Time warp to 2005! May 25, 2014 3:43 PM Subscribe
I tried going back to one of my favorite MeFi posts. It was based around a usenet discussion (or collection of usenet discussions) made in real time about the new Star Wars film "Return of the Jedi" in 1983. Sadly, the main link is now dead. Anyone know where this stuff can be found now? It survived from 1983 until 2005, so hopefully it's still available somewhere.
So looking at the first few and the last posts, they're all about ROTJ.
From the first review (posted 25-May-83 17:42:37 EDT): "General consensus of 12 of us: 10 out of 10, possibly the best of the three. We are all going to go see it again before making any critical analysis of plot or effects. The overall feeling was good, however."
posted by effbot at 4:06 PM on May 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
From the first review (posted 25-May-83 17:42:37 EDT): "General consensus of 12 of us: 10 out of 10, possibly the best of the three. We are all going to go see it again before making any critical analysis of plot or effects. The overall feeling was good, however."
posted by effbot at 4:06 PM on May 25, 2014 [1 favorite]
Thank you, effbot.
Could the original post be modified with the unbroken link? Is it etched in stone, or merely frozen in carbonite?
posted by Silky Slim at 4:24 PM on May 25, 2014
Could the original post be modified with the unbroken link? Is it etched in stone, or merely frozen in carbonite?
posted by Silky Slim at 4:24 PM on May 25, 2014
I think the original linked thread was older than RotJ. If I remember correctly, there was a link to a discussion speculating that Obi Wan was a pun on Obi ONE--that is, he was the original, and there was a clone kicking around. I think the author also suggested that either Obi Wan or the clone was Luke's father. I'm not sure if this will help you find the thread or not, but I hope you do--it was very entertaining and strong evidence of a highly engaged online fan engagement well before The X-Files community emerged.
posted by synecdoche at 5:53 PM on May 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by synecdoche at 5:53 PM on May 25, 2014 [4 favorites]
There's some discussions on that topic in rec.arts.sf.starwars.misc in 1996, but the net.movies.sw group the original post linked to was shut down over a decade earlier...
posted by effbot at 6:12 PM on May 25, 2014
posted by effbot at 6:12 PM on May 25, 2014
(well, someone says "Anakin === Ana-Kin === "No kin" Get it? He was a clone just like OB-1 and the emperor." back in the 1983 threads, so the idea was being thrown around back then.)
posted by effbot at 6:25 PM on May 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by effbot at 6:25 PM on May 25, 2014 [2 favorites]
"I hope they felt really humbled by how wrong they were about a lot of what they posted," is something I, a person who generally thinks of himself as a good person, just thought. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:03 AM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by MCMikeNamara at 6:03 AM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yay! Star Wars meta! Big news: my son just watched E4:ANH this weekend for the first time. He turns to me after the Millennium Falcon blasts out of Mos Eisley and says, "This movie is awesome!" I could not have been more proud.
Then he asked me if there were other movies and I was like: yes, but you'll have to be a bit older to understand the nuances of Empire...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:12 PM on May 26, 2014
Then he asked me if there were other movies and I was like: yes, but you'll have to be a bit older to understand the nuances of Empire...
posted by Nanukthedog at 5:12 PM on May 26, 2014
In the rebels' holographic simulation (a beautiful effect), the Death Star is shown in a geostationary (well, endorstationary) orbit. It is also shown as being only a few Death-Star-radii from the surface, and certainly less than one Endor-radius. There is a contradiction here. For the stationary orbit to be that close, either the planet spins in only a few hours, or it has very light gravity. The scenes on Endor's surface showed no evidence of either of the above..
Possible fixes: even when only partially operational, the Death Star could levitate; or maybe the shield generating station also provided levitation until the Death Star's engines came on line. Or maybe the planet did have very light gravity, but there was a humongous mascon right under the shield station, providing "normal" gravity in the immediate area. Except that you would expect a lake to collect...
posted by mazola at 11:16 PM on May 26, 2014 [1 favorite]
It makes my brain tingle in a weirdly pleasant way to read Internet posts that were made concurrent to the original release of Return of the fucking Jedi.
Like, I have an abstract idea of the Internet having existed before 1990, but to actually read the words of people who had earlier that very day seen the film for the first time in a theater and then went home, typed up their thoughts and speculations, and sent them out into the (relatively) sparse wastes of the 1983 ether... It's just kind of a trip.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:06 PM on May 27, 2014
Like, I have an abstract idea of the Internet having existed before 1990, but to actually read the words of people who had earlier that very day seen the film for the first time in a theater and then went home, typed up their thoughts and speculations, and sent them out into the (relatively) sparse wastes of the 1983 ether... It's just kind of a trip.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:06 PM on May 27, 2014
Wow, this is great. I also liked the discussion about The Day After.
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:09 PM on May 27, 2014
posted by Dr-Baa at 12:09 PM on May 27, 2014
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No idea what threads that post linked to, though, but there's only a few hundred of them so skimming the subject lines might be feasible.
posted by effbot at 3:59 PM on May 25, 2014