What?

Plastic Galaxy.

Plastic Galaxy: The Story of Star Wars Toys SNEAK PEEK TEASER FOOTAGE! from Plastic Galaxy on Vimeo.

When Star Wars landed in the theaters in 1977, it introduced audiences to a galaxy filled with heroes and villains, robots and space ships, and a dizzying variety of alien life. But when the lights came up, they all disappeared…

Unless you had the toys. In which case, the adventure never needed to end.

Plastic Galaxy is a documentary about those toys.

They raised moolah on Kickstarter and are hard at work finishing up their documentary.

I remember leaving the theater in 1978 and seeing a poster for the action figures and thinking. "Oh my God, there's toys."

With hundreds of toys and products yanking on kids to get their attention today, it is hard for people to realize just how integrating into our lives Star Wars was.
We woke up in our Star Wars Underoos, in our beds with Star Wars sheets and pillowcases, covered with Star Wars blankets and Star Wars plush toys. We ate our Star Wars cereal and brushed our teeth with our Star Wars toothbrush and dressed in our Star Wars shirts. We grabbed our Star Wars backpacks with our Star Wars pencils and folders and Star Wars lunchboxes. We went to school and played Star Wars every recess. We didn't have the attention span of goldfish, we did this for YEARS. (I didn't mention the Star Wars erasers, soap, trading cards, plastic heads filled with candies, Halloween costumes, wood that our dad painted to look like light sabers, or the hundreds of damn toys. Everything I'm mentioning I had and we were a middle-class family.)

I don't know if the documentary will capture this or if they are focused on the Kenner toys.

Their website is HERE.

Leatherface Loves Leia.

 

Leatherface Loves Leia.
Acrylic on paper in wooden frame. 8"x5"

Sci-Fi fandom in the 70's.

If you recognize all of these interview subjects, you're bona fide.

Extreme fandom of any sort is usually pretty interesting and seeing people create for themselves is inspirational.

The DVD can be ordered HERE for $15.

Here's the YouTube blurb:

This feature-length documentary film tells the story of the 1970's Bay Area Sci-Fi conventions called Space-Con. Told by the original organizers and fans. Includes celebrity interviews, costume contests and over 40 minutes of rare convention footage. See the Federation Trading Post in Berkeley and very first Star Trek convention in San Francisco. A real treat for any Star Trek or Star Wars fan. Film stars Bob Wilkins, John Stanley, Ernie Fosselius, and many more.

How did my father die?

 

This picture is making the rounds on the intergalactic network. I can't find where it started in TinEye.
Made me laugh snort out loud.

Darth Vader and Son.

Jeffrey Brown's Darth Vader and Son just went on pre-sale at Amazon. The book is scheduled for release in May.
Jeffrey also posted some sketches from the project on his blog.

A few months ago I interviewed Jeffrey and this is what he said about Darth Vader and Son:

It's called Darth Vader and son, and basically it's a collection of gags and vignettes about Darth Vader trying to raise a four year old Luke Skywalker - trying to get him to pick up his toys and teaching him how to ride a bike and stuff.

George Lucas goodness.

"My name is George Lucas. I am a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., a multi-faceted entertainment corporation.

I am not here today as a writer-director, or as a producer, or as the chairman of a corporation. I've come as a citizen of what I believe to be a great society that is in need of a moral anchor to help define and protect its intellectual and cultural heritage. It is not being protected.

The destruction of our film heritage, which is the focus of concern today, is only the tip of the iceberg. American law does not protect our painters, sculptors, recording artists, authors, or filmmakers from having their lifework distorted, and their reputation ruined. If something is not done now to clearly state the moral rights of artists, current and future technologies will alter, mutilate, and destroy for future generations the subtle human truths and highest human feeling that talented individuals within our society have created.

A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history.

People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart. Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race.

These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tommorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten.

There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste.

I accuse the companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest.

I accuse the corporations, who oppose the moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line, and not in the long-term interest of the Nation.

The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.

There are those who say American law is sufficient. That's an outrage! It's not sufficient! If it were sufficient, why would I be here? Why would John Houston have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of "The Maltese Falcon?" Why are films cut up and butchered?

Attention should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting procedures. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself.

I hope you have the courage to lead America in acknowledging the importance of American art to the human race, and accord the proper protection for the creators of that art--as it is accorded them in much of the rest of the world communities."

- George Lucas, March 3, 1988, Before the Subcomittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate.

via Save Star Wars.

 

Star Wars Blu Ray coming soon.

 

via imgur.

Longest crash.

Like a Bossk.

 

Like a Bossk.
via

George Lucas Strikes Back.

Little girl joins the dark side.

IG-88 Computes Rey Cobra.