Alright, I'll geek out a little bit here. ROTJ deserves it.

My life more or less begins going to see the '79 re-re-release of Star Wars. I vividly remember going to see ESB scant weeks after it premiered in theaters, after having just "graduated" kindergarten. But with ROTJ I remember the hype leading up to it, through '81 and '82 (when it was Revenge...) and the Star Wars release of '82 when the "return" trailer premiered.

Of course I was very young then, too, an eight year old, and so when I caught snippets of the movie on Entertainment Tonight I was unable to comprehend what was going on. My mind figured the plot of the movie hinged on rescuing Han Solo, so that had to come at the end, right? Well, what is all this with Han running around in a forest? And beyond that, I know the movie takes place on Tatooine, so whoever heard of a forest on a desert planet??

The day my mom promised to take my brothers and I to the movie was a Wednesday, I guess a week after the opening. I woke up at roughly three thirty in the morning from adrenaline, and was unable to fall back asleep. We all had school that day, but my older brother actually got to ditch the afternoon (for a "doctor's appointment") so he could wait in line for the tickets. I was very jealous. The theater was in our local mall, a triplex run by General Cinemas. I believe Jedi was playing on two of the screens, again a major mind-blower at the time. When my mom, my younger brother, and I arrived, my older brother was in line to be seated, wending down past the Wilson's leather shop almost to the Sears at the end of the mall. (Wilson's is gone today, as is the theater itself, but the Sears is still there.)

My birthday was days away, and my brother had been nice enough to buy me the souvenir magazine to read in line. I poured over it, mouth agape at the new Death Star (what what??) and pictures of the Rancor, as well as the previously seen characters like Ackbar, Bib Fortuna, and Weequay (who were already in my figure collection by that point.)

The movie blew me away. It was the coolest thing ever, bar nothing. I think I held my breath all the way through the rescue of Han Solo, (except when I laughed at the most hilarious joke ever put on screen, the Worrt eating the bug! Comic gold to a Muppet-obsessed eight year old!) I hoped the movie would last forever!

You know how Lucas says he worried about revealing that Vader was Luke's father because of the damage it might do to little kids, but experts assured him kids would believe Vader was lying? Well, I am proof that the theory was true. I had espoused the meanness of Vader's trick to anyone who believed what he had said for three years at that point, so I felt horribly betrayed when Yoda admitted to Luke that Vader was Anakin, and when double-talking Ben tried to explain away his own lies. But I felt even worse when they told Luke he still had to kill Vader.

Getting to the Battle of Endor was an absolute roller-coaster ride...I loved the Ewoks, hated the Emperor, and came to respect Vader and admire Luke for his unrelenting belief in the goodness that could be found in everybody. He went against what his own teachers had told him to do, and it saved the galaxy!

I saw it again a few times that summer, went to a travelling mall exhibit of some of the props, and of course collected the new toys and played story sequels with my younger brother and our neighborhood friends for the next two years.

Though today I may value ANH and ESB more, in my childhood Return of the Jedi was the utter realization of everything a Star Wars movie should be. [/geek]

Haven't seen a thread like this for a long time...

Here's my top ten most wanted:

1--Training remote (with stinger bolt to clip it on a lightsaber)
2--Death Star console (put one section in a pack and I will buy ten Troopers to build two full ones)
3--Correctly scaled Mouse Droid
4--Deck plates from Echo Base
5--Moisture farm droids
6--That hanging chunk of meat from the Ewok trap
7--Luke's granola bar (or was it a sausage?) from Dagobah
8--Accurately-scaled Cantina table
9--a Holocron
10-Extended stock Stormtrooper rifle (Okay, really I've never seen this in the movies, but I had one of the '78 role-play rifles as a kid and I always loved the unfolding stock option...put it with an EU figure)

Yes, MP! I too have read the "Why Cats Paint" book. Great stuff!

My only problem is, did the elephant intend for this painting to be a self-portrait? Is that just the audience's reaction? Do the intentions of the artist invalidate said reaction? 

Hey, Brian. I really really enjoyed quite a bit of the "Tales from the Cantina" anthology. Though not so much the Muftak/Kabe story, ironically. In particular, "Empire Blues, the Devaronain's Tale" is quite simply the best Star Wars fiction I've read to date, bar none. Greedo's tale, though definitely noncanon, is also surprisingly well done (especially since we all know how that one turns out.) The Tonikka Sister's tale was fun (Zahn wrote it) and BoShek's tale was passable. The rest of it is pretty forgetable...Kevin Anderson edited, and wound up trying to pull together a bunch of the stories into some overall arc, but it really doesn't work. Of the three original Tales books, this is the best.

"Tales of the Bounty Hunters" is a barely decent read overall. The IG-88 story (another Kevin Anderson contribution) is awful in its way, but almost to the point of Holiday Special awful, so that any fan really needs to have a working idea of what its all about just to be able to make fun of it (if that makes any sense). Bossk and Dengar's tales are completely forgettable. Zuckuss and 4LOM's tale (they share one) is bland but fills in some interesting ESB continuity. The Boba Fett story is peculiar, in that it basically takes place twenty years after ESB and focuses on who and what Boba Fett really is. (Most of this is now outdated.)

"Tales from Jabba's Palace" was the worst of the bunch for me. We learn the reason the Rancor Keeper cried when Luke killed his pet. There's a whodunit-style mystery being solved by an anti-Sherlock Holmes Gammorean Guard (that description almost makes it sound fun, but it's not.) The only quality is Boba Fett's tale "A Barve Like That," which details his time in the Sarlacc.

So there are some opinions, hope you find something you like in there. I would definitely recommend those stories from the Cantina, at any rate.

Looks great, Ryan.

I am glad I could be an inspiration. Your method of making the natural rocks worked incredible! Good job.

VOTC was 2004.

Agreed on the long wait for Invincible. (and more spoilers to follow...)



These writers seem to have it in for Tim Zahn's characters...first Leia's Noghri bodyguards, then Mara Jade, and now Pellaeon...and I'd wager either Jacen or Jaina will have to die in the end. Thankfully Tallon Karrde decided to sit this series out, or I'm sure he'd have died by now.

Aaron Allston's books were a pleasure to read thus far (I love his take on Lando, and the humor he brings to the situation...ie the Looooove Commander.) Troy Denning's entries have been a real chore, though, I absolutely couldn't take one more Alema Rar POV passage, so I'm hoping Invincible is worth it.

Karen Traviss has been the middle of the road for me. I haven't really gotten excited about all the Mando stuff, and unfortunately she got the character of Pellaeon completely wrong. I found myself really brought out of the story quite a few times with his reaction to Jacen's control of the fleet. Seeing as he was on hand for (and very outspoken against) Thrawn's use of C'Baoth's fleet coordinating skills, I found it completely unbelievable that he would be so surprised by Jacen's actions. I was hoping for at least some acknowledgement that Pellaeon was aware of the power of a Jedi gone dark, but I guess Traviss didn't read those books to know. At least know the characters you're killing off.