Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the new This Week In Star Wars.
If you're new 'round these parts, This Week In Star Wars looks back at important moments in the creation of the Star Wars universe.
Let's see what happened between August 24th and 30th shall we?
August 24th, 1934 - Kenny George Baker born.
If you're a Star Wars fan and have been to pretty much any sizable convention odds are you've had an encounter with Kenny Baker. And if you've had an encounter with Kenny Baker odds are it was a pleasant one. I've met him a few times myself and he's always been very pleasant and quick with a story.
Baker has been the guy under R2's dome since 1976 and he'll be back for the new Star Wars as well. It might not impact the new trilogy on the whole that much, but it makes me smile that Baker's still involved. Happy 81st birthday, Mr. Baker!
August 27th, 1952 - Paul Reubens born.
Yes, he's more famous for being Pee-Wee Herman, but Paul Reubens also played another important role of interest to Star Wars fans: Captain Rex from the original Star Tours. Specifically, he's a pilot droid RX-24, but he'll always be Rex to me.
Sadly, Rex was replaced by the more familiar C-3PO when the Disney Parks updated the Star Tours attraction, but eagle-eyed visitors and spot Rex while in line for the new ride and the good folks behind Star Wars Rebels resurrected the character (complete with Reubens returning to voice) for guest appearance on the show.
August 27th, 1976 - Final contracts signed between Fox and Lucas for “Star Wars.”
If August 27th, 1976 seems a little late for the official contract between George Lucas and 20th Century Fox to be finalized you're not wrong. Lucas shot the entirety of Star Wars before the contract was signed, believe it or not. The reason was that Lucas was holding out for some very specific provisions and ultimately the studio bent to his will, but that meant neither one had any clear legal rights until over a month after Star Wars wrapped photography.
The key battles Lucas won were “[The Star Wars Corporation] owns all Sequel Motion Picture Rights in and to the picture” and that Lucas himself would control all merchandising relating to Star Wars and its sequels, with the profits being split evenly between Fox and Lucas. That 50/50 split on merch was later renegotiated during the deal for Empire to be almost completely in Lucas' favor.
If George hadn't been a stickler for those provisions and essentially exhausted Fox into giving in on them then it would have been Fox who decided what Empire would have been instead of Lucas self-financing and essentially turning Fox into a distributor for his movie. Most of his huge success can be backtracked to this contract, the likes of which I doubt we'll ever see again.
(The above contract image was not specifically this 1976 contract, but the closest I could find that would fit what we're talking about. Now you know!)
August 29th, 2000 - Shelagh Fraser died.
Fraser had over 70 credits to her name when she passed away in 2000, but it's her bit part as Aunt Beru in Star Wars that permanently etched her visage into cinema history.
She was only in a few scenes in the original film, but Beru seemed to balance out Owen. She was the optimist in the family and you get the sense that the good man Luke was on the verge of being was thanks largely to her influence. All that is inferred almost solely based on one little conversation between Beru and Owen and the kindness that Fraser radiated.
August 30th, 2011 – News of more needless Special Edition tinkery hits the net.
Just when old and cranky Star Wars fans (like me) thought we had seen the worst of George Lucas' special edition add-ins news came of even more revisionism to be added to the Blu-Ray releases. We got two needless additions to Return of the Jedi that included ghost Hayden Christensen and Darth Vader vocalizing his displeasure with the Emperor electrocuting his kid. It was on this day in 2011 that we found out the last part and fandom cried out “Nooooo” along with Darth.
Could those recent rumors of the new Lucasfilm bosses pursuing an authentic DeSpecialized Edition release of the original trilogy pan out? God, I hope so...
That's it for this week. See ya' next week for more Star Wars nerdiness!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
