Showcase: Return of the Pixel

"8-Bit Han Solo"

"8-Bit Chewbacca"

"8-Bit Boba Fett"

[David The Destroyer's Deviantart]

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My girlfriend had the bright idea, because she's awesome, to watch the original Star Wars trilogy this weekend. No reason; she just hadn't seen them since she was a kid, and for my part I will never say no to a Star Wars marathon. Of course, having seen the movies more recently (and much more often) than her, and also being a huge nerd, it turns out I have a lot to say about Star Wars. I tried to keep the running commentary to a minimum, but wasn't always successful, to her infinite chagrin. Observe:

(Return of the Jedi, the Rebels are looking over the Death Star plans)
Me: You know, many Bothans died to bring them that information.
Heather: What? How do you know that?
Mon Mothma: Many Bothans died to bring us this information.
Heather: ARGH YOU WERE THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE

(This also happened with "It's a trap!" and every time someone had a bad feeling about something.)

Furthermore, I was on Wookieepedia nearly the entire six-and-a-half hours, because for the first time in my life I could actually do that. I discovered a number of key pieces of information which I would like to share with you now:

· Ewoks and Wookiees are not related. The closest relative of the Ewok is the swamp-dwelling Dulok, who are not very nice to Ewoks and apparently are the race of the Grinch.

· Believe it or not, not only did Boba Fett escape from the Sarlacc by fighting his way out from the inside, he later fell in again (and escaped again) around the time of the Battle of Endor.

· Yoda's species is known as "Yoda's species". He's pointedly not just a very old, green-skinned Lannik. Other members of Yoda's species are Yaddle, Vandar Tokare and Minch (all of them Jedis).

· Under their robes, Jawas are "gaunt, rodent-like creatures, with shrunken faces and yellow eyes". They sew yellow or orange gemstones into their hoods to protect their sensitive eyes from sunlight.

· The musical number added to Return of the Jedi, where a CGI Sy Snootles and Joh Yowza perform for Jabba just prior to the arrival of Chewbacca and a disguised Leia, is one of the most odious things I've ever seen in my entire life. It has absolutely no purpose and it's such a drastic tonal shift that it's not hard to understand why Star Wars purists got up in arms over the Special Edition additions and alterations.

· Leia is way, wayyyyyy too casual about the fact that she made out with Luke when she discovers that he's her brother. Wayyyyyyy too casual.

· Before the release of Empire Strikes Back in 1980, Alan Dean Foster wrote the very first Expanded Universe tie-in Star Wars novel, "Splinter of the Mind's Eye". The book was written prior to the major success of A New Hope, and if that film flopped, George Lucas had intended to film "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" as a low-budget sequel. The story deviates significantly from what ends up being established in Empire, and ramps up the sexual tension between Luke and Leia to an unbearably awkward level. In an alternate universe, Splinter ended up as the filmed sequel to Star Wars, and our alternate selves are all much, much poorer for it.