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I thought STAR WARS fans out there might be interested in this '70s paperback, which is currently on eBay. And guess what - it's personally autographed by DARTH VADER (and also the GREEN CROSS CODE MAN) himself, DAVE PROWSE. It's a nice little collectors' item if you loved the movie, to be sure.
May the Force be with you!
19 comments:
My mum bought me this for my christmas the year it came out,I was far more interested in the A0 drawing pads she also bought me and the felt pens.
Interesting that fifteen to twenty years later she was buying the toys for my younger family members ,and I still was not interested.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to believe that Star Wars is now nearly 40 years old. I still think of it as being a fairly new thing.
I loved movie / TV tie in novelisations in those days before home video / dvd etc. I need to find my copy of the follow up to the Star Wars novelisation - Splinter Of The Minds Eye - which, if I remember correctly, took the story in a different direction than the actual movie sequels did?
And 'late Dave Prowse'? Pleased to say he's still very much with us - well, he was last Sunday when I saw him in Bournemouth! ;)
Andrew
Oops! You're right - I was mistaking him for Richard Kiel. (Hey, I'm not a Star Wars fan.) I've corrected it, so thanks for keeping me right.
Just like Andrew, I was always buying TV and movies tie-in paperbacks in those days. I did get all the Star Wars paperbacks up to a point, until they got too numerous to keep up with. I was particularly fond of the Marvel comics adaptations in paperback.
Only ones I ever bought were the Bond novels with the film posters as covers - as far as I remember anyway.
I can remember the exact date I went to see 'Star Wars' - Tuesday, May 30th 1978 and I really enjoyed it but the scene that really sticks in my memory is when Luke and Leia briefly kiss which caused a big "Wooooooo" reaction from the audience. Then in 'Return Of The Jedi' it's revealed that Luke and Leia are siblings which was utterly ridiculous and pointless - did George Lucas think we'd forgotten that kissing scene ? This novel is a reminder of the innocent time when Star Wars was just 'Star Wars', not 'Part IV - A New f****** Hope' and all the main characters weren't related to each other !!
Even worse was in the DVD extras deleted scenes, when Han kissed Luke and they turned out to be brothers. Well, okay, I'm lying, but it's bound to happen one day the way the world is going.
Anyway, the only novelizations I had were 'Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes' and 'Return Of The Jedi'. I remember reading 'Jedi' in the Lower 6th-form common-room in June 1983 and one of my classmates asked me what I was reading - when he saw what it was he made a face and walked away as if to say "what are you reading that rubbish for ?"
Hah, be honest, CJ - had you going there for a moment, eh?
And was your classmate right? Was it rubbish, or did you enjoy it?
I had this, still have it actually. I read it before I got to see the movie. It was a little slow getting to my area back then and then, in the days of single cinemas, the lines were awful for the first few weeks. I had a forty minute ride to the movie back then (too young to drive myself), so it was awhile before I got to actually see the movie.
Mine was autographed, too. Unfortunately the autograph was my own, so probably wouldn't fetch a whole lot on ebay. :)
I have to say I'm not a Star Wars fan. The scripts are weak. The special effects were ok but I wasn't knocked out of my seat probably because I was a sci fi fan and saw comparable effects in Silent Running. I'm more of a Lowe budget sci fi movie fan. My favorite movies were Incredible Shrinking Man and Them! Different types of movies, Star Wars was more space opera. I remember running into school mates at the premiere in Leicester Square. Actually I liked the first half of Superman a lot more, I was incredibly moved when I saw the comic book opening, watched the credits and saw the first super feats of Superman. When they introduced Otis they lost me and the movie never recovered. There's not a single moment in Star Wars in can recall being impressed.
I try and avoid reading anything to do with a movie I'm waiting to see, G, so that it doesn't spoil it for me. Sometimes, when you know what's going to happen, when you eventually see the film, its effect can be diluted somewhat.
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As I've said somewhere before, Phil, I saw Star Wars as part of a double bill with the second movie, and although I enjoyed them to a degree, I certainly wasn't overwhelmed by them. I actually wondered what all the fuss had been about.
Kid, I enjoyed the novelization of 'Jedi' well enough but I'd mostly lost interest in Star Wars by 1983 - I saw the book on sale and bought it out of curiosity to see what happened but I had no intention of going to see the film (I have seen it since on TV of course).
I think I'd rather see it on film than read the book, CJ, even 'though I've no real interest in seeing the films again.
I'm usually the same way, Kid (waiting to see the movie before reading the book), but it was so long before I finally got to see it that I had already gotten spoilers from my friends who had seen it. For some reason, I kept missing the boat on seeing it. Fortunately, it stayed at the cinema for almost three months and it was about six weeks in before I got to see it. The book was actually in one of our local grocery stores in the paperback rack, so I said what the heck. The days of instant gratification were still far ahead......I have problems explaining to my kids sometimes about the days before the internet and downloading and such.
I sometimes wonder if kids realize how lucky they are these days, and whether they ever get confused watching movies made before mobiles were invented. You know, the hero (or victim) desperately trying to find a 'phone box to call the police. They must be shouting "Use your mobile, you pillock!" at the TV.
I read that paperback months before seeing the film. I'm pretty sure it was the spring of 1978- possibly April- that my dad took my brother and I into Glasgow to see Star Wars. We had to queue outside the Odeon on Renfield Street for at least an hour and my dad was pretty pissed off. We must have moaned him into submission. I was 15 but I wasn't used to going to Glasgow on my own at that stage.
I've lost count of the times I've seen it now but nonetheless I wouldn't count myself as a great fan of the series. The dialogue is awful but there is a charm that's lacking in any of the sequels and prequels.
I wish I had kept my copy of Splinter. I liked Alan Dean Foster's adaptations of the animated Star Trek but I didn't read anything else he wrote.
What a shame (a sin, even) that they closed that cinema a few years ago, Dougie, as it first opened in the '20s or '30s. I was only ever in the foyer (as far as I recall), but it was history that should have been preserved. The building is still lying empty.
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