The Fan Awakens: Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens Untainted by Advance Publicity

When I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens on December 16th, 2015 I was perfectly oblivious to any advance publicity. It had all started in late October 2012, when news broke that Walt Disney Studios had taken over Lucasfilm and its many assets. Kathleen Kennedy was appointed chief officer of the once Lucas-helmed enterprise and quickly proceeded to start pre-production of the seventh Star Wars installment (whilst prepping the spin-off film Rogue One in secret) . This course of surprising events made me abandon, unfollow and ignore dozens of film-related websites and social media accounts. Old habits were instantly dropped and I started distancing myself inevitably from one of my favourite hobbies, the film industry. It is therefore that I had not seen a single second, millimeter or anything of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens, whose midnight premiere I attended on said December 16th, 2015. I went in totally blank, here is how I received a film whose marketing machinery I had ignored with monkish patience.

A fan awakens as Andreas Wanda recounts how he experienced Episode VII after a 2 1/2 year-long media sabbatical.
A fan awakens as Andreas Wanda recounts how he experienced Episode VII after a 2 1/2 year-long media sabbatical. (C) Walt Disney, Lucasfilm

Continue reading “The Fan Awakens: Review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens Untainted by Advance Publicity”

Make yourself a very Speccy Christmas with Santa Sam Dyer’s ZX Spectrum – A visual compendium

Illuminated in a mesmerising green hue of ethereal beauty and presence, a home computer of old comes to life, leaps off a page in Sam Dyer’s latest masterpiece in the exceedingly rewarding “Visual Compendium“-series. Opening the impressive volume emulates perfectly that moment a computer is switched on, with every page impersonating the starkly coloured screen display of the titular ZX Spectrum. Sam Dyer’s “ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium” is a special experience of layered significance.

Layers of history, experience, enjoyment, insight and colour are in story for the readers of Bomb Jack and Paperboy in Sam Dyer's ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium from Bitmap Books, available at www.funstock.co.uk. Photo by Andreas Wanda.
Layers of history, experience, enjoyment, insight and colour are in story for the readers of Bomb Jack and Paperboy in Sam Dyer’s ZX Spectrum: A Visual Compendium from Bitmap Books, available at www.funstock.co.uk. Photo by Andreas Wanda.

Continue reading “Make yourself a very Speccy Christmas with Santa Sam Dyer’s ZX Spectrum – A visual compendium”