Heroes

We have become used to thinking of heroism as something that simply happens to people; indeed the word has been in a sense cheapened by the modern habit of calling everybody exposed to any kind of danger, whether voluntarily or not, a “hero.” Soldiers—indeed all those in uniform—are now commonly referred to as “our heroes,” as if heroism were a universal quality shared by everyone who bears arms, or as if it were an accident, not a vocation. Even those who die in terrorist attacks, and have thus had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, are described as “heroes,” though given the choice most of them would no doubt have preferred to be somewhere else when the blow was struck.

From Hero – The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia by Michael Korda.

The Censors Strike Back

I’m finishing The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, Jonathan W Rinzler’s recenty released document on everyone’s favorite sequel – it’s everything a nerd could hope for, by the way – and I came across this quote, which seems to pretty well describe the mentality gap between the US and Denmark:

The sequel was also number one in Tokyo, Japan, for at least four weeks, but in Denmark, Empire was ruled off-limits to children under 12 (as was Star Wars, Close Encounters, and several other films).
“Children are not allowed to see a film that desenitizes them to violence, to suffering,” says Dr. Jørgen Bruun Petersen. “They must not see a film if we feel they will get [from it] less ability to feel pity.” On the other hand, children were allowed by the Danmark censors to see sex on screen. “I don’t think children will be harmed if they see two adults going to bed with each other. But only if they express love for each other, do what they do with feeling.”
The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, p336.

That’s not to say I agree with him on the violence (much to my moms dismay, I raised myself on RoboCop and Alien), but this schism is inherent in our culture – we released porn before any other country – which makes it so absurd to us when a nip-slip causes most of the US to dive into a frenzy, while happily enganging in wars across the world.

Bring me Your Firstborn!

Factoid time!

Human sacrifice was common in the pagan world. It was cruel but had a logic and rationale. The first child was often believed to be the offspring of a god, who had impregnated the mother in an act of droit de seigneur. In begetting the child, the god’s energy had been depleted, so to replenish this and to ensure the circulation of all the available mana, the first-born was returned to its divine parent.
Source: Karen Armstrong, A History of God, softcover edn, Vintage, 1999, p. 27.

And allow me, on that note, to pitch A Short History of Myth by same, one of the best, if shortest, books I’ve read in years. Insightful and inspiring. And short. It also comes in a beautiful mythology boxset, which is the edition I have — a present — though I haven’t read the other two books yet, so I can’t vouch for them.

The Tortured Indecision

Having the entire day laid bare before me, my biggest problem seems to be where to begin? Talk about a luxury problem, huh?

It’s honestly not an easy thing to come to terms with.

On the one hand it makes sense to start working full time with something as soon as possible, to secure some funding for the lean times.

On the other hand, since I’ve got a handful of months funded, what better way to burn through them than on the things I’ve been daydreaming while I’ve been stuck in a 9 to 5?

And I’ve had a lot of those day dreams. I mean, a lot.

I’m one of those people who’s cursed with too many interests and too many options in life. There’s another luxury problem for you. I secretly admire and want to be those people who burn for one thing, and one thing only and dedicate their entire life to it, and from that desire, create meaning.

Neal Stephenson said it best:

“I am fascinated,” I insisted, “That’s the problem. I am suffering from fascination burnout. Of all the things that are fascinating, I have to choose just one or two.”

- Neal Stephenson, Anathem, hardcover edn, Atlantic Books, 2008, p. 733.

Yes, I still have a burning desire to do games. I love games. Games are great. But other than the fact that the only larger company operating in Denmark, is my former employer, I’m also paradoxically struggling with on the one hand wanting to do large games, and on the other finding the process of doing exactly those kinds of games to be an oddly uncontrollable and often times frustrating process.

Regardless, short of a lottery win, or finding an unknown, but very generous rich uncle or a straight up miracle, there’s little chance of starting up a games company capable of doing the kinds of games I’d like to do, so that desire will have to take a rest for a while; which I’m actually happy to see happen just now.

I do wish games would grow up. That’s one of the things I’ve been proud to have been a part of at Io; Kane & Lynch did things with storytelling that I’ve yet to see other games pull off. It’s not rocket science; you’d think the games industry would be able to get their head out of Michael Bay’s ass for a moment and take in the putrid smell left in the wake of the ‘Louder, Faster, More’ mentality.

Which brings me to movies.

I love movies more than I love games. I’ve always known that, but haven’t really been in a position where I thought it was a viable alternative to chase. Denmark is a far from Hollywood. Hell, it seems even Hollywood is far from Hollywood. But then who knows, maybe one day…

Anyway, the closest I’m likely to come to movies anytime soon, is my sharing with seemingly half the globe, that most romantic of romantic daydreams: writing.

Yeah. I know.

I can’t even settle between wanting to do a novel, a graphic novel or a screenplay, so how the hell will I ever find the focus to pull off actual writing?

Beats me; but I keep coming back to it, and have often times made inroads, though I’ve yet to finish anything I’ve been genuinly proud of, not to mention anything that’s had substance to it. But it is unmistably a desire that keeps bubbling to the surface, and one I finally have that most precious of components to deal with: uninterrupted time.

Then there’s the whole design/programming/UX package, which more than any of my other interests has the curse/blessing factor of just being something that comes quite naturally to me. It’s the kind of thing I have to actively try to not do, to find time for my other interests. What a hassle, huh?

But I truly love it, and right now is as exciting a time to be a part of that as I could imagine. I’ve wanted the time to really dig into some of the things I’ve started with K2 as well as various other projects I’ve got sketches of lying about the apartment, but have found them daunting to tackle at night and on weekends; but perhaps now I’ll finally be able to do something about it?

And then there’s the mountain of books I’m either reading, or wanting to read, not to mention the myriad other projects I’ve always wanted to try my hand at.

At the end of the day it comes as much down to who I can do it with, as it does to what I do. Once I start working fulltime again, it’ll be web design for now. Maybe that’s what I’ll do for the next ten years; maybe I’ll seque back into games. I don’t know. All I know is that I want to do it with people I love and respect. That’s what it’s all about anyway.

And yet…

Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial-arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Columbian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad.

- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, paperback edn., ROC, 1992, p. 254.

Despair, Oh Frail Human

Spielberg, Hemmingway, Einstein, any number of presidents not named Bush, that guy at the gas station, the gal at the drive-in, you and of course, me. We’re all connected in that great human struggle: Our inability to chose books for travels.

Or so I like to believe.

It’s one of those things I spend the most time on when going traveling, and I often find myself skimming through and reading passages of about 10-15 books, stacking them this way; that. Trying to insure myself against that harshest of human realizations; the 80-page-in realization of “shit dude, this book sucks”.

Currently I’m leaning towards bringing a single previously unread book, which is currently Alastair Reynolds Absolution Gap, though Cryptonomicon has been drawing me for some time, it having been 8 years or so since I last read it. Also, I’ve got World War Z just sitting there, staring at me, begging me to prepare for the coming Zombie apocalypse…

Now, had I owned a Kindle, this wouldn’t be a problem, but this is Denmark, a country so small and cozy that Amazon wouldn’t touch it with a stick tied to another stick.

Ugh.

More Droidmaker

I know, I know, it’s starting to look more and more as if Binary Bonsai was reborn as a Star Wars and Droidmaker-reblog site after its hiatus, but if I merely updated the older entries with this information, it wouldn’t propagate, and dammit, when I have something to take credit for I’ll damn well use every excuse in the book to take it!

Then there happened to be an unusual series of events at the end of June, 2009, when a couple interesting Lucas stories were emerging. An old home movie from ILM in 1977. An older interview with young George Lucas from the BBC in 1972. My book gives some context to these items.

On June 30 I got a wild hare and generated a PDF of the entire book. I posted it on my blog and I made two public-ish announcements: I posted it on my Facebook page, and I emailed a note about it to a blogger in Europe who had just written something nice about Droidmaker a few days earlier. So I emailed “Binary Bonsai” – he posted it. And that was it.

The word spread globally in a few moments, and in 24 hours there were around 2,000 downloads of the book. A few weeks later there was another spike of interst, bringing the total downloads to about 13,000. In 14 days, more people have read my book than in the prior 4 years. And I finally feel like my work with this is done. #

Exciting for me, as I’ve been a fan of Droidmaker since it came out. I plowed through it in a few days, which is honestly rather rare for me. I hope to have the chance to meet Michael when we’re in California; a fitting encounter on a trip which is already taking us to see Pixar, Skywalker Ranch and a John Williams concert.

I honestly don’t know how all of this could get much better…

Download Droidmaker for Free!

Woke up to this scoop:

Hi Michael,
Thought you might want the first notice – because of your posting, i’ve received a fair amount of email, and i’ve decided to post my book for FREE on my blog...

Its more important to me that the story of Lucasfilm be shared and circulated than for me to profit directly. So if you wanted to add that to your blog – you’d be the first!

Thanks for your kind words and support.

Michael (Rubin)

I don’t know what you’re still doing here, when you should be over there, downloading the hell out of that thing! It’s gorgeous; the full 518-page book, complete with photosRare photos I might add, plugged in many cases straight out of the Lucasfilm vault or even personal collections from the people who were there., index and whatever else you’ll find in the printed version, covering everything from Lucas’ earliest years up through the creation of ILM and its struggle to put Star Wars up on the silver screen, down through Coppola’s experiements with mobile film making, the creation of Pixar, non-linear editing, digital sound editing, the creation of the Games Group and much much more. It is in actual fact, a book about the creation of modern filmmaking (and to some extent games even) as we know it. Don’t let the technical foundation scare you off though; it’s not only accessible, but centered on the people, not the tech. It was easily one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in years.

As he does, I obviously suggest you just go ahead and buy the real thing, should you like what you see.

PS: In case you missed it yesterday, Michael Rubin appeared on Pirillo back when he was promoting the book. There’s also an interview up over at Unidentified Sound Object.

Update: Downloads have passed 10.000, and Michael has posted a breakdown of where the traffic has come from so far. There’s also a FAQ.

Plz I Can Haz Kindle?

Facing the worst nightmare for any man—a worm under the skin, according to H.R. Giger; figuring out what reading material to bring along for our trip home over Easter according to me—is all the more reason to creave a Kindle. It is of course still not available outside the US, and given the adoption rate of the non-rythmic parts of the iTunes Store in the EU, it’s unlikely to see the light of day until just before the Event Horizon eats us all up. And then what’s the point really? Well, I guess it’s better late than never.

Anyway, I can’t help but wonder if the seemingly rather well adopted Kindle is a sign that we in ten years time or so will have dispensed with bookshelves in the home? We’ve got somewhere in the area of 500 books, and while we’re unlikely to throw them away in the same way we’ve done with all of our CD’s and most of our DVD’s as digital solutions have become available, I’ll certainly be first in line for when I can pick up Invincible, Powers and The Walking Dead issues on my ebook reader rather than having to wait for the tradeI pick up trades because I hate the messiness (and ads!) of issues. But on a digital reader, issues wouldn’t be a problem at all.. Being able to bring along, or at least have wireless access to, our entire library when on vacation would really be quite a revolution.

Though, whether or not Rikke will go for it, her being a librarian and all, is another question. And fair enough, despite positive reviews from most corners, there is something to be said for bringing a book to the beach rather than a $350 techno tablet with a ‘Steal Me Plz’ baloon hovering over it. Sure, it’s somewhat remedied with the Kindle reader for the iPhone, which I bring everywhere anyway, but still.

I don’t want to choose one or two books, even though I’ll only get ten or so pages read anyway; I want it all and I want it now.

Thanks Freddy.

Anathem

I fell head over heels in love with Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon when I read the first chapter online. And I ordered it right then and there and tore through it when it finally arrived a few days after from Amazon. It remains one of my all-time favorite books to this day.

So when the baroque cycle, Stephenson’s ‘masterpiece’ arrived some years later, I obviously pre-ordered it well ahead of time and hunkered down as soon as Quicksilver—the first of the three volumes—arrived… And then nothing. Not a damn thing. There was just no spark, and I was mortally disappointed. I still have all three, beautiful hardbacks, sitting on a shelf, eyeing me from time to time, trying to coerce me into giving them another go, but so far I simply haven’t had the courage.

Instead I went back and read his older and very ’90’s’ cyperpunk classic, Snow Crash, which is just a rollicking ride of madness and mayhem, so much so that I don’t even know if I think it’s good or not; simply that it’s pure bubblegum.

So anyway, over the holidays I finally finished his latest science fiction epic, Anathem, and finally. Just what the doctor ordered.

And I’m not normally one for ‘bricks’; that is, fantasy and science fiction books above the 400 page count (which regrettably includes most books in those two genres). I’ve always loved the idea of the epic journey into imagined worlds, and really, who can argue with books like Dune or Lord of the Rings? But in reality, there’s a very real reason these genres aren’t considered high culture; because most of the books suck.

And over the years, I’ve found that one rather good indicator for me personally on whether or not a sci-fi book is worth picking up, is its length. The shorter, the better. Sure, not the most scientific method in the world, but I was surprised just how well it works when put into action. I’ll take Philip K. Dick over Peter F. Hamilton (Pandora’s Star was the tipping point) any day of the week.

But that’s not to say that all long books are bad, obviously; and if nothing else, Anathem is brilliant proof of just that. Because man, is it ever a brick! It’s so much a brick that I wouldn’t have minded it if Stephenson had halfed it into parts one and two; that way I wouldn’t have to wreck my hands trying to hold it.

But it was worth a broken hand or two, to swoon over this, epic philosophical space operaesque love-letter to thinkers and great minds everywhere and down through the ages, which in short is about another planet on which science and philosopher monks discover something which has wide-ranging consequences, all the whilst strange words are used liberally.

It took me a few hundred pages before I really ‘got’ it. It starts slow, meanders a bit, not entirely willing to show its hand, but then suddenly takes off and doesn’t let up until the end (with the exception of the messal’s, which are slightly long, I’ll admit).

And it is really, in many ways, a monumental book. Not only because it is well told, inventive and interesting, but because the mere idea of writing a book about great thinkers in itself must have been a rather difficult task, even for someone as well-read and thinkerish as Stephenson. But the payoff is a culture and civilization which is at the same time utterly alien, yet relatable and real. And that is a fine line to walk without falling into the pits of ‘overmuch’ and ‘yawn’.

In a sense, I guess Anathem reads a bit like the futuristic offspring of Snow Crash and Quicksilver. Part bubblegum, part pretencious. Kinda like The Matrix. It gets a big ol’ thumbs up from me, even if I wouldn’t have minded some more character insights and interplay; but overall, it was just the kind of novel I’ve been looking for.

To Those Wonderful Books

I love books. And I amass books. So much so, that between the two of us—Rikke and I—there is no doubt who is in charge of the appropriation and storage of dead trees, which might not have been so paradoxical, had Rikke not been a librarian…

In fact, bringing home new books has stopped being a monetary concern and turned into a volumetric one. Yet, against all odds, I brave both the imminent collapse of this 17th century building at the hands of ‘just one more Gibson, there’s good in him still, I can sense it!’Spook Country. I can’t read that thing, it just feels so… irrelevant. and such worldly concerns as where to store these damned things, and one-click-buy like there was no tomorrow and I had a fallout shelter to stock.

A few ‘art of’ books, a sci-fi romp here and there—which I usually find boring and long-winded, being rather hard to please—the occasional ‘real’ novel—which I inevitably find much more rewarding, and spend twice the time reading—some Alan Moore comics, a batch of Star Wars books—because I can’t be stopped—anything by Michael Herr, a stack of director biographies, some books on writing books—keeping the dream alive since 1978—and the occasional technical manual of sorts, preferably ‘the definitive guide’ to something.

I wish I went wider. Insightful political commentaries or something similarly serious. Hell, even a self-help book here and there. But I don’t go wide, I go deep. No, not in the ‘4am-drunk-philosophy-deep’-sense. Rather, the completist-deep.

It’s not exactly new to rave against such utterances, but still; in spite of what Steve“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.” # might think, some people do read (you go Khoi!). You probably know a few of them. You might be one of them. I sure wish I was.

This is the real paradox, since I love reading as much as I love the books themselves. But in the cold hard light of day, I simply have too many other ‘things’ that creep up and peck away at my time, so that when night-time rolls around, I strip down and crawl under the covers, I either have no time at all or no scarcely 20-30 minutes for a small chunk of whatever book I’m currently deluding myself that I’ll eventually finish.

Insane! Because as much as I love the books themselves—the design, the layout, the type and all of that, which the American publishers do so much better than we Europeans can ever hope for—I love to read just as much! Hell, our trip to the summer house a few weeks back was literally all about reading books and watching films. That’s what we did, and that was all we did, and I loved every minute of it, finishing several booksThe Pixar Story by David A Price, The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster, Skywalking by Dale Pollock—which I wrote about—and The Galactic Pot-Healer by Philip K Dick. Oh, and some comics, but they don’t really count for this. and thinking to myself these very thoughts: Gee, I know what? I should really put some effort into reading more.

But it’s one of those annoying things that is apparently easier said than done, which is evidenced by the fact that on this perfectly readable sunday evening, half-past nine, instead of reading Blindness or Citizen Spielberg two books on my active reading list—I’ll let the ones I’m ‘passively’ reading go uncounted for now—I’m writing an entry on my blog about not being able to find the time for reading…

How about that.

"No, no, no, no, no, Angelo"

I met Angelo Badalamenti on Blue Velvet and since then he has composed music for all my films. He’s like my brother.

The way we work is: I like to sit next to him on the piano bench. I talk and Angelo plays. He plays my words. But sometimes he doesn’t understand my words, so he plays very badly. then I say, “No, no, no, no, Angelo.” And I change my words a little bit and he plays differently. And then I say, “No, no, no, no, Angelo,” and I change my words. And somehow through this process he will catch something, and I’ll say, “That’s it!” And then he starts going with his magic, down that correct path. It’s so much fun. If Angelo liveed next door to me, I’d like to do this every day. But he lives in New Jersey, and I live in Los Angeles.

- David Lynch, Catching the Big Fish, Hardcover ed., Tarcher/Penguin, 2006, p. 65

Pixar's 'John Carter of Mars'

This is awesome!

The disclosure came at the end of the short, but extremely enjoyable, discussion (excerpts of which will be published here soon), when a writer from Suite101.com asked about Stanton’s next project, to which Stanton mentioned (not too loudly) ‘John Carter of Mars’.

Doubting what I’m hearing, I interject, “What is that?” “John Carter of Mars, Stanton replies.” “You’re confirming John Carter? Are you serious?” At this point, I turn my tape recorder back on, “...say that on tape!”, I tell him. Stanton: “I am writing John Carter of Mars right now.” “Oh man, you just doubled my page views!”, I say. Everybody laughs. #

It’s long been rumored, but that’s word straight from the fish’s mouth.

For those of you not in the know, John Carter of Mars is a series of ultra-pulp sci-fi books by Edgar Rice Burroughs (yes, he with the Tarzan) which strictly speaking is the the foundation upon which Star Wars is built. Yes, Star Wars was very much inspired by and conceived from, Flash Gordon. But Flash Gordon is pretty much a re-thinking of John Carter.

And I love it!

A Fighting Man of Mars

And I love Andrew Stanton. He seems like such a likable guy, and his work at Pixar, I think, pretty much proves he knows his way around storytelling.

But the question is whether or not John Carter is meant to be developed in the traditional Pixar family-friendly style (which I love), or whether it will, as I hope, lean more on the pulp genre’s roots. I mean, love Pixar; I really do. I’m so psyched about Wall·E that I’m willing to go so far as to use the word ‘psyched’. But in the strictest sense, John Carter should probably be done by some maniac like John Milius or Sergio Leone (was he still alive).

I mean, the women on Mars are NAKED! As in, they do not wear clothes!

And the sight which met my eyes was that of a slender, girlish figure, similar in every detail to the earthly women of my past life…. Her face was oval and beautiful in the extreme, her every feature was finely chiseled and exquisite, her eyes large and lustrous and her head surmounted by a mass of coal black, waving hair, caught loosely into a strange yet becoming coiffure. Her skin was of a light reddish copper color, against which the crimson glow of her cheeks and the ruby of her beautifully molded lips shone with a strangely enhancing effect.

She was as destitute of clothes as the green Martians who accompanied her; indeed, save for her highly wrought ornaments she was entirely naked, nor could any apparel have enhanced the beauty of her perfect and symmetrical figure. #

But most of all, I’m just so relieved and overjoyed that this project doesn’t fall to the dozens of other guys out there who were overzealously grabbing for it as it’s been making the rounds in Hollywood, because as with everything else, this needs more than fan-love; this needs a great script at its heart. And if that means giving up naked women for this:

Beast Master

Then I can live with that. You hear Andrew? (Yeah, this would be from Tarzan, but in the world of Frazetta, it’s all the same; in the good way).

No, but seriously, it would be a shame if this movie didn’t live up to the larger-than-life sexuality and violence that these books embody; though since this is Disney, one fears that it probably won’t.

Now having grown old and bitter, I find myself ranting and raving more and more against Hollywood and their creative bankruptcy of piss-poor sequels and remakes (we don’t need a new Highlander or Robocop FFS!), but I’ll go so far as to say that the John Carter novels really deserve to be up there on the silver screen. I just hope that as they go into pre-production, they pay homage to Frazetta and his awesome work on this series, which I’ve fallen head over heels in love with since I first laid my eyes on it.

Anyway, the book series has a long and very interesting history, from which this is a small nugget of gold:

CPH.LITT.08 — Feat. Paul Auster & Siri Hustvedt

Rikke and I took off early from work on this glorious summers day, to attend the Copenhagen Litterature Festival ’08, where we had one-day passes and a couple of tickets for the pay-for talks. One was with Henning Carlsen and Paul Auster on the book and film ‘Hunger’, and how it affected Paul Auster’s authorship, and the other was with Naja Marie Aidt and Siri Hustvedt, on their latest books and their shared fascination with the concept and idea of ‘evil’.

In-between the two, we caught a talk between a norwegian author, Espen Haavardsholm and Ib Michael, the latter of whom is a well-known Danish author, the subject being inadvertent similarities between the two people and their latest respective books, both of which were fictionalized autobiographies.

Now I regret to admit that I am in fact a horrible reader. I have all of the best intents and joys of reading, but with all the other things I seem to constantly get myself involved in, I never seem to have the time to take. And when I do take the time, I regrettably often find myself disappointed with the books I pick.

But I studied for the event by reading Auster’s City of Glass (which was good I might add), watching Sult and afterwards reading Auster’s essay, The Art of Hunger, and luckily doing so gave me enough of an anchor to feel less like an intruder.

Of what we saw of it, CPH.LITT.08 was a most welcome event here in Copenhagen, which often feels as if the introvert has lived for far too long in the shadow of the obnoxiously extrovert. If nothing else, it was a most enjoyable event; as any event where intelligent articulate people articulate intelligent things usually are.

'Their's not to reason why'

I normally keep quotations to my tumblr account, but this one I came upon while idly flipping through Troublesome Words, and it felt like deserving of more prominence:

‘Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die’ is often heard, but is wrong. The lines from Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ are ‘Their’s not to reason why,/ Their’s but to do and die’. Note that the closing words ‘do and die’ give the lines an entirely different sense. Finally, it should be noted that Tennyson’s punctuation of ‘theirs’ is irregular.

- Bill Bryson, Troublesome Words, 3rd ed. paperback, Penguin Books, 2001, p. 149.

The Making of Star Wars

I mentioned The Making of Star Wars book by J.W. Rinzler, who also did The Making of Episode III, yesterday. Well I dug up both an Interview with J.W. Rinzler as well as the making of The Making of Star Wars, from which I took this quote:

[...] Rinzler opens The Making of Star Wars in 1971 with the disastrous screening of THX 1138 for Warner Bros executives. According to the book, Warner executives essentially took the film away from Lucas after viewing the film’s first cut. “It starts there because, even though it could’ve been the end of Lucas’s career, it led to his meeting a series of people who helped get Star Wars made,” says Rinzler. “And in a circuitous route, the THX debacle forced Lucas’s friend Francis Ford Coppola to make The Godfather, which later enabled Lucas to make American Graffiti. George was also trying to get Apocalypse Now made during this time, and his failure to do so had a huge impact on Star Wars.”

That whole era of film making is my well of inspiration, which makes me even more giddy to get my hands on this book. In fact, I just finished reading The Apocalypse Now Book and went through all the extras on the Apocalypse Now Complete Dossier DVD (which isn’t quite as complete as it sounds, since Hearts of Darkness isn’t included, and that surely is an essential component in the Apocalypse Now puzzle!).

Anyway, with that, the upcoming Star Wars anniversary, the Ralph McQuarrie book on the cusp of release and me going to watch Apocalypse Now Redux in the cinema with my brother on thursday, my head is securely immersed in the 70’s era of film.

Be aware though, if you’re interested in picking up this little treasure trove, that there is a 50 page difference between the paperback and the hardcover editions!

“Thankfully, Del Rey allowed us to up the page count from around 250 to 324 pages. And the deluxe hard cover has 372 pages, featuring all the early storyboards — and George Lucas’s first recorded thoughts on the Expanded Universe. I didn’t know if he’d want us to print those, as they differ from what came after, but he said it was okay!”

PS: J.W. Rinzler by the way, has his own blog at StarWars.com.

PPS: And of course, if you’re interested in the history of Lucas, Star Wars and the technology that followed both, you simply have to check out the amazing Droidmaker. One of the best books I read last year.