Don't want to discuss TV spoilers, so instead let's go through another issue of Bantha Tracks! #BanthaTracks22 came out November 1983, and features an interview with modelmakers Lorne Peterson and Steve Gawley, as well as proof that Fett's Vette was actually a Porsche. Read on!

https://twitter.com/jere7my/status/1485414168421355521

The model shop's job for RotJ was bigger than for either of the two previous movies. Those tunnels the Falcon flies through at the end were built in sections that totaled over three hundred feet!

I'm still making my way through all 35 issues of Bantha Tracks. #BanthaTracks19 brings us an interview with the great makeup artist, sculptor, and Yoda model Stuart Freeborn!

https://twitter.com/jere7my/status/1477788696061661184

Freeborn here calls Greedo one of his favorite creature designs, and describes the mask's origin as a "Pea-Man" for a UK commercial. The "mohawk of quills" was a necessary addition to cover the seam that he had to cut because the plastic had stiffened up!

There's a decades-old tendency in Star Wars fandom to minimize the sensitive/naïve/childlike/goofy parts of Star Wars (Tarzan yell, Ewoks, Jar Jar, Chewie's fear), to label them departures from what some think Star Wars "really" is (badass). It's always been both. As we aged out of the ideal target audience for Star Wars (under 13), we (mostly dudes) became suspicious of the soft parts of Star Wars, and either mocked them or segregated them in their own box — okay at the time, but no more of that please. More Boba Fett, implacable killer!

This meme got (rightfully) dunked on on Star Wars Twitter a few days ago, but it taps into something that's been rolling around in my head for a while: the transition from pulp heroes to modern heroes. The pulp heroes of the serials that inspired Star Wars start out heroic and don't change much over the course of their stories. We don't see Flash Gordon or the Lone Ranger learning to be heroes. George Reeves' Superman and pre-Craig James Bond start and end as paragons.

Soon may the sweaterman come
To fix our ship and think we’re dumb
He’ll fuel it up and he’ll make it plumb
If it still holds fuel Our ship was named the Razor Crest
A lady frog was our honored guest
No hyperdrive at her behest
That was just the rule

Happy #MayThe4thBeWithYou! As a present, I've gotten you all a thread about the Holdo maneuver, and whether it "breaks canon," inspired by a conversation I had recently with a couple of EU fans. It did not, and I'm about to prove it's the wrong question to ask anyway. ATTEND! The Holdo maneuver was set up in 1977, by Han explaining what happens when you hit something in hyperspace. That begs the question "What happens to the thing you hit?" A star or a supernova would proooobably be fine, but what about a ship? We don't get an answer.

Hats off to the folks who think Rey is a Mary Sue power fantasy and somehow don’t think the EU was. (And this has been bugging me since I posted that screenshot: EXPANDED Universe. It’s the EXPANDED Universe. Yeesh.)

A long Twitter chat with someone who didn’t like TLJ helped to crystallize one complaint I’ve heard a lot, which is that Rey didn’t receive “training.” I don’t think that’s really the complaint, because Luke’s training was scanty at best; I think Rey breaks the Hero’s Journey. Probably this has been said elsewhere by others, but it was the first time it occurred to me. The typical hero’s journey has the hero receiving a call to adventure (and temporarily rejecting it) before meeting their mentor and receiving the talisman they’ll need on their quest.

Posting this again because people keep bringing it up: “that line” is older than Empire. This has kicked off a little, and as a result I've gotten some responses along the line of "Okay great, but Rose's line was still stupid." I can tell you: not only was it not stupid, it's been a significant theme for all of Star Wars, and I've got the receipts. A THREAD.

It's long been my contention that the old Star Wars Expanded Universe was seen by many fans as a way to "fix" the perceived problems of the movies as they aged out of impressionable childhood and into nitpicky adolescence. Reactions to #TheLastJedi have cemented that impression. The original trilogy was "cool" a lot of the time, but it was also goofy, cutesy, jokey, silly, kiddie—a lot of things that it's hard for a 14-year-old to admit to liking. The EU leaned heavily on the cool—bounty hunters, dark side Force users, brooding—and dropped the goofy.