35 Years of Return of the Jedi: Another Memoir by Uncle Jay

By Jason “Uncle Jay” Cicalese

"Return of the Jedi,” the third film in George Lucas’ original “Star Wars” trilogy, is celebrating its 35^th birthday today. It was ‘the’ film that every “Star Wars” fan was waiting for. “The Empire Strikes Back” truly left us kids hangin’: Vader confessing he’s Luke’s Poppa; Han Solo getting frozen in carbonite; and just who is “The Other” that Yoda is speaking of? And all of this is topped with the fact that the rebels get their asses handed to them, big time. As stated in my memoir of “Empire,” to a 7-year old, this is a pretty harsh cliffhanger, especially when you’re told that you won’t know the answers till you’re 10!!

As most know, “Star Wars” meant the world to me back then. I slept, ate and drank the 'Wars'. I had just about every action figure, playset and vehicle; I’d dress up like Darth Vader and jump off the kitchen table and beat the hell out of my cousins; you get the point. However, by the time 1983 rolled around, sure I was still a kid, but growing up in Newark, you tend to perhaps grow up a tad bit faster…in the form of a wise-ass…and I got ballsy at 9½ years of age. 

May 24, 1983. Tuesday. 7:30pm. Tomorrow was the big day! The day I’ve waited three extra long hard years for! “Star Wars III” (as many referred to it back then) was finally upon us, and I had a top-secret plan! I called my friends Blondie (who was 11), and Jose (who was 10) and told them my bright idea. They thought it was genius and they were all for it. You see, my mother promised she would take me, and my two cousins to see “Jedi” that following Saturday, the matinee showing. The 25^th was a Wednesday, school was still in session, my mom worked and wasn’t fond on going to the movies on weeknights, so there was no way I could see the movie before then. But there was NO WAY I could wait three more fuckin’ days! I needed to see that movie tomorrow somehow. It didn't help that there weren't any movie theaters in the Ironbound at the time. My big plan: to play hooky from school and, trek out see the movie.

May 25, 1983…a beautiful warm and sunny Wednesday. I got up at 6:30am like I always did, took a shower, got dressed. My Mom left for work at 7:30am, and I would usually leave at 8am and walk to school. But 8am came and went that morning, I was still home. The newspaper was on the table as usual; I found the movie ad for "Jedi" and underneath was the showtimes. As luck would have it, it was playing in the next town over, a 45-minute walk (for a kid, it felt like double that). I called Jose and he came over at 8:30am, Blondie (who always ran late) came at 9am. The three of us stayed off the main streets, to avoid the “hooky bus,” and took the side streets to the Jackson Street Bridge, the entryway to Harrison, NJ…over the bridge, down Frank E. Rodgers Boulevard, till we hit the Warner Theatre. There weren’t many people waiting in line when we got there, maybe six or seven. But when we got on line, we noticed that more and more people, with kids mind you) were appearing. We each paid our $2.50 (those were the days, right?) to the 11:45am show and bammm…we were in. We ran through that lobby, like William Wallace charging the British. We got the best seats in the house. We even yelled at the adults who tried to sit in front of us! Hey, we were little, no way were we gonna have a huge melon and quaff-doo where a Star Destroyer is supposed to be. Thankfully, four other kids around our age sat in front of us. We spoke to them briefly; they were kids from Kearny, NJ with an adult chaperone. I remember distinctively that one was a girl named Stephanie, she was real cute and the three of us were trying to win her over (we were early starters, haha).

The lights dimmed, we all clapped, and the coming attractions came on. I remember the trailers being “WarGames,” “Krull,” and “Octopussy”…and then the 20^th Century Fox Fanfare kicked in…I remember Jose, who sat next to me on the right shaking me in excitement…”Can you believe it?!”

 And we sat back and watched, “Return of the Jedi.”

Predictably, we loved every second of it (except for Boba Fett’s demise, even for a kid, that was weak). After hearing about these characters over a span of two films, we finally got to see Jabba the Hutt and The Emperor (the cameo in “Empire” doesn’t really count). We watched Han Solo get defrosted; Yoda confirming Vader as Pops; Obi-Wan using a fucked up point of view to explain things; Luke and Leia are twins (so it’s ok to kiss your sister?); Vader has good in him; primitive warrior Teddy Bears takin' out the Empire; and Admiral Ackbar confirms that he’s the baddest muthafuckin’ Rebel in the universe!

These days, "Jedi" gets criticized as being the weakest of the original trilogy. That there were too many muppet-type creatures and teddy bears, and that Lucas truly played it safe at the end. None of the major heroes die (except for Yoda, who dies of old age), and everything is solved cut and dry. For the most part, "Jedi" is indeed the weakest of the original three, but it's still a great movie and a remarkable sci-fi adventure. In defense against what most fans complain about, I always thought the Jabba scene was intriguing...you're really in this lowlife underworld with all these weird and undesirable characters, with very extreme voyeur tastes in death (watching and cheering people getting eaten alive). A little creepy if you think about it. As far as the Ewoks are concerned, many called that a huge marketing maneuver to sell toys. I think that a primitive warrior tribe, taking on the hi-tech Empire was kind of cool...in an odd-way, it's old school versus the new. So what if they're cute and cuddly? I’ll take Ewoks over Gungans any fuckin’ day! The overall story is solid, it never loses its structure and the special effects, sets and creatures still hold up to this day. "Return of the Jedi" is still awesome!! 

My con-artist skills were pretty damn advanced for a kid shy of 10, but the fact that this was “Star Wars”...I truly had no problems acting excited all over again for my mother when she took me to the Saturday matinee three days later, because I really was excited to see it again.

In closing, I have to say, I look at a 10-year old now, and I say to myself, “what the fuck was I thinking,” anything could have happened. But it didn’t, we three little peckerheads pulled it off. I lucked out really. Truancy officers never came to my house, and my teacher never questioned my “sickness plea” the next day. This was a different time, you got away with a lot back then. Jose did indeed get busted by his parents for this stunt. He went to a Catholic school where they were a bit more strict, and they called his house. Since he was Portuguese, his Dad beat the hell out of him. Jose simply told me, “It was worth it.” This is the same guy that went to juvenile hall six years later for stealing a car.
 

Anyway, this is a cherished memory of mine and that’s what I was doing exactly 35 years ago today!

May the Force be with you!!

"Uncle Jay"

The Empire Strikes Back: A Memoir by Uncle Jay

By Uncle Jay Cicalese

UPDATE: Uncle Jay has a video that compliments this piece, you can find it at the bottom.

If you know me, we've probably had a few discussions on movies (or how to beat a murder rap) at one point. When I often get asked what my favorite movie is, it’s not a simple answer. Martin Scorsese is my favorite filmmaker of all time and "Mean Streets", "Taxi Driver", "Raging Bull" and "GoodFellas" always battle it out for the top slot of what I think to be the greatest film I’ve ever seen, depending on how I feel that day. But there is a 5th film in that mix…


…and that is “The Empire Strikes Back.”


The sequel to “Star Wars” was one of the most anticipated sequels in film lore. When George Lucas’ space opera took Hollywood and film-goers by storm in the summer of 1977, the sequel was automatically green lit, and expectations were high. Three years later…not only were expectations met, “The Empire Strikes Back” managed to exceed the first installment’s value as a film itself and takes a seat among the best science-fiction films of all time. With a different director, additional writers, over double the budget and a slew of cool new characters…not to mention, darker in tone, wondrous concepts, Billy Dee fuckin’ Williams and a ballsy cliffhanger ending, ”Empire” was indeed a sequel to be reckoned with. We even got a little incest with our “Star Wars” this time…crazy!

I was 6 ½ years old when “Empire” was released on Wednesday, May 21st 1980 and I remember it vividly. I was a “Star Wars” junkie! Had all the toys, the sleeping bag, toothbrush, comics, cockring, you name it. I was heavily excited, probably the most excited I had ever been in my short time on Earth.


My mother decided to take me, and my two cousins. She piled us into her old Country Squire station wagon that following Saturday, the 24th to catch the 12:30pm show at the now long long gone Menlo Park Cinema in Edison, NJ…only we never made it. A flat tire pissed on my parade. While cruisin’ down Route 1&9 South right near the Newark Airport, BOOM! And not just flat, shredded! So, we headed back toward the Ironbound (the section of Newark I grew up in) and pulled into a diner/truck stop called “The Ramp” on the corner of Stockton and Delancey (yes, fellow Newarkians this place is now that ghetto shithole 118 Lounge). My cousins and I thought that the day was a bust…that is until my mother said the words “We’ll just have to go to a later show.” My cousins and I looked at her as if she was an Egyptian Goddess, because had anyone else had taken us, namely my old-school Grandfather who did things on Italian time (early or not at all), the day indeed would have been bust. Hippie artist parents are awesome!!

It took a couple of hours: remember this was 1980, a Saturday, no spare, no jack, my mother and three kids 12 and under! As I recall, one of the truckers there, his name was “Jack” of all names, helped us out. He drove out to one (of the many) junkyards in Newark and snagged a tire for us and put it on, no charge. To think that this kind of hospitality happened in Newark, on the site of the 118 Lounge no less.

And once again, off we went.


At this point it was about 3pm and we had missed the next showing. 5pm was the next show. So to kill time, we went to the Menlo Park Mall…hold on now…this was not the Menlo Park Mall you might know today…this was the 1980 Menlo Park Mall…it was dark, dingy and a whole lot smaller. The cinema was off of Route 1, and not part of the mall like it is now and has been for the last 20 years.  To make me even more nervous about time, as luck would have it, a survey team for a toy company approached us in the mall asking about a line of action figures that they were thinking of putting out. Of course we agreed, as long as we were out on time. They escorted us to a conference room in the back hallways of the mall into a screening room and showed us a video they put together showcasing the toys. The figures were military based…rescue team/espionage type fare (think Dutch’s rescue team in “Predator” and Aldo Raine’s “Basterds” rolled into a Hasbro line). I thought they were awesome…lots of knives and rifles! But, man oh fuckin’ man, was I watchin’ that clock.


We get to the theater and there’s already a fairly decent line formed (I’m estimating this is around 4:15pm, because we were on line for a half hour or so). Distinctively, I remember standing on line laughing hysterically with my cousin because in front of us was the theater marquee sign clear as day…the other film that was showing was Bob Fosse’s “All That Jazz”, however someone or something removed the ‘J’, so the sign read “ALL THAT AZZ”…hahaha!! Priceless! I recently stumbled across of photo of this that someone actually took from that day or that week…I’m so glad that someone with the same sense of humor captured that at least.


And then it was time…


The Menlo Park Cinema was a big theater with a balcony. It was “twinned” sometime in the early 70’s but was still huge even after the change. I remember sitting there with my Nik-L-Nip Wax Bottle syrup candy anticipating the further adventures of Luke, Han and Leia. I don’t recall what trailer(s) preceded the film, back then you only got about 1 or 2 trailers…not the 8 to 10 trailers you fuckin’ get today, which basically amounts to a feature in itself.


In a nutshell, the film’s title is straight to the point, the Empire does strike back with a vengeance, as Darth Vader is one reckless mofo in this one. “Empire” follows the events of “Star Wars” three years later. The Rebel Alliance is hiding out on the ice planet of Hoth. The Empire of course locates them there and an awesome battle ensues in which the Rebels get their asses handed to them with the aid of Imperial AT-ATs. Luke, under the ghostly influence of his deceased mentor Obi-Wan Kenobi, decides to seek out Yoda, the last remaining Jedi Master to engage in training to become a Jedi Knight. Han, Leia, Chewie and C-3PO spend a good portion of the movie running from the Empire, dodging Star Destroyers, TIE Fighters, Asteroids, Myknocks, Bounty Hunters and Space Slugs! They decide to take refuge at a resort/mining operation Cloud City, which is run by Han’s old scoundrel buddy, Lando (Billy Dee Williams in full intergalactic pimp mode and threads). Luke fails his training, C-3PO is blown apart, Lando is forced to betray Han and Leia, Han gets frozen in Carbonite and taken away for bounty by Boba Fett, Vader kicks the living shit out of Luke…chops his hand off then confesses that he’s Luke’s Papa, and the film generally leaves you on a down note with a crap-load of unanswered questions. To a 7-year old, that’s some deep shit to mull over…especially when you won’t know the answers till your 10!!


And yes, I made my mother, or whichever adult guardian I could find, take me over and over again! Even during the re-releases in '81 and '82.


“The Empire Strikes Back” is indeed, hands down, the best of all the “Star Wars” films. It’s edgy, sharp, imaginative and well structured. It’s a sequel that takes the magic of the preceding film and dares to take it somewhere different entirely…and still keep that same magic. The sets, the characters, the writing, the direction…all in top form. Yes, I got caught up in the "Boba Fett is Awesome" bandwagon, but at least I can say that I was on the bandwagon since day one. He's still a cool fuckin' character.


I can’t believe that “Empire” is 40 years old. Being a kid at that time was the best, venturing into the 1980’s which would generally be my coming of age decade. I can remember the music on the radio, the current events, my Atari 2600, my family and friends, some gone some still around…none forgotten. It was a time in my life when I was very happy, and when I personally think of “Star Wars”, I think back to these times: the shenanigans, the hijinks, the simple fun, the trouble I got into …which just enhances my love for those movies.



A couple of months after this glorious Saturday in May, in the midst of summer 1980, I would meet one of my closest childhood friends, Paul. I was in my living room, and I overheard some kids talking about "Star Wars" outside. I lookout the window and there's a kid, a little older than me, talking to some of the other kids on the block that I already knew. I ran out there and we immediately bonded as friends, over "Star Wars"...he would be a close friend pretty much through most of the '80s until he moved away, since which I haven't seen him since. A few months ago, he found me on Facebook...one of the many cool factors of that social network. And, yes, one of the first things we spoke about was Star Wars.

Anywho, Happy 37th Birthday to one of the greatest movies ever made. 


Review: Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens

  By Brother Bob

Note: This review is free of the Larger Spoilers - but does cover some other specific story points, reveals and events. Read at your own risk.

     Disney bought STAR WARS from George Lucas for 4 billion dollars - give or take a few hundred million. Disney took on the task of making a movie that would fit in the universe while avoiding the errors of the past (cough *Jar Jar* cough.) Disney had to make a movie that would appease a rabidly loyal, world-spanning fan base or their investment would go down the drain. To ensure they recoup their $$$ as fast as possible, Disney had to do this while making a movie that would lead them down a path which would allow those at the helm breathing room to be creative with the material in the future and not feel constrained by the universe they work in. In a nutshell, Disney had to make a movie that was both safe and good or potentially damage their image as relatively consistent purveyors of quality family entertainment. 

"Dude, nobody found our stash!"

    That is exactly what they delivered.

     It is clear to me that JJ Abrams, who did an excellent job, looked to the original trilogy for inspiration, liberally taking cues from them when needed. As a result, STAR WARS VII feels both familiar and new from beginning to end. 

The story both ties the original characters to the next movie or 2 either thru physical presence or by bloodline, and creates what seems to be a familiar a path to the future with new cast members. 

"All these laser swords are making it hot in here..."

    The movie is not without its flaws, however.

     The original trilogy cast members are looking their age and in an action movie, that is not a good thing. Han Solo moves around like he forgot to apply the Ben-Gay before the shoot sometimes and Leia sounds old and tired at times, as well as looking like the make up person applied her foundation with a trowel to hide wrinkles. Kylo Ren seems like a huge wuss. This is probably for character development. I believe in the next film he'll become more evil due to events in this film but him being a bit of a weakling here, did take away from my enjoyment a little. Also, this film opens similarly to Episode 4: A New Hope, so when I saw him for the first time I was expecting to see those in scene fear him the way Darth Vader was feared. New cast members Finn, Rey, Poe, and BB-8 are all solid, reasonably well developed for this point in the story line and bode well for the future. By movies end you’ll know who’s role each is replacing from the original cast and you'll be looking forward to seeing more of them.

"We're NOT clones? I could have worn something different?!?"

   Let's talk about other changes made. The “evil empire” (used here as a general term) has been reborn in a new form and the way storm troopers are created is quite different. Assuming these weren’t George Lucas’ original ideas, both change the universe in ways that are potentially significant... and both of these bother me for different reasons. The storm trooper change wasn’t needed in my opinion and ultimately reduces Boba & Jango Fett into story extras. I tend to think the change of the “evil empire” would/should lead to different looking ships - but we get the same tie fighters and battle cruisers. 

"Without you BB, we'll never win the volleyball championship."

    Another area of contention is the mechanic of using a new “death star.” There are differences of course but the use of this plot mechanism for a 3rd time in the series deflates this movie. There are other little issues with this movie as well, mostly concerning science, communication logistics, etc some of which would not be noticed by the average viewer since we are usually too busy enjoying the ride.

     The bottom line is that this is the STAR WARS movie Disney had to make. It’s flawed, yet it’s fun, it tells a story that is both familiar and new. People will either love it or hate it because of this, but it will lead us into the future of this franchise. It’s because of this, I choose to look at it as a good film and an overall positive experience which I believe will take us on another great ride. 

"OK, I get it! You guys are better at cammoflage! Gaahh! Leaving!"

As someone who tends to be a picky movie viewer, I went into this one only looking to enjoy the ride and after seeing it I think you should too, but because there is so much in it that can be contentious to some, if you go in looking for that stuff, it will be enough to potentially have you feeling like disney screwed up. 

Enjoy it for the good (and there is plenty) and you will leave hopeful for the future of the franchise which is what this movie set out to do. Pick apart the next one. Be sure to see this one at least once on the big screen. 

MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU!

WTPC Edisode 17 - Fear The Walking Deadpool

King Of Email, Ed O'Hare jumps out from the mailbox to hang out with us! "Edisode", get it?

It's a jam-packed episode: Ed describes good e-mail! Then he reads some: Crime Stories, Comfortable Hotel Beds and a Must-Hear closer! Then we give him a geek quiz and he wins a prize!

Next up is news: Hannibal, Star Wars, Diggle has a new look. and the regime shift at Marvel!

We finally open up that two-week old Loot Crate, we dissect Fear The Walking Dead and finally we start a game that you can play with your friends called …Fear The Walking Deadpool?

FRESH POP - 1/24/13

Welcome back to our daily rundown of Pop News web links. We scoured the internet just to find pop culture related info that you might have missed while you were busy living life. From the geeky to the cheeky, from insane to mundane, foolish to cool-ish, we're serving it up fresh, just for you...

Today: JJ doing STAR WARS, See Ashton's Jobs, Rob Liefield wants Kirk, Goodbye G4, Inigo Montoya Flies, Justice League of Unsureness, Leprechaun WWE Style, The Office Camera, Darth Maul goes to Jail and More!

FRESH POP - 1/21/13

Welcome to the very first edition of FRESH POP - a daily run down of pop culture and geek-ish newsy tidbits all poured into one easily digestible serving. From Movies, TV, Comics and other such forms of "mindless" entertainment (plus some random coolness), we're going to bring you the latest pop news worth knowing Monday through Friday, so let's get down to buisiness shall we?