear until the 1979 re-release of the movie.
     Randal Schwartz (merlyn@romulus.reed.edu) says the following
     about the '79 release:

        That was the one with the extended trailer for ESB, which
        came out the following summer. So the order was:

                summer of '77: SW [no IV]
                summer of '78: re-release of SW [no IV]
                               (but Westgate was still playing it)
                summer of '79: retitled SW IV, with ESB trailer
                summer of '80: ESB

        The reference to "Westgate" was that the Westgate theatre
        (just a few blocks from where I am typing this) was *still*
        playing it. They set the record worldwide for the longest
        continuous run for SW [sans IV], something like 79 weeks.
        So, naturally, it wasn't a "re-release" for summer of '78.
        (We web-footed Oregonians see a *lot* of movies. :-)

     Empire Strikes Back (1980) was always sub-titled Chapter V and
     Return of the Jedi (1983) was always sub-titled Chapter VI.

I’m not a geek. Of course not. But, I eagerly await the Episode 2.

            -pat

[G.B.H.Hornswoggler]

Obscure title-related fact: when the novelization of the first movie came out (several months before the movie hit theaters), it’s official title was Star Wars: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker.

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…but when you get blue, and you’ve lost all your dreams, there’s nothing like a campfire and a can of beans!

[quadell]

Originally posted by tanstaafl:
**The book also identifies SW:ANH as “Episode IV of The Journal of the Whils”.

What’s a Whil?
**

bump

Anybody know this bit of SW trivia?

Your Quadell

[pricciar]

Another topic from that Star Wars FAQ site.
Doesn’t really tell what a Whil is, but gives some background, I guess its just and idea that Lucas decided not to use.
http://www.hol.gr/cine/cstarw.htm#p

26. What is the Journal of the Whills?

Back to Table of Contents

Answer: This is mentioned in the intro to the Star Wars novelization and
hardly anywhere else. Its significance is unclear, but it might
be similar in concept to the Red Book of Westmarch, the ficticious
book from which Tolkiens’s Lord of the Rings story supposedly comes.

pat

[Lor]

If you care to read the novelization of “Phantom Menace” by Terry Brooks, he says that the Jedi order started out as an intellectual and philosophical group “thousands of years ago”. Doesn’t mention who first became aware of the Force or when, though. I’m assuming he’s leaving that open for a future book to deal with.

Hey, you want to grapple with a real Star Wars puzzle? Try figuring out how the hell humans got to this “far, far away” galaxy in the first place. According to all the novels, humans have been in this galaxy so long, nobody has even a minor historical footnote on how or when they got there. You’d think that if, somehow, humans evolved in that galaxy, there’d be some mention of a home planet, but there isn’t. And, even if a group of us start out for this galaxy tomorrow, and it takes a few hundred years to get there, how does that account for Brooks’ idea that the Republic has been around for nine thousand years??? It boggles the mind!

[Ursa_Major]

Actually, SW takes place"Long, long ago" as well as “Far, far away”; presumably before the modern space age. If people like Luke and Han are humans like us, Lucus is going to have to concede that in his mythology humans didn’t evolve here on Earth, but that we are the decendents of technologically sophisticated spacefarers from another Galaxy (far, far away!)

[G.B.H.Hornswoggler]

Originally posted by Ursa Major:
**Actually, SW takes place"Long, long ago" as well as “Far, far away”; presumably before the modern space age. If people like Luke and Han are humans like us, Lucus is going to have to concede that in his mythology humans didn’t evolve here on Earth, but that we are the decendents of technologically sophisticated spacefarers from another Galaxy (far, far away!) **

I always took that as a standard fairy tale distancing device. “Now listen, my children, as I tell you the story of the handsome prince of the land far away. This all happened many many years ago…” It ties Star Wars much more closely to folklore and fantasy than to science fiction, which is good, because it fits better over there.

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I’m your only friend
I’m not your only friend
But I’m a little glowing friend
But really I’m not actually your friend
But I am

[Stonecutter912]

Dark Horse Comics had several series based about 10,000 years before the events of the movies. Being over $6 an issue I didn’t bother to buy them, but the general plotline seemed to be the discovery of the Force and the origins of the split between Dark and Light sides. Exar Kunn was mentioned as one (if not THE) first Sith Lords.
Whether any of this has any official capacity with LucasFilm I dunno, but it seems a likely beginning.

[Homer]

I’m not a geek (I swear!), but I have had this link in my bookmarks for AGES. I found it VERY interesting, perhaps others will, too.
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/

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We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.