The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 1

Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies in the theater. Instead, I grew up with them on VHS. And right around when I was really getting into them, in 1986, Star Wars went away.

Which perplexed me at the time. Why did Star Wars disappear in the mid 1980s? And why did it come back, and come back differently, starting in 1991? These questions haunted me so much, I eventually wrote a book about the subject: I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture. Because it’s an interesting story, I’ll explain what happened in this series of blog posts.

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Coming Home (via the window)

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Hal Ashby’s 1978 film Coming Home (I think it’s a fine film, but not much more), but I love how, toward the end of the movie, during a climactic confrontation (which I won’t spoil), a young woman is seen prying open a window, then starting to climb through it, in the far right background of the shot:

Obviously the film’s title refers to her.

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