I definitely remember seeing the Flash Gordon style ad sheets and the birthday cake ad with the toys. I didn't read the article too indepth, but I find it interesting that so many of the text examples were familiar to me, despite the obvious association of the classic Star Wars script one would assume comes first to everyone's mind.

•The Administration does not support blowing up planets
well of course not, how would you get all the oil if you blew it up silly

Being a SW nut, I was also a bit obsessive with compiling any and all advertisements I could get my hands on - that is until the recent movies and their subsequent marketing machine blew everything else out of the water. In the 90s I remember flipping through mass quantities of bronze age comics in discount bins in the used shops just to buying up the few ones for their SW ads alone. Some of the best stuff I think was in FM though. BUT, tops for me, and this is just a layover from my childhood days though, is the Christmas Wishbooks from Sears, etc. Problem is these are actually highly collectible it seems (at least whenever I have found some they are over what I would consider paying).

One of my prized possessions in my Star Wars collection is totally worthless - a Sears Wishbook from 1982 that I rescued from my grandfathers place. When my brother and I were young we used these to make our lists for Santa (made it easier since we were overseas too). The SW and Joes stuff we wanted is circled in big crayon - my older brother would 'choose' for me, so helpful of him. Anyways, I treasured that catalog and revisited it every time I visited my grandpa. Cue overshare.

I just found the birthday cake ad from the '78 re-release. It's a huge full-page ad ... the classic logo is in frosting on top with the action figures surrounding the cake. Unfortunately my copy has some holes in the middle which means I need to be more careful about storing these artifacts.

Also came across a lot of ads for things like SW bedspreads and wallpaper and so on. At the time, such massive merchandising tied in to a movie seemed unusual and new. Now they're the real breadwinners of the franchise as we all know. Everyone expects it.

Here's the stupidest thing I saved from back then, an ad for the rightfully-forgotten Joan Rivers movie "Rabbit Test," which was about a man who gets pregnant.



ultrakaiju, it's odd how some of the artifacts are considered highly collectable, and others not so much. Somewhere I have a pristine copy of the program book that was given to audiences at the Westwood CA premiere of the film. Last time I checked on the 'net, people were selling it for only ten bucks. It's worth a lot more than that to me so I'm hanging on.

you guy have to share your archives with the rest of us. the two of you start a tumblog and load it up with every piece of ephemera and ridiculous tie-in, stat!

speaking of movie tie-ins, i'd like a set of grown-up star wars sheets on the same level as s7's wallpaper: something subtle, monochromatic, but 100% pew pew pew!

Why grown-up ones, I am still using the 70s sheets! [helps to be living alone for this kind of thing I'll admit] I love all the patterned ones (anyone else catch the SW sheets on The Americans); my only beef is that you have to make due with twins.

I used to cut out newspaper ads for Star Wars when I was a kid, too. I had a whole bunch of them, but for the life of me, I don't know what became of them. Maybe I'll find them stored in a forgotten scrapbook someday. Thanks for posting this stuff, Dean.

nice!

spurs? never noticed!

How about Greedo's shoes?

Well, Han was a ladykiller.

I love that picture. I know Greedo was a woman, but why the hell did she feel inclined to wear heels to that job? Oh man, it just kills me. "Gotta look FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAB! Even as Greedo." No hatin, all appreciatin.

I hate when people give plausible reasons for things that seem crazy, but I'm going to do it now...

Maybe so Greedo could be taller?

You would think that is a very reasonable explanation James, but apparently the actress (Maria De Aragon) played Greedo exclusively in the shots where he is sitting in the cantina booth front on [at least in any final cut of the film], in which case it doesn't change things. I would agree with you, that it makes sense to add some 'height' to the character for other scenes with Solo that they might have tried out, but then they used a different actor for shots wherein both Solo and Greedo were shown - go figure.

So which 'sticky-fingered' officers will be taking home one of these trophies. It would be interesting to see these set up in the police station alongside other appropriated assets. Aw, no one will notice this missing Klaatu figure.

State of California seizes Star Wars collection valued at 10k$ from fraudulent contractor.

Even the deserts of Tunisia want to wipe all trace of Episode I from the surface of the Earth.

Star Wars home of Anakin Skywalker poised to be buried by dune migration

Harmy hard at work:

Thats amazing

These Star Wars ties are actually pretty cool (but expensive). I like that most of them are still subtle enough to pull off as actual ties, and look nice too, as opposed to novelty junk. I would definitely go for a plaid Trooper one, or maybe the C3PO.

Star Wars ties from Kotobukiya

Dear Mr. Abrams... http://bit.ly/1fvwfkL

I actually really enjoyed that. If you read up on it, there are a few other suggestions that didn't make the cut to the 'letter' which are pretty good also. As much as I think these are for the most part obvious (well, at least to any Star Wars fan) it does need to be said I suppose. We all saw how clearly the folks responsible for the prequel franchise seemed to be completely oblivious to any of the factors that made the original trilogy appealing - even in the face of how starkly the movies they made contrasted with the original. Yeah, a lot of it falls on George - he proved to us his lack of faith to his original vision when he did the SEs, but there were not shortage of other people around who had to have known what utter garbage they were making.

But, at the end of the day, we fanboys might rant and complain, but the movies made money, and the marketing machine of George and co. did not slow or seem to be affected one iota by any prequel fallout. And it will continue to rake in the money hand over fist for Disney now, no matter what they do. It's sad but true. There is still a spark, buried deep inside me somewhere, that hopes for the original movies to be re-born, but is piled high and deep under so much shit now that it will take a feat to make me feel the same again. But in spite of it all, there is that part of me that was just a kid wanting and waiting for years for more SW in any shape or form that refuses to die. It is precisely because we love and treasure the universe that was created for SW that we are so sensitive about not fucking it up.

Time for a lighthearted break. As with many of Weird Al's covers, you might just find this little musical interlude a vast improvement over the original (no offense to The Manilow), and might just not be able to unhear these lyrics the next time the song plays.



Slight beef here for choosing the SE accompaniments I know, I know, but I have to say the timing and lyrics are incredibly well done.

Gah, each successive news story I read about the upcoming films is making we dread what we are going to see from Abrams/Disney more and more. Today [potential] open casting was put out for the movie. Looking for a pair of "street smart" young adults, one of which will be a young and tough orphan. Really, those tropes again? I am so eager to see Urban Twilight: In Space I can't even contain myself. So instead of pandering to a bunch of 6-9 year olds, they are doing for that hardcore nerd demographic of tweens? Smart move Lucasfilm.

Star Wars sequel: Open auditions to be held in UK

In completely unrelated news, FUCK. I really, really loathe how Hollywood cannot possibly make a feature film anymore that doesn't star teenagers/young actors from within a 6-year age window as the principle leads. Do movie audiences have such little imagination? No. Would it be impossible for a viewer to relate to a character outside of their immediate peer group? No. Is there a lack of qualified actors with actual talent who can fill the roles instead? No. Are we creating a group of disposable 'actors' who have an average career length of a runway model, and will probably live the rest of their lives working off of that initial role? Apparently.

The movie to blame for this is Star Wars.