The Biggs sequence

[thebitterguy]

I've seen some of this before; the Biggs stuff for sure. I don't recall Treadwell. That may have been the mercy of the human mind's inability to thingy its contents yadda yadda.

Biggs was something that everyone saw in the photo story book and swore they saw in the theatres.

Comments

[waiwode.livejournal.com]

Ah, the "Gay Luke" sequence!

Maybe I was blessed, never seeing the vaunted picture book (but I think* part of this sequence was hinted at in the little black & white SW Marvel put out (the same format as the Blade Runner book that was basically the "director's cut" years before we had a director's cut)), but as I pedalled my bike to the theatre each weekend all summer, spending my hoarded paper-boy money, I don't recall ever having seen that sequence. And I must have watched it six or seven times that year, and again the next year when it was re-released. And again the year after when it was re-re-released.**

Splinter of the Mind's Eye was like a godsend to us, my pal Sean and I took turns reading and re-reading it. We didn't know what an RPG was (that would be the next year) but if there had been a Star Wars RPG I don't think he or I would have seen the light of the sun in 1978.

Doug.

*think is the key word. It's been thirty years.

**Certainly not a record. Mind you, I was eleven when the whole thing started.

[mark-argent.livejournal.com]

I clearly remember these scenes from the NPR radio show.

[chadu.livejournal.com]

I believe the Toshi Station/Biggs scenes also appeared in the novelization by "George Lucas" (ghosted, I think, by Alan Dean Foster).

CU

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

The funny thing is that, while I obviously never saw any of these clips in the theaters, almost all of it, including the Treadwell sequence, could be pieced together from various non-film treatments of Star Wars. There was the storybook, the Marvel comics adaptation, and the radio play, not to mention the Alan Dean Foster ghost-written novelization. I recall reading (or seeing) an interview with Lucas where he said he considered putting this stuff back in the Special Edition but, having reviewed it, he concluded that it was so bad as to not make it worthwhile. And if George Lucas thinks it sucks, chance are it's probably really bad.

(Interestingly, the Biggs stuff provides a lot of valuable context to stray comments here and there and fleshes out the rather thin setting of the first movie a fair bit. For that reason alone, I'm sorry it never made it into the film, even though I'm inclined to agree that the sequences are very poor.)

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

Is Splinter of the Mind's Eye worth reading? I remember seeing it but never picked it up.

I finally made a DVD of the original theatrical release of Star Wars (the 'Special Edition' changes annoy the hell out of me) and have been playing it for K, a lot. He's digging on it, which makes me happy.

[thebitterguy]

I recall finding SotME a strange read, even back then. It took Luke & Leia in a direction that's even more disturbing with their shared parentage, and seemed to ignore (IIRC) Han entirely.

It does have a neat crash landing scene.

Didn't the original series (pre SE) get a DVD release last year?

[thebitterguy]

The NPR show is something I always wanted to hear but none of my local statiosn got it.

I've heard there are a lot of bits in it that were omitted from the films.

[uniquecrash5.livejournal.com]

Didn't the original series (pre SE) get a DVD release last year?

Maybe. No idea. I found an avi and made a DVD out of it.

I think I've decided to live my life (and my son's) as though the Special Editions and the prequels never existed. I think we'll both be happier that way.