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With fans feverishly mining the films for more information, the giant that is Lucasfilm and all of its many licensees have been quick to give the people what they wanted over the years. For starters, they had to have names to put on all those obscure action figures; you'll sell a lot of Han Solos, of course, but there's extra money to be made targeting the completionist collector who can't rest until he's got his mitts on a (pristine, unopened) Ree-Yees or Bib Fortuna.Then as the Star wars Expanded Universe (EU) grew larger and larger, a host of licensed content authors and creators (most huge Star Wars fanboys themselves) took what opportunities they could to authenticise their own works by somehow connecting them directly with the Holy Grail that was the films themselves, no matter how tenuously; their brief might tell them that they weren't allowed to write about Luke Skywalker in this particular short story or comic, but that didn't mean that they weren't allowed to create the entire life story of alien guy X in the background of the cantina scene in A New Hope who appeared for 12 frames and, thus, was once in the same room with Luke Skywalker. Ahh, the reflected glory.
In The Films: Universally known to the uninitiated as "That Blue Elephant Guy", the cuddly-looking Max Rebo leads, naturally enough, The Max Rebo Band, the musicians seen playing at Jabba's palace in Return of the Jedi, and who go on to play a rather unfortunate second gig on Jabba's exploding sail barge. His ears flapping about as he enthusiastically pounds away on his keyboard-like instrument ("a red ball organ", according to the EU) and his rather obvious Muppet-rubbery have always made him look make him rather endearing to me.The Backstory:After a few misadventures typical of the early life of a band (including at one point a rumble with Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, the band seen in the Mos Eisley cantina in A New Hope), and various machinations, Max ended up installed as a puppet (ha) figurehead of the band that bore his name, a move that backfired as he, being a lover of food, signed the band up to play at Jabba's palace for life, with their only payment being all the food they could eat.Perhaps feeling that Luke and co. being responsible for the deaths of a bunch of innocent jobbing musicians with the destruction of the sail barge wasn't suitably heroic, EU author John Gregory Betancourt's short story "And The Band Played On: The Band's Tale" rescued Max (and the rest of his band) from his presumed offscreen death on the exploding barge by having him "jumping clear" of it at the last minute (try to imagine that guy jumping anywhere...). This little calamity does break up the band though, and Max subsequently goes on to join the Rebel Alliance as an entertainer of the troops (again being paid largely in food) and later opens a chain of restaurants called "Max's Flanth House". Mmmm...flanth.
In the films: The dedication the the Discworld book Guards! Guards! reads as follows:They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No-oneever asks them if they wanted to. This book is dedicated to those fine men.If ever any extra in Star Wars films appeals to that same sentiment, it's this guy from Return of the Jedi. He pops his head out a side window of Jabba's sail barge - perhaps just to see what all the fuss is about - and finds himself face-to-face with Luke Skywalker, who let's not forget is at this point the 2nd (or at least 3rd) most potent warrior in the whole galaxy. So the odds are already against him, but then before the poor guy can even really get his bearings, Luke preemptorily grabs his arm and (with very little effort too, I might add) hauls him bodily out of the sail barge and down to the waiting maw (or in the Special Edition, the waiting Little-Shop-of-Horror-like jaws) of the Sarlaac pit below. Damn! Talk about your bad days.The backstory:In a dramatic break from tradition (and as you may have guessed from the heading), there isn't one.
Dude, I read those books when I was in Junior High and High School You can't get much geekier than I was then.Tales from Mos Eisley CantinaTales from Jabba's Palace
Star Wars was good for the first two movies and after that merely a curiosity to see how badly Lucas could damage his own property.Willow was good, though, I never understand the hate for Willow.
Willow hate!?!?!? That's messed up!
I just remembered the stupid brownies from Willow, that is probably what most people hate but at least they were relatively forgettable compared to the franchise-killing Jar Jar. A lot of the characters seems to have names based on baby gurgles.
I was not crazy about Willow even as a kid but I didn't hate it for sure. At least it had Val Kilmer (in the role of Han Solo, lol). It WAS a pretty weird movie though and I'm saying that as a guy who (somehow) owns two copies of Big Trouble in Little China.
Star Wars sucks
