Dark Times 11 – 1996 – Part 5

John Williams summoned the heroes at the Centennial Olympic Games, but a nerf-herder, her worshipfulness and a kid almost finding himself floating home equally prepared for victory: Star Wars continues its return to pop culture in 1996.

Star Wars was an intricate anomaly. Despite its close ties to 70ies zeitgeist it had superseded the regular status of a classic. Every generation that chanced upon George Lucas’ space opera felt instantly attracted to this peculiar property that grew independently of time and the concomitant limited fads.

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Dark Times 10 – 1995 – Part 2

As 1995 dawdles on, Sandra Bullock finds the WWW to be a veritable death trap, while mutant Kevin Costner gets ’em with his trusty catamaran. Yet what in the name of Yoda is Vader doing on gargantuan billboards?

Ten years after the beginning of the Dark Times, Lucasfilm had long since vacated its shadows to bathe in the beautifully self-orchestrated market of 1995. On the one hand, there was keen and global interest to immerse oneself in every way imaginable in the world of the original saga. On the other, fantastic ramblings of a new set of Star Wars films pervaded the media – young Obi-Wan was then rumoured to be “created” by mapping the face of young Alec Guinness over an unknown actor according to British Sky One teletext – so that fandom and industry pundits alike were eager to be continuously filled in on the progress made over at the Ranch. Lucasfilm would now stalwartly address the needs of the people and the market they constituted.
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