Nostalgia: Return of the Jedi "Official Collectors Edition"

[krpalmer]

I recently had the chance to take another look at my copy of the "Return of the Jedi Official Collectors Edition," which I gather amounts to a movie program sold on the newsstands (it was a little more expensive than I believe the novelisation would have been at the time), that I got back in the spring of 1983. As I perhaps obsess on a little bit

Comments

[lazypadawan]

Those old programs are really funny. By 1983, the SW crew was about as famous as Elvis...why go out of your way to describe Artoo as a "small, barrel-shaped robot?"

Kazanjian also mentions how all the actors, "even Dave Prowse," received only sections of the script to try and keep things secret. (I'm not quite sure just what light, if any, this sheds on modern "spoiler reports."

TESB ended on a cliffhanger so fans were very curious about what was going to happen in ROTJ (the press too). There was no way to get spoiler info on a daily basis, though. I think they were more worried about the press.

[krpalmer]

I can wonder if Artoo's intended functions would have been a little more obscure... but you're right, the description seems a little gratuitous in its detail.

When you say "press," I can think of movie magazines, although it's a little amusing to imagine those articles in the more legitimate outlets. The "On Location" section did mention "Blue Harvest" ("Horror Beyond Imagination," as we must always remember) as a cover against the press and the more fanatical fans, although remembering that left me a little surprised when "Empire of Dreams" also mentioned how the fake title was intended to help protect the production against locals intent on squeezing money out of another well-heeled Star Wars movie. "Once Upon A Galaxy" also mentioned secrecy as a defence against television productions ripping ideas off from the movies; I suppose in 1979 people were that much more aware of the original "Battlestar Galactica" and having to design a new Millennium Falcon after "Space 1999" came out.

[lazypadawan]

Not just movie magazines, but t.v. and newspapers. The Miami Herald cheerfully printed ROTJ spoilers in its A section when Marvel released the comics adaptation in advance of the film release. From what I understand, other newspapers did too. There's a reason why I came to loathe spoilers ;).

I can completely understand why they did not want locals to rip off the production, given that this particular SW film relied the most on shooting in the U.S..

[krpalmer]

My first thought on hearing about quoting spoilers from the Marvel comics was that it was different from breaking in to find a script under lock and key... and then I realised that it has a definite similarity to walking out of the theatre babbling out loud about how great the plot twist was.

I can wonder how things might have been different for me had I actually seen Return of the Jedi at the movies in 1983 in advance of reading the various adaptations... although I tried to be much more careful about things two decades later. (I suppose that just in advance of that I was spoiled by an unthinking glance at the back of The Phantom Menace's soundtrack, but then I gather a lot of people were too.)