Art Notes: Now that's more like it

Do you ever watch this duel as an older wiser adult and wonder"Had Alec Guinness ever even held a sword before shooting this"?

To me, as a kid it was incredibly exciting. But look at old Alec nervously twirling his saber in wee circles, and feebly chancing little jabs as if he's afraid of poking Dave Prowse in the eye! Our George noticed the drama-deficit too. It must have grated with him. In the following two films the saber duels were vastly superior - but the dialogue was still important. In the Prequel Trilogy (sigh) we got some extraordinarily choreographed and balletic sword fighting. To each his own. George remarked that in A New Hope (this film), the two Jedi were old and tired. But the Prequels afforded him the opportunity to show the Jedi in their prime.

Shades of Gnasher the Dog, from the British Beano comic's Dennis the Menace. Chewie's eyes look a bit bloodshot too.

More ZZIP please sir!

"Eeasy!
Darth ha!"

Eh?

9 year old me must have felt that this scene - as exciting, and more importantly as moving as it was - needed a bit more oomph. So Ben's cockier and - moves a bit.

Original On-Set Noises!

Guess what else? We get the on-set production sounds too! Before Ben Burtt laid on his brilliant sound effects all you had was the sounds of wooden sticks banging each other. This comic retains the > SCRAPE < noise of Ben's stick striking Dave Prowse's helmet! Wow! A wee nugget that wasn't tweaked into oblivion. Maybe someday, George'll put it back into his movie adaptation of this comic: just like the sound of the Stormtrooper banging his head off the doorframe.

BONK.

(Am I actually mad or something?)

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