Star Wars - Empire of Dreams

[shipperx]

Okay, was this special on A&E just a big ol commercial for "buy the new DVDs?" Um... think so.

That said, I was completely fascinated by the Kurt Russel audition for Han, the William Katt audition for Luke. Harrison just running lines and out of frame because... ya know, he was the carpenter and not "actually" auditioning. (Ya know... William Katt wouldn't have been a half bad Luke if he'd been given a haircut). There was also an audition of some girl for Leia. And it was really funny because when you saw the auditions of Hamil you just went -- nope. He's Luke. He IS Luke. Same with Ford and Fischer. Fischer on the whole was also a hoot. First she was talking about her weight problems in that they were always asking her to lose weight and how -- "Yeah, killing Jabba was nice. But I was more worried about walking around in that slave girl's costume."

Interesting factoids (but I really don't buy all of Lucas's angst in the last two of the initial trilogy. Oh whose he kidding. He was making a ton of money making the trilogy he wanted. Cry me a river over your financing woes. Whatever.

Oh, and we beat the shit out of Ole Miss last night. That always makes for a fun evening.

Comments

[kellyhk.livejournal.com]

Roll Tide.

The brother has been going on all day about it (he's in grad school at Tuscaloosa right now.)

So yeah, I know. Got twelve?

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

It's always nice to have a decisive victory. :)

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a great show. I had no idea it was on, but I was also watching/recording three things tonight (PBS is showing a new series of Inspector Lynley mysteries), so I probably couldn't have caught it anyway. Still, I would've liked to have seen it.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Still think Fischer was the best part of it. She's funny. When talking about the merchandising she said stuff like "You really aren't famous until your head is a pez dispenser." And that they had all signed over their likenesses to Lucas (for merchandising) "so every time I look in the mirror I owe George five bucks."

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I saw her speak at a writers' conference once. She focused on her book-writing, but did work in getting to kiss Harrison Ford at least half a dozen times in the course of her talk.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you mentioned this, because I'd totally forgotten it was going to be on. Of course, if I'd missed the show, it's going to be on the DVDs so it wouldn't have been a huge loss... I'd actually seen little snippets from the special at GenCon, including scenes from the auditions (which were hysterical... the other actress they showed trying out for Leia was just horrible).

And yeah, I'm gonna be buying the Trilogy on DVD, even though I own the original, un-touched-up version on laserdisc and VHS (laserdisc version is the really good edition with uncompressed video) and the Special Edition on laserdisc and VHS. I'm a fan-girl to the core.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I was actually a bit surprised that they had Harrison Ford doing new interviews for it. They also had James Earl Jones. Heck they had the guy who was one of the ewoks (who was 11 when Jedi was filmed).

Harrison Ford is as frustrating as JM in some ways -- hee. Apparently he was campaigning for Han to die a self sacrificial/atoning death in Jedi, and George said no.

[rahirah]

I didn't know that was on. Oh, well. Kurt Russell might have made an interesting Han, though...

[nutmeg3.livejournal.com]

I've always liked him, and he always turns in a strong performance, even in crap. I've always thought "Big Trouble in Little China" was underrated, and then there's "The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit," LOL!

[rahirah]

I LOVE "Big Trouble in Little China." Time to see that one again, I think...