Star Wars

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• SOURCE: SF Gate
  9/14/2022
  

  A Forgotten 1972 Planning Experiment Made "Star Wars" Possible

  The modeling and filming techniques that brought the attack on the Death Star to life were developed by planners using miniature cityscapes to help people experience possible urban environments before building them in real life. 

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• SOURCE: LitHub
  7/12/2021
  

  The Epically Terrible Star Wars Holiday Special: An Oral History

  Mark Hamill: "George said, 'Look, it’s just a way to keep the merchandising fresh in people’s minds and it’s really a favor to me for those merchandisers.' So I said, 'Oh, all right, but I’m not singing'.”

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• Sacred Objects: Medieval History and Star Wars

  by Stephenie McGucken

  For European believers, relics allowed worshipers to encounter some aspect of an object of devotion—a holy person or place—when the object itself was physically unavailable or geographically inaccessible.

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• 7/2/19
  

  When the Future is the Past: A ‘Star Wars’ Summer at Tanglewood

  by Bruce Chadwick

  This Sunday afternoon, the star fleet from the evil Empire, the storm troopers of Darth Vader and the nasty masters of the Death Star will once again battle the good guys at, of all places, the renown Tanglewood music center in Lenox, Massachusetts, as part of a three-concert film tribute to music composer John Williams.

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• SOURCE: History.com
  1/18/19
  

  Why Reagan's 'Star Wars' Defense Plan Remained Science Fiction

  Despite criticisms from politicians, many scientists and others that the SDI was impractical, expensive and dangerous, the concept was developed during a frightening era.

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• 12-21-15
  

  The Surprisingly Conservative, Small Town Roots of the Star Wars Franchise

  by Richard Ravalli

  George Lucas is identified with the California Bay Area counterculture. But Star Wars may actually reflect a different important influence.

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• 12-15-15
  

  This Is Why You Love Star Wars

  by Paul Ringel

  It’s thanks to innovations in children’s literature in the 19th century.

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• The Secret History of G.I. Joe

  by Tom Engelhardt

  Credit: Wiki Commons.Originally posted in two parts on TomDispatch.com 1. The First Coming of G.I. JoeIt was 1964, and in Vietnam thousands of American “advisers” were already offering up their know-how from helicopter seats or gun sights. The United States was just a year short of sending its first large contingent of ground troops there, adolescents who would enter the battle zone dreaming of John Wayne and thinking of enemy-controlled territory as “Indian country.” Meanwhile, in that inaugural year of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, a new generation of children began to experience the American war story via the most popular toy warrior ever created.