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Tag Archives: Star Wars

Episode 293: A Star Wars Roundtable (Happy Life Day!)

23 Saturday Dec 2017

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Episode, Science Fiction, Star Wars

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Tags

Episode 8, Porgs, Rian Johnson, Star Wars, The 1978 Christmas Special, The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi

Episode 293 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

Episode 293

In this week’s episode, Tod Caviness, Julian Chambliss, Dianne Turgeon Richardson, and Jared Silvia join me in a roundtable discussion of the Star Wars Christmas Special of 1978 and maybe got a few other topics in there as well.

Star Wars roundtable


Episode 293 of The Drunken Odyssey, your favorite podcast about creative writing and literature is available on iTunes, or right click here to download.

The Curator of Schlock #113: The Ewok Adventure

04 Friday Dec 2015

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Star Wars, The Curator of Schlock

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Burl Ives, Caravn of Courage, Ewoks, George Lucas, Olivia Wilde, Star Wars, Tron, Tron Legacy

The Curator of Schlock #113 by Jeff Shuster

Star Wars: The Ewok Adventure: The Caravan of Courage

It’s Willow with Ewoks.

Ewok6

Hey, I bet you guys didn’t know that I was once a huge Star Wars fan. I bought the toys whenever I could afford them, could hum every note of the score, and had the dialogue from Episode IV: A New Hope memorized word for word. But then something happened…I TURNED SIX YEARS-OLD! Yeah, Return of the Jedi came and went out of the theaters and I moved on to other movies like Disney’s TRON. You know, that series we’re not getting a finale to!

tron

Why should Disney make TRON 3 when they can just release a new Star Wars movie each year? That’ll will keep the nerds happy. Maybe they’ll get around to TRON 3 when Olivia Wilde turns 80. I’m not bitter or anything.

Of course, people tend to forget that George Lucas put out another Star Wars movie back in 1984, Star Wars: The Ewok Adventure: The Caravan of Courage. This was a made-for-TV affair, but my interest was still piqued.

Ewok3

Except that whole Ewok part in that they were my least favorite part of Return of the Jedi because they were cuddly teddy bears. Corporations kept pushing cute things on me when I was child: Rainbow Brite, Herself the Elf, Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, and, of course, Care Bears. I liked monsters! Like the Rancor Monster that Luke Skywalker mercilessly butchered in Return of the Jedi. And then I got subjected to alien teddy bears! I’m not bitter or anything.

Ewok5

Anyway, Star Wars: The Ewok Adventure: The Caravan of Courage is about a human family that crashes their star cruiser on the planet of Endor. The mom and dad get kidnapped by a giant ogre. Cut to some Ewoks including Wicket, the one Warwick Davis played in Return of the Jedi. At least, I assume this is the same Wicket from Return of the Jedi. The movie doesn’t reference Return of the Jedi at all. I assume this move takes place after Jedi since the Ewoks don’t want burn the little girl they find alive. Her name is Cindel and she’s played by Aubree Miller. She has an older brother named Mace (Eric Walker) who starts shooting at the Ewoks with his blaster. He figures the Ewoks must have kidnapped them, and Ewoks don’t speak any English further complicating the situation.

Ewok1

At least we in the audience know what’s going on because Burl Ives narrates the whole thing, explaining the intricacies of Ewok society (just like he did for Reindeer society in Rudoplph the Red-nosed Reindeer).  For instance, there’s a special tree that provides a special sap that the Ewoks use to cure all of their ills. Oh, and before going on a quest, the village mystic will bestow gifts on the adventurers that are the totems of ancient Ewok warriors. And wouldn’t you know, the tribe decides to send a band of Ewok warriors to help the kids save their parents and kill the giant troll. They also run into some fairies and fight a giant spider at some point. The whole affair is like a prototype Willow, but without Val Kilmer. I’m not bitter or anything.

Ewok2

Five Things I Learned from Star Wars: The Ewok Adventure: The Caravan of Courage

  1. Burl Ives commands authority with every syllable he utters.
  2. Ewoks can talk without having to move their mouths.
  3. Sometimes a stupid rock is not a stupid rock, but a valuable tool that’s vital to your quest.
  4. Ewok priestesses wield dark, magical powers.
  5. Sometimes happy endings aren’t so bad.

_______

Jeffrey Shuster 1

Photo by Leslie Salas

Jeffrey Shuster (episode 47, episode 102, episode 124, and episode 131) is an MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida.

Like a Geek God #2: The Unavoidable Trepidation of Episode VII

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by thedrunkenodyssey in Film, Like a Geek God, Star Wars

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J.J. Abrams, Like a Geek God, Michael Arndt, Star Wars

Like a Geek God #2 by Mark Pursell

The Unavoidable Trepidation of Episode VII

When The Walt Disney Company acquired Lucasfilm in October 2012, simultaneously announcing plans to produce a new trilogy of Star Wars films set chronologically sometime after the events of Return of the Jedi, the reaction of fanfolks across the world–myself included–was tempered with more than slight unease.  The promise of new entries in what is arguably one of the world’s most-loved geek franchises was exciting at a base level.  But those of us who were old enough to grow up watching the original Star Wars trilogy–those of us who, as adults or adolescents, also took part in the frenzy and fervor of anticipation for The Phantom Menace, George Lucas’s 1999 prequel to his original films and the first entry in an entire prequel trilogy–have learned from experience to mitigate our excitement for a new Star Wars movie.

“It is a truth universally acknowledged” at this point that The Phantom Menace is bad.  Shitty, really, is the word.  Some of us recognized this as soon as Menace‘s credits started rolling.  Some of us (*raises hand*) lied to ourselves, choosing instead to live with the delusion that we really loved Jar Jar Binks and pod racing and the unintelligible plot involving trade disputes.  (I could go on, but if you want the ultimate breakdown on why this movie is shitty, and anti-thetical to many of the things that Star Wars geeks love about the original trilogy, check out Red Letter Media’s famous one-hour video review).  And the subsequent movies in the prequel trilogy weren’t any better.  I held onto my delusion longer than most–I could look past the wooden romance in Attack of the Clones thanks to that movie’s awesome action set pieces–but it dashed itself to pieces against the nonsensical Revenge of the Sith.  (Those of you who think Revenge of the Sith is a legitimately good movie are still lying to yourselves).

The point is that Star Wars fans who are old enough to have grown up with the original movies and and to have been in a position to look forward to the prequel trilogy know what it feels like to have your highest expectations dashed in the most abysmal way possible.  Being burned like that leaves emotional geek scars for life, and the slightest repetition of that experience–my disappointment at Alien franchise prequel Prometheus, for example (what is it with prequels?)–is enough to give you terrible flashbacks to that first, most crushing disappointment.  It’s no wonder that many of us greeted the news of Disney’s plans for the franchise, exciting though it was, with more than a little trepidation.

I think, however, that there are a few elements in play regarding the production of the first new movie, Episode VII, that are reason for even the most cynical Star Wars fan to allow themselves a tiny flutter of excitement at the prospect that VII might not be the kind of soulless sequel we expect from looking at the history of the franchise.

1) George Lucas is not involved.  A lot of the prequel trilogy’s failings can be traced back to one thing.  One man, really.  Lucas wrote/co-wrote and directed all three of the prequels, and he is ultimately to blame for the limp storylines, the bad acting, the robotic dialogue, etc.  This becomes even more apparent when you realize that Lucas neither wrote nor directed the franchise fan favorite from the original trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back, and he didn’t have a lot to do with Return of the Jedi, either (yeah, yeah, Ewoks, I know, but that speeder bike chase!  The whole first part of the movie set at Jabba the Hutt’s palace!  Jedi is right.  No Jedi haters here, please).  He is, of course, serving as a creative consultant on the new movie’s production, but he is not responsible for crafting Episode VII in any way.  Wipe away that sweat drop.

2) Michael Arndt IS involved.  It’s possible that many people had no idea who Michael Arndt was before Disney announced that he had been tapped to write Episode VII.  It’s possible that, other than his name, Star Wars fans still know little about him or why it’s good news that he’s involved.  The thing is, Arndt is kind of brilliant.  He’s already won an Academy Award for writing Little Miss Sunshine, and he was nominated again for writing Toy Story 3.  So, the guy has writing chops (regardless of what you think of the Oscars, both Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3 are excellent, well-written movies).  More importantly, though, he’s a fan.  Arndt is a long-time Star Wars enthusiast and has even lectured about the franchise and its influence.  In other words, this is the kind of guy you want writing a new Star Wars movie.

3) So is J.J. Abrams. Before you start crying “lens flare! lens flare!”, let me have my say.  My problem with J.J. Abrams’s movies have nothing to do with his visuals.  Super 8, the Star Trek reboots…these movies look great and their action set pieces are killer.  Abrams’s movies are problematic to me from a script/storytelling standpoint.  But he’s not writing Episode VII.  So. And really, other than Brad Bird, I think that Abrams is the only well-known director whose style is perfectly suited to the Star Wars universe.

It’s early days, of course.  Episode VII has a projected release date of summer 2015.  And if you make a study of movie production histories, like I do, you know that the process of bringing any movie to life–much less a highly-anticipated, highly-scrutinized property like Star Wars–is fraught with potential for bad decision making that can hamstring the finished product.  Writers and directors disagree or get fired, stories and scripts are tossed or chopped up and recombinated.  If you want to give yourself nightmares, Google the production history of Alien 3.  Who knows if Episode VII will even be a good movie, much less the redemption of the Star Wars franchise that it so badly needs to be?  But the involvement of Arndt and Abrams, and the limited involvement of George Lucas, are positive signs, signs that should give all Star Wars fans–even the most embittered–a new hope.  (Sorry.  I couldn’t resist).

___________

Mark Pursell in Orange

Mark Pursell is a lifelong geek and lover of words.  His publishing credits include Nimrod International Journal, The New Orleans Review, and The Florida Review, where he also served as poetry editor.  His work can most recently be seen in the first volume of the 15 Views of Orlando anthology from Burrow Press.  He currently teaches storytelling and narrative design for video games at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida.

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