early 1978 | age 9 or 10 Finally—finally! – we’re nearing the trash compactor scene. And look at panel 2, you’ll notice that it’s not just the enemy who are rubbish shots.

Luke Skywalker, narrowly avoiding blaster fire in this comic page

“YIKES!” Luke in a Beano-style moment, narrowly avoiding blaster fire

Art Notes

“GO ON PRINCESS”
“HMPH”
—Star Wars age 9

Luke’s doing another of those Beano-style ‘yikes!’ expressions, with sweat popping out from his head in all directions, as Han watches on with his triangular eyes. His pose is that of someone flattened against a wall, but it appears that I couldn’t be arsed drawing that hexagonal wall—yet again? No, no, no—that’s not it! Obviously the 9 year old me was trying to bring the reader’s focus onto Luke. Yep, that’s it. Must be.

Of course it is.

What is it with her? Lead by EXAMPLE, dammit!

So Leia blows a hole in the wall; she says « in the chute flyboy; then Luke and Han see the huge mess that they’ve got themselves into; and tell her to “Go on”; to which she makes a “Hmph” sound. This is as if to say, “Look, I had the idea. Now it’s up to you people to execute it”. But aren’t people in authority supposed to lead by example? Nevermind. I love the way, when Luke takes his turn to dive in, he yells, “OH NO” on seeing what he’s about to fall into! —although I think I first of all wrote “OH OK”, but changed it. His legs are bent back really far. How did he do that?

Han then gives Chewie an encouraging kick in the knee-cap. In the knee-cap! Can you see that, readers?

Ouch—a kick in the knee? That looks even worse than landing in a trash compactor full of stinking crap!

Agh… women!

So a 9 year old puts in a hushed remark about how trying women can be? Maybe I was thinking of my big sister! Of course everywhere you looked in the still very male-oriented 1970s, you saw characters on TV, Film, comics and books rolling their eyes in aggravation over women. Let’s face it though, the woman here seems to have it more together than the 1970s men do. Hey, a thought just occurred to me… do you think Leia had just hatched the perfect escape plan of her own before Luke burst in?

Film Notes

I’m always impressed with the way the actors dived headfirst into that hole in the wall. Harrison Ford’s always been a good one for doing many stunts himself, but what do you think was on the other side of that set? A mattress? Boxes? A swimming pool? Pillow factory?

What do you think, readers?

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