Paying 20th Century Fox a 21st Century visit – in a Square, far, far, away!

There’s no sitting on the fence with this. It’s a bit like Marmite, you either love it or hate it!

Star Wars…there, it’s out there. So where do you sit – if you’re prepared to answer the question?

But, whichever camp you have a foot in, why does it always feel like Mr Lucas (not Matt!) is trying to tickle his Storm Troopers into coughing up more money for new games, new toys, new comics - you name it.

Well, this September is the biggest event of all the very many huge Star Wars events. The complete series of numerically challenged films (4,5,6,1,2,3) is released in glorious, expensively re-mastered, sumptuously high-definition Blu-Ray. (You can feel the queues forming as we speak!). Well no, it was even bigger than that.

20th Century Fox, the Star Wars studio, announced a very limited, one-in-a-lifetime screening of one of the films in their private Soho Square screening room. 30-40 lucky, handpicked guests. A one and only event for the UK and no obvious way to get onto the guest list – unless, of course, you’re ‘street enough’ to know about HMV’s ‘Cool stuff money can’t buy’ programme.

Enter Steve Barnes, Idealogy’s resident movie-production expert (he spare-times with a local film production company) saw the deal, got 2 tickets and ‘Bob’s yer Mother’s Brother’ a Star Wars man-date was in motion.

Now, if Steve is a movie-lover (which is a strong claim as he hardly ever goes to visit the Big Screen), Dave Birch is a movie-monster and a bona-fide Star Wars addict (just recently, a fully functioning Light Sabre arrived at Idealogy’s Portland Street office. Do we need to add any more?) So, our very own C3PO and R2D2 (make up your own mind) sallied forth to London Town on 9th September and sat, goggle-eyed and emotional through the unique screening of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, the second in the, let’s be quite honest, genre-defining series.

The problem is we can’t really get to the bottom of what happened. Start to talk to them about it and they become a little quiet and distracted. They’re happy to talk about quality, and “you can see where they spent the money”, but it’s as if the specialness will dissipate if they provide too much detail. So, their secret is safe with us, and maybe that’s right. To the aficionado’s, a day like that places you fairly high up the Star Wars social kudos ladder.

Now, all we can do is join the queue for the Boxed Set. And that’s exactly where George Lucas wants us.

Obi John Mikel – up the Blues

Posted by Idealogy