opus (02/21/83)
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From the 'Horse's Mouth....
Official Information on....
RETURN OF THE JEDI
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Boy! am I having fun! this is my first letter to the net, and I am enjoying
it immensly. so, please excuse the slightly overdone, obnoxious psuedo-graphics
and take this letter in the spirit intended.
I have just returned to my PDP 11 from BOSKONE XX. YEA!!!!!!!!! It was a blast,
man. And part of the festivities was the first ever presentation (anywhere)
by Lucasfilms, actually telling the public (sort of) some truth to
dispel the wild rumours and conjecture that has sprung up. The persons
there doing the dispelling were:
THE PRODUCER Howard Kazanjian
VP of Marketing Sidney Ganis
and Fan Club Director Maureen Garrett
The form in which they did this was an 11-minute documentary film on the
'creatures' they have made for it, a slide show of various stills from
the movie and info about the sets (one is the largest outdoor set ever
constructed next to one for Cleopatra). The slide show was full of teasers,
and extremely well done, but the doc movie was a definate spoiler.All
the shock effect, for me, is now gone. Suffice to say, they're fantastic
(literaly), and there is going to be another cantana-type scene, like in
the bar in the first movie- the perfect excuse to show dozens of neat 'beings'
without any necesity or reason for their being there.
A lot of little bits of info was given, from stats to things seen in the
stills. I will not describe the stills, say where some of the action
takes place, its looks or the plot occurances one can gather from them.
This being my first letter, I do not wish to have a baptism by fire (wrong
religion), and so will endever to avoid one.
This much I will tell/remember (I am straight from the con, I am still
opperating on adrenalin alone).
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THE TITLES
This is the saga behind the controversy, which was actively cultivated
by Lucasfilms.
When George Lucas concieved of, wrote and copywrited this movie's
script, the title was/is Return of the Jedi. When Lucasfilms started the
pre-publicity, they actively used the title Revenge. I believe this was
done partly out of a total paranoic fear of ANY security leaks, and
partly out of pure boyish mischievousness. The third title,"Blue Moon"
was the working title on location. That was the 'cover' name. all filming
requisitions and location shots were done using that title, and the
cast and crew wore T-shirts emblazoned with the logo. They showed slides
of all three. all were the same basic style.
THE OTHER
During the question and answer period, someone asked who the other was.
After the laughter had died down, they asked for the next question. But
they did answer positively the question of whether we would find out who
the "other" is.
THE EMPEROR
one slide showed the red carpet literally rolled out, and regal looking
minions parading down. They said that we would "find out more about the
emperor" in this film.
LUKE AND THE DARK SIDE
I won't elaborate on the plot conjectures one can make from the stills,
but Luke was dressed in black in every shot.
DARTH VADER AS DADDY
We'll definately find out 'fer sure'.
ONE INTERESTING STILL
In one still, beautiful beyond belief, there were a couple of x-wings
flying in front of a large, luminous planet (I wax poetic). Up in one
corner was an exquisite moon, and to the other side was what appeared at
first to be a planetoid half illuminated, vertically, until the men from
Lucasfilms pointed it out specically. upon closer examination, it reveled
itself to be a half constructed Death Star.
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This episode is extra-long, because they've tried to answer as many questions
as they can. Among the unanswered: What were the Clone wars?
What does the "Sith" in Darth Vader's title
mean?
What are the Whills?
Closing Remarks
It looks damn good. Opens May 25th at a theatre near you.
Stacey (opus) Goldstein
Uucp: mitccc!opus
Arpa: opus@mit-mljfw (02/22/83)
An addendum to OPUS' news article, also garnered from BosKone. While Luke definitely is dressed in Basic Black in all the shots, we were also shown slides which were teasingly described as Luke appearing to lose a fight with Darthy and handing over his Light Saber, plus he seems to be handcuffed in the slide shown next (however, these slides could be interpreted differently, and the Lucasfilms person definitely gave the impression that his was not the only possible deduction...). Interesting note: Remember the Royal Celebration scene at the end of Star Wars IV, with the parade and so on? Dress all the spectators in white Imperial Battle Armor, and you'll have one of the scenes we saw -- sounds bad, folks...