076: The Millennium Falcon Blasts Off from Mos Eisley!
“Send all the Cruisers? Send all the Cruisers?”
Says a voice in his earpiece…
“You’re a lowly STORMTROOPER. Who do you think you are? Sod off!”
Film Notes
The original 1977 version – I loved this too
One of the fondest memories that Niall F and I shared of our single viewing of the film back then was this bit. Perhaps we’d seen it again on the Academy Awards show? Anyway – it was class. Even this original version of the shot. Just thinking about it was so captivating. You’d be standing in the schoolyard, a sappy grin on your face, a million miles away…
You know, they do stuff like this constantly in the PT – and more (x10) – but this still takes my breath away. The Falcon shoots away and the troopers whirl around, awkwardly trying to catch sight of it through their clunky helmets.
Was it exciting – or am I wearing nostalgia tinted specs?
Can you tell me if this is mostly nostalgia on my part – or was there really some magic ingredient that just makes it unbelievably exciting? Seriously, you can let me and all of the readership know what you think in the comment section below. I like to think that the sequences were edited pretty tightly. George and the editors say that they used every scrap of the limited footage that they had but I think they still knew how to keep the visuals rushing along with energy and rhythm.
Art Notes
“Was this trip really nessersery?”
There’s a residue of carbon paper on the trooper – top left. I wonder what I was up to there? Because that trooper looks a bit too good for 1978! I wonder if it was transferred from the Marvel comic, and then gone over in biro? It looks like I also went back to it around 1981 and added a bit of blue-colouring pencil. Just to smooth the transition from the previous page. Thankfully I didn’t remove the page and dump it. I must have still thought it looked acceptable! Oh, God when I think how many pages must have gone to the bin.
“…you’ll find “YERSELF” floating home!” Er..?
If you want to know why Solo says “YERSELF” and why it’s in quotation marks – don’t ask the page’s creator. Your guess is as good as mine. Feel free to make suggestions below.
It’s interesting comparing the ’78 version with the ’81 version, as you clearly started to care much more about the story itself over those three years. Or understood it better? 😉 Stuff like this makes me wish I had worked harder at sequential art as a kid. The bulk of my work (what I remember of it, most of it is long gone) were single pictures. I do remember drawing tons of stuff from Star Wars, though, so your personal trip through the nostalgia of the ’70s and ’80s has been fun 🙂
Thanks Brian.
I became a bit more patient, and I wanted to cram more dialogue and detail into the comic from all over the place: Movie, novelisation radio drama, marvel…
The Mos Eisley bit of this scene in the film is over very quickly—so I wanted to add to it and stretch it out I suppose!
I just wanted MORE. When you’re a kid, ‘more is actually MORE.’
Glad you’re enjoying my little project 😉