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beccatoriaSo, some of you may or may not be aware that in the early eightes, National Public Radio made dramtizations of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Then their funding got cut, and they didn't make Return of the Jedi until, like, 1996 when the Expanded Universe was big bucks again.
The point to all this is, my increasingly nocturnal lifestyle means that I've been whiling away the early hours of the morning inskeezy Star Wars related skeezy chatrooms. And then someone found a website that let you stream the entire SW radio drama, and then some of us started listening to it, and then it was the most hilarious group-across-net-activity on the planet.
LET ME TELL YOU WHY.
Firstly, some background. The radio dramas - A New Hope in particular, is just oozing with extra material and background. You get scenes and scenes of Princess Leia before the start of the film. You get scenes and scenes of Luke wandering around Tattooine.
The first chapter, when Luke and Biggs are chatting is just NONSTOP GAY INNUENDO.
You get lines like, "You can see the whole canyon from this part of the rim!"
And, "Well. There it is. THE OLD STONE NEEDLE."
And, "Oh come on, your Uncle can take on an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders with one blaster!" (okay that one wasn't gay, but it WAS just weird; who knew Owen was secretly RAMBO).
And, "Do you have any idea how many stabilizer veins I busted up along the back stretch?"
And, "Luke? Do you know why I asked you to come out here with me? REALLY?"
There is also NONSTOP GAY INNUENDO in the scene they add where Obi Wan is training Luke on the Millenium Falcon. Instructing him to grip his "lightsaber" firmly with both hands, and going through "stances" while both of them grunt and pant.
Or the scene where Han and Chewie appear to be...bathing. Then Luke comes in and whines about Han leaving the Rebellion. And then AFTER a really long conversation, Luke leaves and Han's like, "I need a towel, where's the towel. No towel? Ah, I'll use my shirt."
Then there's the voice actors. Luke is actually played by Mark Hamill and he's...surprisingly good! Like better than he is in the actual movies, good. He sounds so much less...whiny. Still Luke, but wiser. Less like an idiot.
Obi Wan is just...cranky as hell. And deliberately encouraging Luke's crush on Leia. DODGY GIT! Vader gets...awesome as you continue once you're used to the voice change because he has to self-narrate his own choking scenes and it's just awesilarious.
The voice-actor PRIZE goes to Leia, who I'm sure is secretly some sort of Porn Star and who (thoughout A New Hope) seems to start panting, or groaning, or grunting at any available opportunity, and who manages to combine this with actually being quite a good voice actress.
The voice-actor NOPRIZE goes to Han Solo. Who seems to be...constantly hopped up on PCP. Like, seriously. The guy is horribly unappealing and petty and nasty. None of Han Solo's coolness. He doesn't shoot Greedo then say, calmly, "Sorry about the mess." He's like some little kid laughing at the bug he's just pulled the wings off of. Like "Ha! Yeah! Take that Greedo! Didn't see my blaster under the table, did ya? DID YA PUNK! WHO'S A BIG MAN? ME! HAN'S THE BIG MAN!" And the listener is like, no...no you're not.
Which leads us to the fact that George Lucas might have been shipping Han/Leia, but the radio drama is shipping Luke/Leia ALL THE WAY.
Now, I'd forgive it if it was just doing that in ANH and if Han's character's rehab started at the START of ESB. But this is not the case. For the first half of Empire Han is unusually chivalrous to Luke, but his scenes with Leia are downright uncomfortable. Like the actress is choosing to play it as being genuinely perturbed by his advances, and he's choosing to play it as ignoring her discomfort. It's...really icky.
Also there's the fact that the scene where Leia kisses Luke in the medbay to piss off Han? Well you hear them kiss, and then your mind fills in that it's like, a quick kiss because it was in the film. Then about ten seconds of pissed off banter between Chewie and Han later, Han's like, "COME UP FOR AIR," and you're like, "THEY'RE STILL KISSING?!" Dodge.
Take the "my hands are dirty," scene. It comes across as Han forcing himself on her and the first thing Leia says when Threepio interrupts? "Get OFF me Han!"
It's blatant to the point that while listening to it, we all kept forgetting that it was already written that Luke and Leia were siblings and she was destined for Han and we kept having these disappointed moments like, "Oh, no, she has to escape Echo Base with that jerk? MAN, when will Luke go rescue her?"
Seriously, up until Cloud City, I was thoroughly expecting him to be using the "her mouth said no, but her eyes said yes," defence when the whole thing reached court.
Then, after Han gets tortured by Vader suddenly Leia's being nice to him and we're all like, WTF? That was a pity "I-Love-You". NEVER HAPPENED. Where's Luke?
At this point it occurs to me that I should say that the drama isn't just good for comedy value. Leaving aside Han's actor's poor acting skills, it really is a great drama. Really vivid. I had a great time listening to it. The expansion scenes are nearly universally awesome.
But I will say that it's dark in places. Specifically the fact that (and this might just be me) with Leia's character especially I keep getting undertones of, well, violence. Her early (pre-ANH) scenes are to do with her earlier trips in the Tantive IV (that white ship Vader boards in the opening scenes of the films) and how an Imperial Lord is catching on to what's going on. And she basically ends up laying some kind of dodgy honey trap for him by playing along that she might like him or marry him in exchange for him shutting up. Then he goes to dinner with Bail and Leia and gets accidentally shot by his own gun after Leia goes nuts on him for threatening to expose her ties to the Rebels. I think it's supposed to read that he genuinely gets shot by accident. But it actually sounded to me like she lost her shit and shot him with his own gun, and then her father's just "covering" for her when he's like, "There there, Leia, what a tragic accident that hefell down a lift shaft onto some bullets got accidentally shot by his own gun."
Of course, there are also the well dodgy Han Solo stalker-scenes.
And, um, finally, there's the piece de resistance.
THIS:
You know when Vader shows up to interrogate Princess Leia with that evil looking floaty ball thing? Yeah, well, this is what happens after the tasteful cut.
Now...fair warning. This is, um, disturbing. It's also hilarious, but it's the kind of hilarious you feel dirty for laughing at. Or more accurately, it's the kind of disturbing you have to laugh at because otherwise you might run screaming into the night.
Now, true, making this in 1981, they couldn't have had any idea how pertinent it would be for Vader to choose burning alive as an imagery for pain, or, far more disturbingly, how WRONG it would be to have him yell, "DON'T YOU WANT TO PLEASE YOUR FATHER?!" while Porno!Leia is...moaning somewhere on the floor.
But still. Um. Yeah. Well. THAT.
So, final verdict on the radio dramas? They are incredible if you're willing to approach them as CRACK ON TOAST. It's like 60% amazingly produced drama that improves on its source material, 10% OMG what have you DONE to the source material?!, 20% you MUST have realised how suggestive/disturbed that sounded at the time - was it intentional? cus if it was intentional then RESPECT, and 10% you know, in hindsight this is all TERRIBLY dodgy.
Either way, it was a great ride, and best listened to in a group.
The point to all this is, my increasingly nocturnal lifestyle means that I've been whiling away the early hours of the morning in
LET ME TELL YOU WHY.
Firstly, some background. The radio dramas - A New Hope in particular, is just oozing with extra material and background. You get scenes and scenes of Princess Leia before the start of the film. You get scenes and scenes of Luke wandering around Tattooine.
The first chapter, when Luke and Biggs are chatting is just NONSTOP GAY INNUENDO.
You get lines like, "You can see the whole canyon from this part of the rim!"
And, "Well. There it is. THE OLD STONE NEEDLE."
And, "Oh come on, your Uncle can take on an entire tribe of Tusken Raiders with one blaster!" (okay that one wasn't gay, but it WAS just weird; who knew Owen was secretly RAMBO).
And, "Do you have any idea how many stabilizer veins I busted up along the back stretch?"
And, "Luke? Do you know why I asked you to come out here with me? REALLY?"
There is also NONSTOP GAY INNUENDO in the scene they add where Obi Wan is training Luke on the Millenium Falcon. Instructing him to grip his "lightsaber" firmly with both hands, and going through "stances" while both of them grunt and pant.
Or the scene where Han and Chewie appear to be...bathing. Then Luke comes in and whines about Han leaving the Rebellion. And then AFTER a really long conversation, Luke leaves and Han's like, "I need a towel, where's the towel. No towel? Ah, I'll use my shirt."
Then there's the voice actors. Luke is actually played by Mark Hamill and he's...surprisingly good! Like better than he is in the actual movies, good. He sounds so much less...whiny. Still Luke, but wiser. Less like an idiot.
Obi Wan is just...cranky as hell. And deliberately encouraging Luke's crush on Leia. DODGY GIT! Vader gets...awesome as you continue once you're used to the voice change because he has to self-narrate his own choking scenes and it's just awesilarious.
The voice-actor PRIZE goes to Leia, who I'm sure is secretly some sort of Porn Star and who (thoughout A New Hope) seems to start panting, or groaning, or grunting at any available opportunity, and who manages to combine this with actually being quite a good voice actress.
The voice-actor NOPRIZE goes to Han Solo. Who seems to be...constantly hopped up on PCP. Like, seriously. The guy is horribly unappealing and petty and nasty. None of Han Solo's coolness. He doesn't shoot Greedo then say, calmly, "Sorry about the mess." He's like some little kid laughing at the bug he's just pulled the wings off of. Like "Ha! Yeah! Take that Greedo! Didn't see my blaster under the table, did ya? DID YA PUNK! WHO'S A BIG MAN? ME! HAN'S THE BIG MAN!" And the listener is like, no...no you're not.
Which leads us to the fact that George Lucas might have been shipping Han/Leia, but the radio drama is shipping Luke/Leia ALL THE WAY.
Now, I'd forgive it if it was just doing that in ANH and if Han's character's rehab started at the START of ESB. But this is not the case. For the first half of Empire Han is unusually chivalrous to Luke, but his scenes with Leia are downright uncomfortable. Like the actress is choosing to play it as being genuinely perturbed by his advances, and he's choosing to play it as ignoring her discomfort. It's...really icky.
Also there's the fact that the scene where Leia kisses Luke in the medbay to piss off Han? Well you hear them kiss, and then your mind fills in that it's like, a quick kiss because it was in the film. Then about ten seconds of pissed off banter between Chewie and Han later, Han's like, "COME UP FOR AIR," and you're like, "THEY'RE STILL KISSING?!" Dodge.
Take the "my hands are dirty," scene. It comes across as Han forcing himself on her and the first thing Leia says when Threepio interrupts? "Get OFF me Han!"
It's blatant to the point that while listening to it, we all kept forgetting that it was already written that Luke and Leia were siblings and she was destined for Han and we kept having these disappointed moments like, "Oh, no, she has to escape Echo Base with that jerk? MAN, when will Luke go rescue her?"
Seriously, up until Cloud City, I was thoroughly expecting him to be using the "her mouth said no, but her eyes said yes," defence when the whole thing reached court.
Then, after Han gets tortured by Vader suddenly Leia's being nice to him and we're all like, WTF? That was a pity "I-Love-You". NEVER HAPPENED. Where's Luke?
At this point it occurs to me that I should say that the drama isn't just good for comedy value. Leaving aside Han's actor's poor acting skills, it really is a great drama. Really vivid. I had a great time listening to it. The expansion scenes are nearly universally awesome.
But I will say that it's dark in places. Specifically the fact that (and this might just be me) with Leia's character especially I keep getting undertones of, well, violence. Her early (pre-ANH) scenes are to do with her earlier trips in the Tantive IV (that white ship Vader boards in the opening scenes of the films) and how an Imperial Lord is catching on to what's going on. And she basically ends up laying some kind of dodgy honey trap for him by playing along that she might like him or marry him in exchange for him shutting up. Then he goes to dinner with Bail and Leia and gets accidentally shot by his own gun after Leia goes nuts on him for threatening to expose her ties to the Rebels. I think it's supposed to read that he genuinely gets shot by accident. But it actually sounded to me like she lost her shit and shot him with his own gun, and then her father's just "covering" for her when he's like, "There there, Leia, what a tragic accident that he
Of course, there are also the well dodgy Han Solo stalker-scenes.
And, um, finally, there's the piece de resistance.
THIS:
You know when Vader shows up to interrogate Princess Leia with that evil looking floaty ball thing? Yeah, well, this is what happens after the tasteful cut.
Now...fair warning. This is, um, disturbing. It's also hilarious, but it's the kind of hilarious you feel dirty for laughing at. Or more accurately, it's the kind of disturbing you have to laugh at because otherwise you might run screaming into the night.
Now, true, making this in 1981, they couldn't have had any idea how pertinent it would be for Vader to choose burning alive as an imagery for pain, or, far more disturbingly, how WRONG it would be to have him yell, "DON'T YOU WANT TO PLEASE YOUR FATHER?!" while Porno!Leia is...moaning somewhere on the floor.
But still. Um. Yeah. Well. THAT.
So, final verdict on the radio dramas? They are incredible if you're willing to approach them as CRACK ON TOAST. It's like 60% amazingly produced drama that improves on its source material, 10% OMG what have you DONE to the source material?!, 20% you MUST have realised how suggestive/disturbed that sounded at the time - was it intentional? cus if it was intentional then RESPECT, and 10% you know, in hindsight this is all TERRIBLY dodgy.
Either way, it was a great ride, and best listened to in a group.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-20 07:18 pm (UTC)Then there's the voice actors. Luke is actually played by Mark Hamill and he's...surprisingly good!
Not so surprising, actually. He's still the best Joker so far, though Heath Ledger might give him a run for his money.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 06:52 pm (UTC)*wails* I don't know! But it should!
Not so surprising, actually. He's still the best Joker so far, though Heath Ledger might give him a run for his money.
Aah, my friend Addy says the same thing - so that's two thumbs up for Mark Hamill's Joker. Any more praise and I'll be forced to check it out...
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 06:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 02:07 am (UTC)what about Cesar Romero!!!!!!
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 02:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-20 08:15 pm (UTC)i dont remember any of this gay innuendo, but then again i havent read them in years, and i was even less into fanfic than i am now, so probably wouldnt have been aware of it.
still, they involved a hell of a lot of interesting things that expanded on what we knew, as well as interesting little tidbits - for example, we very nearly had mark hammill doing TWO voices for the show - apparently he auditined for the role of yaoda as well, and did both parts of the dialogue at the same time...
still never heard any of it though :(
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 06:55 pm (UTC)That's dead interesting about Mark Hamill auditioning for Yoda! I never knew that - thanks, that's a great piece of trivia! :D
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 06:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 11:18 pm (UTC)i loved the little bits of useless trivia in the books, especially describing whast was going on in the background - in one scene in the rebel base on yavin 4, theres a conversation going on really low in the mix between 2 mechanics, debating wether to tell chewie something - the convo basically goes "you tell him" "no, you tell him..."
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 05:21 pm (UTC)Along with the Truce at Bakura and the Zahn Trilogy i used to listen to this loads. I cant remember if i ever picked up ROTJ when it came out though.
I dont like the whole radio play problem of characters having to explain everything happening to them non stop but i guess thats unavoidable.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 07:01 pm (UTC)That scrap metal and spare parts scene in particular was awesome from the point of view of Han in the Radio Drama being an even BIGGER git than he is in ANH (where he's at least simulatenously charming!) He's so...mean about the whole thing! Like, Rebel Alliance, I don't care if you have kids to feed! BRING ME MY SCRAP METAL!
It's awesome. Because I don't think that they realised it would play so cruel. Like the actor who plays Han never manages Ford's cool detachment. He always comes across as slimy and gloating at all the people he's screwing over. It's hilarious!
I haven't actually listened to the ROTJ drama yet, though I do intend to.
I found the self-narration tedious at first. And still do in some places. But I fell in love with Narrating!Vader when he was choking people. I know that the films have Vader as utterly silent and terrifying, but I quite liked this version of Vader because he was no less angry. In fact, if anything it magnified his boiling rage. I can't really explain why, but I came away wishing that Vader would narrate my daily life.
*wistful sigh*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 02:01 am (UTC)"do you feel the pain around you neck
as if some FORCE was gripping you
YES! thats me im doing that using the force, even though im standing all the way over here!"
Vader getting more "screentime" is one of the best things about the play. I really liked Tarkin and his plotting as well. As well as the interrogation the destruction of Alderaan seemed a whole lot nastier as well because the scene is so much more protracted.
John WIlliams wonderful music helps it no end as well. If i can find a gig or two to spare on my pc i may try and hunt it and the 2 other plays down online.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 09:44 am (UTC)which reminds me - i still havent read those comics a certain person reccd that i found lying around somewhere
online.