Star Wars v Superman: The two biggest fantasy films of the 1970s

Superman (1978) had a lot in common with Star Wars

Episode Nothing has occasionally looked at some of the other big films of 1977.

But today I'd like to look at a film which arrived more than 18 months after Star Wars – Richard Donner's Superman. It was released 40 years ago this week, and I think it's revealing to compare this huge superhero epic with George Lucas's much cheaper creation.

Gloria Katz, 1942-2018: The writer who gave Star Wars some of its best lines

  

Gloria Katz with George Lucas

Think for a moment of some of the best lines in Star Wars – the wittier ones, that remind you of the golden age of movies.

The chances are that you are thinking of lines that were written by the late Gloria Katz and her husband Willard Huyck.

When was the title Star Wars devised? It’s earlier than you might think

The title Star Wars as it appears in the film

Apart from its virtues as a film, Star Wars had one of the best titles ever to grace a movie.  But it could just as easily have been called The Adventures of Luke Starkiller. 

Today, we’re looking at the origins of the title Star Wars – and, at the same time, the meeting at Cannes that set George Lucas’s idea on the way to becoming reality.

40 years on: the animated sequence of the Star Wars Holiday Special

The Star Wars Holiday Special animated segment

This Saturday, November 17, it's 40 years since the Star Wars Holiday Special, probably the strangest event in Star Wars history.

There’s plenty to mock in the special. I’ve indulged in that mockery myself in posts here and here. We can deride the domestic life of Chewbacca’s comedy, some painful comedy shtick, Princess Leia’s musical tribute to the wookiee holiday Life Day, and Luke Skywalker’s bizarre hair and make-up, to begin with. 


But in the blessed spirit of Life Day, perhaps let’s look at one aspect of the special that has been relatively-kindly received – its animated sequence.

The commercials in the Star Wars Holiday Special

An ad for Kenner Star Wars toys during
The Star Wars Holiday Special on CBS

On November 17, it will be time to celebrate – if that's the word – the 40th anniversary of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I've looked before at its most excruciating moments (in a two-part blog post here and here). I've also tried to appreciate the things a young viewer in the 1970s might have loved about it (which only took one post).

In recent times, someone has posted all the commercials from a recording of the Holiday Special, and I think they deserve a post of their own. 

Some unsung heroes of the 1977 Star Wars

The Star Wars effects team receive their Oscars from Joan Fontaine

When you read original, 1970s coverage of Star Wars, you come across a few names which are rarely mentioned today.

On the other hand, there are a few people who were not named much at the time, but who we later discovered to have been a key part of the film's success.

Screen Scene magazine - where Star Wars sat alongside Logan's Run and The Tomorrow People

The Star Wars poster in Screen Scene issue 5

The 1970s fashion for poster magazines encompassed pretty much every area of popular culture: pop stars, Kung Fu, horror films and, of course, Star Wars.

We've already examined some issues of the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly. Now here's a short look at a one-off edition of a British poster magazine which reminds us of some of the other entertainment that was around at the same time.

What Mark Hamill and Gary Kurtz told science fiction fans about Star Wars in 1976

Charles Lippincott, Gary Kurtz and Mark Hamill promoting Star Wars at MidAmeriCon 1976

In 1976, well before Star Wars was ready for release, a campaign was going on to make science fiction fans aware of it. 

Charles Lippincott, who was in charge of merchandising and publicity for the film, organised convention appearances, at which he or producer Gary Kurtz would explain what the film was about. They would take artwork and information sheets with them and slow slides (yes, slides) to give some idea of the look of the movie.

As I wrote in a blog post at Amazing Stories recently, Gary Kurtz was the face of Star Wars for many fans back then, patiently explaining what the film was about.
One of those appearances is available on video – and it reminds us of a time when pictures from Star Wars seemed weird and exotic, and no one knew quite what the movie would be like.

The Star Wars Official Poster Monthly #3

The fold-out poster in Star Wars
Official Poster Monthly #3

The words “Giant Darth Vader poster inside” were enough to sell almost any child on issue three of Star Wars Official Poster Monthly.

In the last article (at least for now) about those original 1970s poster magazines, I’ll take a look at articles that ranged from a profile of Han Solo to the very exciting news that we would soon have robot servants.

John Stears: the man who built R2-D2

John Stears with the landspeeder

There are a few Star Wars personnel whose names were mentioned a lot when the film was released, yet who don’t seem to get the attention today. 

One of them is John Stears, the British film industry veteran who was the film’s special production and mechanical effects supervisor. He once described his work on the film as “everything that moves, breaks or falls apart” – including R2-D2, the landspeeder, the garbage masher, and hundreds of other effects. 

Gary Kurtz, 1940-2018: an obituary

Gary Kurtz with Harrison Ford and Mark Hamill
on the set of Star Wars

Gary Kurtz died on Sunday, September 23, at the age of 78.

He was, of course, the producer of Star Wars – and screen credits don’t get much bigger than that. And yet I think he has also become one of Star Wars’ unsung heroes.

The Star Wars Official Poster Monthly #2

The US version of the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly #2

In another look at the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly, I'm going to examine how this 1977 publication lifted the curtain on the film's visual effects – and told us about life on Tatooine.

The original Darth Vader back story – before he was Luke's father

The back story of Darth Vader, as presented in the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly, issue 2

Star Wars told us relatively little about its mysterious villain, Darth Vader.

We knew he was a young Jedi Knight who turned to the dark side, murdered Luke's father and helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the other Jedi. But was he human, alien, part-machine? What was under that mask, and why did he make that mechanical breathing noise?

So much remained untold that it was thrilling to see a magazine article that gave us Darth Vader's back story – even if it was different from the one that would be developed in The Empire Strikes Back and afterwords.

The Star Wars Official Poster Monthly

The giant poster inside issue one of the Star Wars Official Poster Monthly

The 1970s saw a craze for magazines that unfolded to form giant posters. Kung fu, Hammer horror films, the Fonz – they all inspired poster magazines.

Naturally, the biggest film of all time would spawn a title of its own.

The music of Star Wars: from the original LP onwards

The Star Wars double LP from 20th Century Records.
(This one's a UK copy, manufactured by Pye.)

Those who saw Star Wars before the addition of John Williams' music say the score transformed the movie.

Carroll Ballard, who directed second unit footage for the film, said in Dale Pollock's Skywalking: The Life and Films of George Lucas: "It was a mind-boggling difference. It gave the hokey characters a  certain dimension. When you saw the film without the score, you couldn'ty take it serously. But the music gave it the style of an old-time serial, and it was geat fun."

Our 7 geekiest Star Wars 1977 blog posts

Declan Mulholland as Jabba the Hutt in deleted footage from Star Wars

I suspect that all of us who like Star Wars may have pondered small points of trivia for longer than is healthy.

It's not uncommon for fans to be accused of lacking a sense of proportion. But as long as your preoccupation with obscure detail is not hurting anyone else, why should anyone else judge you for it?

In my latest recap of previous posts, before I return with all-new material in September, I'd like to point you to some of the geekier subjects that have occupied Episode Nothing in its five-year existence.

The deleted scenes of Star Wars

Luke and Biggs in deleted scenes from Star Wars

All film-makers leave footage on the cutting room floor. Star Wars was no exception, but naturally its deleted scenes have attracted a great deal of interest.

Many of those scenes remained in the comic books, novelization, radio series and elsewhere, which only served to make them more fascinating.

In the latest of my August recap posts (while I take time off and work on new material), I'd like to point readers to some previous articles on the subject.

Star Wars on TV: glimpsing the characters on the small screen in the 1970s

Star Wars meets Donny and Marie, September 1977 

In the days before home video, films disappeared for years between their big-screen release and their appearance on TV.

That meant Star Wars fans lapped up any appearance, however fleeting, of the film's characters on TV.

Looking back at the original release of Star Wars

Crowds wait to see Star Wars first time around

I'm taking a break from creating new material for Episode Nothing during August, in order to devote some time to other projects and to research new posts which will take us into the autumn.

But to show I haven't disappeared entirely, I'm still going to check in each week, and will use the opportunity to point to some of the older content on the site. With 152 posts, going back to 2013, I hope there's some material there that's worth bringing to people's attention.

Unimpressed: The negative 1977 reviews of Star Wars

Not everybody was excited by Star Wars

The majority of contemporary critics liked Star Wars. When I first began researching the subject, I was struck by the fact that reviewers generally felt the same way as audiences.

But there were a few dissenters. Today, we consider the critics who didn't like Star Wars, and why.