Fellow Traveler supplemental - Star Wars radio adaptation, 1981

Yes, Star Wars in the theatre was exciting. But what next? Initially the film wasn't even framed as part of a series -- that "Episode IV" business was shoehorned in after the initial release revealed that there was some money to be made making more of these. Meco's disco version of its theme song would take a while to record and release on 8-track, and no one was pessimistic enough to anticipate the Star Wars Holiday Special around the corner!

Well... there's always the radio adaptation! Using the greatest technology of the early 20th century to tell this futuristic tale of, well, "a long time ago", we can gather a couple of the actors around a microphone and invite the audience to use their imaginations to reproduce ILM's unprecedented special effects. (In this one, let's blow up FIFTY Death Stars!)

How do you reach the Star Wars fans? In comic books, naturally. This was a couple of years after Mark Hamill's injury but it looks like his reference shots were made right after his car accident.

Sorry for this odd artifact and its video game irrelevance. Next post, back to the game mines!