Some geeky stuff!

:: Star Wars Episode VIII has itself a title:

I honestly don’t have an opinion of this as a title. Star Wars titles tend to be greeted as events, and then…well, they’re titles. OK, The Last Jedi.

It does break a little with previous “middle installment” titles from previous Star Wars trilogies. The opening films generally have three-word titles that suggest a story beginning: A New Hope, The Phantom Menace, The Force Awakens. Then, previously, we’re had four-word titles that indicate a middle installment based on action: The Empire Strikes Back, Attack of the Clones. But this breaks that “tradition”. Is this a problem? Not really. If the movie’s terrific, they could call it Jedi Boogaloo for all I care.

::  This has been making the rounds of Facebook the last few days: a poster for Star Wars in which the characters are re-cast as the kids from Stranger Things.

The artist, Michael Maher, has done quite a bit of cool Star Wars art, as well as other things. Check out his work!

::  I have no idea how I missed this show’s existence entirely, since I have to think this would have been right up my alley when I was seven or eight years old, but miss it I did. It was an NBC show called Supertrain.

The show is described thusly:

The series was one part sci-fi, one part The Love Boat. It revolved around a nuclear-powered bullet train that could travel from New York to Los Angeles in 36 hours and had amentities like swimming pools and shopping centers.

Just like The Love Boat, the plot focused on the passengers and their connecting storylines. Supertrain could have been a minor a hit, but there was one issue. It cost way too much money.

New York to LA in 36 hours? WOW!!! In an era when planes can do it in six! I assume the show had some explanation for why there were no planes.

Apparently to make the show look good, the producers had to make really large and expensive models. Look at this thing:

Unfortunately, the show’s big budget took an even bigger hit when — well, anybody who ever played with an electric train must know what happened.

My favorite part of that pic is the guy standing in the foreground, wreckage behind him, cigarette in hand as he undoubtedly wonders if he’s ever going to work in this business again.

Apparently the ratings were awful, leading to desperate casting stunts like Tony Danza and Zsa Zsa Gabor, making the show another in the 1970s-era super-genre of shows designed to have rotating All-Star Casts every week. Fantasy Island and The Love Boat meet…Silver Streak? I dunno, but this concept for a show seems gonzo enough to have really appealed to me as a post-Star Wars kid.

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2 Comments

  1. Regarding Supertrain, I vaguely remember this show… I remember the train, at least, which struck me (then and now) as a really cool piece of design. In that behind-the-scenes photo of the wreck, I think the dude you mention is none other than John Dykstra of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica fame. I might have to research that. 😀

    As for The Last Jedi… meh. The title's been used at least once before that I know of, in an issue of the original Marvel Comics series, and I'm fairly certain there was an EU novel by that name too… maybe one of the YA books? I don't know – don't have time to google right now. But it strikes me as pretty unimaginative and uninspired/uninspiring. It may be absolutely perfect for the story, though; we'll see.

    And of course the speculation has already begun about what exactly it means… WHO is the last Jedi? Luke? Rey? Both? (Is it plural or singular?)

    My own thought is that it would've been a perfect reference to Leia, especially if Luke gets whacked in this story… but of course Carrie Fisher's passing would make that development… problematic.

  2. Supertrain, and Pink Lady and Jeff epitomized how bad the lineup of NBC was in that time period. They stayed with really low-rated shows such as Cheers (which had ratings in the basement) because they had little, Diffent Strokes, CHiPS, Facts of life, Real People, A-Team. Then Cosby, Family Ties, Golden Girls change the dynamic

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