Where Memories Reside.

The indomitable movie franchise, Star Wars, redefined the notion of movie merchandising when it was released in 1977. And yet, legend tells that expectations were so low for the movie when it originally launched that potential merchandising partners either took a wait and see approach or they passed on the opportunity to participate in marketing the movie entirely 

Of course, unless you were living under a rock, Star Wars took the world by storm and toy manufacturers were caught completely off guard. They could not foresee the movie going public's hunger for their own piece of the Star Wars universe and they were scrambling, in the aftermath, to get something - anything - onto the shelves in order to cash in. 

Fast forward 37 years and Star Wars merchandise still ranks among the highest selling movie merchandise in history. Fans, young and old, hunger for their own little piece of that galaxy far, far away. Countless Christmases and Birthdays all across the world have witnessed the opening of a Star Wars toy or book or lunch box or play set or any one of a hundred different permutations of something Star Wars. 

And with these have been the spawning of a thousand different memories of that very simple occasion; memories which have become almost as treasured as the item itself. 

A recent discussion on the Star Wars pod-cast "Full of Sith" touched on that idea - the memories touched off by a piece of Star Wars memorabilia - and it got me thinking about my own, favourite piece of Star Wars merchandise. Of course, my collection is considerable, but the discussion had me going through it, trying to decide which of the many pieces I own are the most treasured. 

I've narrowed it down to three.

First and foremost is my copy of Deborah Fine's and Aeon Inc's "Star Wars Chronicles" from the late 90's. It comes in a beautiful and sturdy dust cover folio which you open to slide the book out. It probably has some of the most comprehensive and gorgeous still images and photos from the movies and the sets, melding fiction with fact to tell the story of the films and the making of them side by side. 

It features a series of exquisite gate folds, comparing characters, ships and the scale of those ships side by side. 

My family all chipped in to buy it for me on my 27th or 28th birthday, as it was quite a pricey investment,  and it is such a lush piece. Every time I open it to have a read, the pages have this kind of powdery feel to them and a smell that is not unpleasant. I always feel as though I should be wearing a pair of those cotton gloves whenever I take it out for a read. 

The second piece is my Lego AT-AT which I saved up for, when I got my first full time job. I was putting money aside for what seemed like ages before I got it. When I finally got it home, I armed myself with enough beers to keep myself going and I think I spent around 6 hours putting it together on a cold, wet Saturday afternoon. 

I've never been so satisfied putting something together as I was when I stood back and marvelled at the completed model. As with many of those higher end Lego pieces, the AT-AT offers such a tactile experience, with doors that open and close and accessories that you can take out and play with. Of course, my children and I love playing with it and when it's not sitting proudly in my office here at home, it can often be found in the thick of some sort of battle between my Star Wars Lego, their Lego Chima or Lego City. 

The last one - and perhaps the most poignant - is an original Kenner Biker Scout figurine along with the original Speeder Bike. 

Now, when I was in my teens I was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of spinal cord tumour. After spending a long time in hospital where I underwent extensive surgery, I was allowed home but I had to spend some time with my grandparents because my parents worked. 

On one of these days I was feeling pretty low and my Pa had to run some errands for my Nana. While he was out, he stopped by the local toy store and managed to pick up both the Biker Scout and the Speeder Bike at the same time. He knew how much I loved Star Wars and, although he didn't, he made sure to ask the girl at the store what to get. You can imagine how it lifted my spirits when he came back from the store with them. That Biker Scout and Speeder Bike sits proudly in my display here at home, complete as it was the day he bought it for me. It has outlived him, sadly, but the memory of him coming through the door with it won't soon be forgotten.

That's the awesome thing about Star Wars. Beyond the sheer fun of the movies themselves, Star Wars has been responsible for some of the best memories of childhood and growing up. I can look at many of the pieces in my collection and they'll touch off something in my life that will make me smile.

DFA.

Conversations with Darth or A Family In Two Parts.

When I was around 7 years old, my then 4 year old brother was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. At the time, I had little understanding of the significance of this illness on him though, over time, it became painfully apparent to me as I watched him grow increasingly ill, lose weight, lose his hair and, very nearly, lose his life.

There was a three year period during the early 80's where my brother's life was characterized by frequent hospital stays, numerous operations, hours and hours of chemotherapy, followed by hours and hours of wretching and vomiting due to the effects of the chemotherapy. For my family, it was a period of extreme emotion, heart break and near soul crushing endurance. As we lived in the country and my brother's medical care, for the most part, was in the City, my parents spent long hours on the road, travelling from rural Victoria to the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, racking up the kind of miles that would make a long distance truck driver blush.

For me, it had been decided that I would stay home, rather be carted along to the City. My parents didn't want to disrupt my schooling and I guess they needed to focus on my brother without having to worry about me. So it was that I spent a lot of that time with my grandparents - both sets - and my Aunty Ronda, who had me come stay with her family, my cousins, who were about the same age.

Despite their efforts to make my life as uncomplicated as possible, it was a lonely time for me. With all of the attention being so focused on my brother, inevitably, I came to feel left out of my own family. I remember many nights of crying myself to sleep, not understanding why I couldn't be with my Mum and Dad and brother.

It's strange, the things we cling to in order to cope. 

My Star Wars fandom is something that is known to many as being kind of legendary and of course during the early 1980's, we were in the midst of the classic Star Wars era, between The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi. Christmas 1980, was perhaps one of the most memorable Christmases for me. That year, I got no less than four classic figures under the tree - Artoo Deetoo, Han Solo in Hoth Gear, the Snowtrooper and Darth Vader. Along with those I got the Yoda hand puppet (which I still own) and a generic lights and sounds star ship that I dubbed the Millennium Falcon, even though it looked nothing like that ship. My brother was all He Man and the Masters of the Universe - which were great figures in themselves and we had countless cross franchise battles in our bedroom.

Then the diagnosis came. 

I remember I had a bag that was always packed with clothing and toiletries, ready to go at a moments notice, given the unpredictable progression of my brother's cancer and the intense schedule my parents were required to keep with his treatment. And, along with that bag, I always made sure that my four Star Wars figures and Yoda puppet were ready to go as well. They had become my companions - my proxy family - and I came to rely on them more than anyone as those days and weeks and months passed by. Whether I was at my Nana and Pa's or my Nana and Poppy's or Aunty Ronda's, they would be on my pillow at night, I tuck them in and I'd invariably talk to them. 

Especially Darth. 

At one point, there was a very real prospect that my brother was going to die. His treatment wasn't working. The doctors thought they had discovered secondaries in his chest and there was a period of urgency where he had to undergo multiple, simultaneous surgeries. I don't remember how I was given the news but, somehow I had to digest the likelihood that my brother wasn't going to come home. 

I talked to Darth Vader about it. I don't even remember if I spoke specifically about it or whether it was more an esoteric conversation about life in general - but I do know that in those darkest of hours, that 3 & 3/4 inch Darth Vader was there for me more than anyone else. This guy, the darkest Sith Lord in the galaxy, and only he knew how I was feeling because he was the only one I felt I could talk to. I so feared losing my brother. I hated not being with my family. I hated being alone and no one listening to me.

Fuck cancer.

My brother survived and he got better and he came home. The trips to Melbourne tapered off and my family returned to some semblance of normal. Eventually, he was in remission and had won the greatest battle of his young life. I never forgot my conversations with Darth though. Nor did I forget how he helped me at a really dark time in my childhood. 

That's the thing about Star Wars. It has given me so much beyond the enjoyment it offered on the cinema screen. In some ways, it was the family I needed, when I was far from my own.

DFA.

The Scariest Book I Ever Read.

I was reflecting yesterday, whilst browsing a book store and searching for a birthday present for my 7 year old son, on the books I read as a child. I asked my wife if she could remember a title that scared her when she was growing up. She confessed that she couldn't remember a particular book and thought my question was a 'curious' one (whilst giving me a crooked frown).

For me, one title emerged from my memories that managed to make me shudder in that book store but, thinking about it now, I'm quite keen to track down a copy.

When the Wind Blows is a 1982 graphic novel, by British artist Raymond Briggs, that shows a nuclear attack on Britain by the Soviet Union from the viewpoint of a retired couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs.

image credit - prettycleverfilms.com

Without resorting to Google to remind myself of the plot, the story follows this couple as they prepare themselves for an approaching nuclear holocaust and illustrates their thoughts, feelings and actions as they realize that an apocalypse seems inevitable.

I was 9 years old when it was first published and I can remember the Cold War paranoia that seemed to pervade the news at the time. The image of the eponymous mushroom cloud featured widely. Talk of nuclear holocaust was a fear that I was acutely aware of, even if I didn't fully understand it.

The school library had a copy of the book and I remember being simultaneously fascinated and terrified of it. I know it was the source of many nightmares and for years the taint of fear from that book stayed with me.

Today, the apocalyptic paranoia of that time seems a distant memory, and having remembered the existence of 'When The Wind Blows' now, I am keen to get a copy of it - if only to satisfy a certain nostalgic itch.

What about you? Is there a title from your childhood that scared you witless? I'm interested to know.

DFA.

Geek Out Central!

So I'm on this massive geek-out-come-re-living-my-childhood odyssey this past week.


A couple weeks ago I celebrated a birthday (and NO you don't get to ask how old!) and one of the gifts I received was a voucher for our own kick-arse CD/DVD/HiFi/Everything a tech-toy loving guy could ever want in life - otherwise known as JB HiFi - from my brother. I used to regard these sorts of gift vouchers as a kind of easy way out so far as gift giving is concerned but, in recent years, I have come to prize these gifts because they are the one gift that allows you to go your hardest and literally get just the right gift for yourself. I LOVE them. 


So anyway - I sat down and I went through the entire JB HiFi online catalog just totally drooling at all the cool stuff I could choose from - and believe me there is soooo much cool stuff in that store. And in the process I happened across one particular product which totally opened the flood gates to long dormant memories of my childhood. And I knew in that instant that it was going to be the winner this year.


(Cue "Wonder Years" theme tune here)...


Back in the really early 80's when I was all of 8 years old, I used to have a paper round each weekday after school at the local power station in the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Australia. For an hour and a half each day I would sell "The Herald" newspaper - a big old afternoon broadsheet newspaper - for 30 cents a copy to the power station workers who would finish their shift around 4 in the afternoon, which was perfect timing so far as a paper round was concerned. I can't exactly remember how long I did this for - maybe a few months or so - but I distinctly remember enjoying it a great deal. My mother made for me a special pouch that I would tie around my waist to collect my money in and after a while, I would actually go into the workshops to sell the newspapers, rather than wait on the gate outside. The men in the workshops "issued" me with my own hard hat, upon which they wrote the nick name "Digger" and I was required to wear that hat each time I went into the workshops to sell my papers. I actually still own that hard hat to this very day. It hangs off a hook in my shed at home - memento of a long time ago. 


Anyway. The paper round would keep me occupied in the afternoon from the time I finished school 'til a little before 5PM when the newsagency manager would collect me in his van and return me back to the shop where he would sort out the takings and pay me. And then - like those times when you're literally busting to go to the toilet and can't wait a minute longer - I would be out the door of the newsagency, onto my bike and I would pedal like crazy to get home. Because, at 5PM each weekday afternoon on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Channel 2, Star Blazers would screen.

For a little while in the early 80's, this logo was almost as kick-ass as...

THIS logo!

For half an hour I would disappear into this kick arse future universe where the crew of the "Argo" - lead by the ubiquitous white bearded Captain Avatar - struggle in their battle against the evil Gamilon Empire as they desperately try to reach a distance planet called Iscandar. The reason being is that in the future, Earth has been bombarded by devastating bombs that have unleashed poisonous radiation, rendering the surface of the planet uninhabitable, and has forced Earth's population underground where they live in fragile cities. The entire premise is that the only hope for Earth lies with the people of Iscandar. If the "Argo" doesn't return to Earth within one year then their home will be gone and all life destroyed. High art indeed.


Star Blazers was the first TV series that I remembered following religiously. It had everything - action, adventure, ships and fighters, a totally hot chick that was my first animated crush (and plus it filled the gap in time between Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi so - what's not to love huh?). At the time that I first came to the series I managed to catch all of the first season and most of it's second season but I can't remember whether I saw anything more of it after that - I mean C'mon! I was like 9 and besides by the time 1983 rolled around, I was all Star Wars again so everything else had to take a back seat!! Sadly though, Star Blazers all but disappeared off of our screens and I never saw it on network television again...but I never really forgot it.

The Space Battleship Yamato (rebadged the Argo in the US redub).

Star Blazers actually predates Star Wars. Conceived in the early 70's in Japan, the series was actually born as The Space Battleship Yamato (TSBY) and it premiered on Japanese television in 1974. Considered perhaps one of the seminal works of Japanese anime, TSBY actually spawned three series for television and it went on to become a series of animated feature films which culminated in a 1983 feature entitled "Final Yamato" which still holds the record for the longest animated feature film ever made (it clocks in at something like 2 and 3/4 hours). Western audiences were awoken to the Yamato saga in 1979 when it was broadcast on American television and, of course, it trickled out to countries like Australia not long after. In the ensuing years the fan community around the whole Yamato/Star Blazers saga has enjoyed an ongoing love affair with the series and it is a staple of conventions world wide - especially of course Japan who hold the Yamato pretty sacred, understandably so. It has continued unabated into the present day where just this year there has been a newly released animated feature film with totally blow my mind visuals called Yamato: Resurrection which I have added to my must have DVD's - despite the fact that it is all in Japanese. And in yet another big deal for the community at large, December 2010 will see the release of an even more blow my mind live action Japanese production "Space Battleship Yamato"

Poster Art for the upcoming live action film Space Battleship Yamato.

In the meantime...


We cut forward a...few...decades. I'm now in my...mid 30's and around a year ago I happened across a store in Adelaide's City Center that specializes in all things anime. And of course the old memories of the series I loved so much bubbled to the surface and I just had to ask the girl behind the counter whether she knew of the series and whether it was available on DVD. Now this chick was totally Y-Gen, tricked out in a quasi geek/emo get up and chewing gum as she gazed blankly at a computer screen in front of her. This "older dude" comes in and is racking his brains trying to think of this show he watched as a kid. 


Well...I swear, the minute I said "Star Blazers" her bottom jaw slackened, her eyes went wide and her wad of chewing gum fell out. She actually gave me the broadest smile and cheerily lead me to a cabinet containing all sorts of DVDs - anime of course. And there, tucked away in the bottom was the complete collection of series one to three of "Star Blazers". Of course, I didn't buy it then - it was ridiculously priced - but we got into this brilliant discussion about all things "Star Blazers" - how cool, Derek Wildstar and Mark Venture were, how Nova was my first anime crush and how totally kick arse the "Argo" was (the purists will refer to it as the Yamato).

 

Gotta love my bro...

A parcel arrived in the post the other day, a nice big bulky one with "JB Hifi" marked on the address panel. I ripped it open in barely a second and held in my hands that which I had come to covet. 17 discs of unadulterated glory that is "Star Blazers" complete with a tonne of extra features and enough geeky goodness to sustain me for at least the next six months. Just this weekend, my son and I sat down to the opening three episodes of season one  and already - he's hooked and I'm tearing up with the campy beauty of it all - the cheesy dialogue, the even cheesier 70's boom-chicka-wow-wow music, the esoteric Japanese philosophy translated into semi brainless Americanism. It's just all so wonderful.


My serioso just shakes her head yet again...


DFA.

Come On Bro - It's The Wars!!

Nestled in the rolling green hills of the Latrobe Valley in Victoria, Australia lies a great big hole in the ground.

It's an open cut mine that, for the better part of a century, has been the source of Australia's largest deposits of brown coal.

This brown coal has been dug up by massive dredges and fed into boilers at the nearby Yallourn Power Station. The electricity from this particular station powers a lot of homes in Victoria and eastern Australia.

It's a dirty job but somebody's gotta do it.

During the halcyon days of the Victorian power industry, a town was conceived and built near the Power Station. The Yallourn township was provided to the workers that toiled in the massive open cut mine and station. It was a fully realized town even before it was built and boasted facilities that were the envy of the district. Beautiful tree lined streets, comfortable housing, a fully functioning shopping precinct, a hospital, school, police station, pub. Yallourn had it all. And for decades it was a bustling hamlet. It truly was a beautiful town. However there was always this catch...

The town was built on the proviso that one day, the State Electricity Commission (SEC), might need to access the rich coal seam that lay underneath it. And that day did come. In the mid 1960's there was a revolt by the towns folk against the SEC and for years they protested against their town being dismantled at the whim of some faceless bureaucrats. Money was raised, campaigns were hatched, people joined in to fight for their township.

"Come on bro - It's the Wars!"

When I was born into this battle in the mid 1970's, it was already a given that the man had won against the workers. There was a hell of a lot of life in the old girl even though she was a dame in decline.  

 Yallourn township circa 1970's. My first home.

Yallourn's facilities were the gold standard. In particular, the cinema - or 'theater' as it was lovingly referred to - remains in my mind the grandest of Yallourn's architecture.

Built in the 1930's and overlooking the township's central gardens, the Theater was a vibrant social center. Featuring two screens, red leather seating, a plush foyer and concession stand, the theater put on some of the greatest movies of the 20th century beginning with "Gone With The Wind" in 1939 (and, as a nice bookend to it's life, it screened the same film in 1979).

I've shared memories with ex-Yallourn residents as to what films they saw over the years and they are recalled with affection.

The swords and sandals epics of the 1950's - "Ben Hur", "Spartacus". Classics from the 1960's such as "Dr. Zhivago" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".

I remember my Dad and his next door neighbor Rob Martin recalling how they ran home in the night after seeing the 1973 stunner "The Exorcist" - so shit scared were they.

Yallourn's cinema, 1975.

For me, I had the pleasure and privilege of seeing one movie there. It was only one but it was to have a profound effect on me.

I can still remember the very first time I saw Star Wars.

There are certain events in a father's life that fall into the category of things you must do. Taking your son to his first movie experience is one. Towards the end of 1977, my Dad took me to the Yallourn Theater to see the George Lucas blockbuster.

By the end of 1977, Star Wars had become a world wide phenomenon and on a balmy November evening Dad and I went along to see what all the fuss was about.

I'm sure I didn't actually grasp what a movie actually was. The whole thing was just one big WOW! moment - as in 'I don't know what I'm actually doing right now - but WOW! Just WOW!

The cinema, circa 1941.

Dad's cinematic tastes are quite varied, although in the years since Star Wars he hasn't totally connected with the space fantasy/sci-fi genre in the way that I have. Dad was schooled in the classic political thrillers like "Three Days of The Condor", "The Marathon Man", "The Conversation" - all films that I like very much. But Star Wars was different for him in that, even he could appreciate it was an 'event film'. Everyone was talking about it - even the rough and tough coal miners and power station workers. There was something about Star Wars that crossed boundaries. It was accessible to everyone.

My memories of that first viewing are clear but fractured, fleeting vignettes of movement, color and place, though there are three distinct memories that stand out. First and foremost was the foyer of the cinema. It's lighting was soft but I can remember the old school flashing Hollywood styled lights in the concession area. The carpet in that foyer was deep red, very plush, the kind you could sink up to your knees in. I'm going to take a punt here and say that I had my first taste of popcorn. And I think Dad was a choc top fan - spearmint - but I'll have to confirm that.

The cinema itself. Well - that was simply the most amazingly awesome room I had ever been in. Vast and cavernous and the screen - oh my god - that screen!! I was gobsmacked by it. The seats were dark red - very plush material, the kind that were really low set and you kinda disappeared into them.

Cinema interior.

 
A celluloid love affair begins, November 1977.

And then there was the film. What can a 35 year old man channeling a (nearly) 4 year old say 32 years after the fact?

Oh my freaking god!!!???

The ubiquitous Star Wars logo erupting onto the screen against the twinkling star field. That opening crawl - though I couldn't read it then. And of course, there is that Star Destroyer passing overhead. I can clearly remember that. I was jumping up and down in my seat - blown away at this brilliant piece of celluloid - one of the most kick arse cinema moments of all time!

Things that  make you go - WHOOOOOO!!!

The first appearance of Darth Vader when he boards the crippled blockade runner. The odd-bod Jawas and their towering Sandcrawler, the planet sized Death Star. All of these moments passed into my consciousness and have never left.

There are other significant memories. Scenes that I swear I saw in that original release that I haven't seen in any other since. One example is a scene just after Ben Kenobi appears, having scared the Sand People away from a subdued Luke Skywalker. Kenobi and Skywalker have a conversation about Artoo then Luke is reminded that C-3PO still lies at the bottom of the ravine - the "Where am I? I must have taken a bad step" scene.

Obi Wan and Luke are then seen helping 3PO to his feet. Now, I always remember seeing Obi Wan, Luke and 3PO standing and stepping down from where he has fallen in the film. However I have only ever seen that moment as a still since. I stand to be corrected but, I definitely remember a much longer scene of 3PO, Ben and Luke standing together just after they help the stricken droid to his feet.

In all versions I have seen since, there is a wipe transition that crawls up the screen as they lift 3PO to his feet - a transition used to hide the fact the the film makers were using just a torso of 3PO at that point - before the scene shifts to Ben Kenobi's dwelling.

The last scene that I can recall with clarity was the Millennium Falcon knifing through space, just after they escape from the Death Star. It was brief moment of visual pleasure just watching that beautiful "piece of junk" in full flight before the four TIE fighters rocket in after them while Luke and Han blast their pursuers away with the Falcon's quad canons.

For me, there was only one 'Falcon'.

Dad tells me often that I wouldn't shut up through large chunks of the movie. I was babbling away excitedly. I guess it was the excitement of my first movie experience. I went on to live and breathe Star Wars throughout most of my youth and adolescence - taking a break from it during those dark years between '86 and '95 - and now as a supposedly responsible adult, I can happily declare that I'm still the biggest kid on the block - with the coolest Star Wars collection going around.

Come on Bro - It's The Wars!

Yallourn's destruction was inevitable. By the early 1970's the SEC had begun the process of dismantling the town, moving houses out on trucks in pieces so that they could be rebuilt elsewhere. The lure of the rich brown coal seam underneath the town ship was just too overpowering. The irony of that is that today the State Electricity Commission itself is now extinct - having passed into private/foreign hands in the mid 90's by a government hell bent on privatizing anything it could get it's hands on.

You can still find many examples of Yallourn's architecture in existence today around the Latrobe Valley. By the mid 1970's Yallourn early spirit had been routed. Though many held out, continuing to live and work there, the writing was on the wall. My family had moved by late '77 to the nearby township of Yallourn North.

Today, though the vista of the township is gone, I have discovered that the land upon which my first house was situated is actually still there - it hasn't been swallowed by the Cut. In places evidence of the town's streets still exist, complete with lines of trees.

The screen that opened the door onto that galaxy far, far away is bulldozed.

Following the final film presentation  - Gone With The Wind - the cinema was demolished in 1979. A 40 year old cinematic era was ground to dust. The Yallourn Theater lives on in a comprehensive collection of stories, photographs and images that are shared by former residents of Yallourn among whom I count myself. I cherish that first movie experience with my father. Because in a small way it influenced the person who I am today. I love story telling, I love the escapism of cinema and I love the toys! I can't allow myself to give up on them, as much as my serioso would like me to I am sure. Fortunately, my love of all things Star Wars lives on...and my son is now getting in the action too.

My serioso doesn't really approve but - to quote the character of Chaz Bottler in Kyle Newman's 2008 love letter to Star Wars fans (aka Fanboys)...

Come On Bro - It's The Wars!

DFA.