We’ve already covered a bunch of Empire Strikes Back anniversary stuff, but today is the actual day. Here’s more stuff to check out:
The sequel begins. Leigh Brackett’s first draft of the film surfaced on the internet last week, giving us an intriguing glimpse into the could-have-beens, including a “tender love scene” between Luke and Leia, Lando being a clone, and Darth Vader’s pet gargoyles. (If you just want the highlights, Geeks of Doom has a nice rundown.)
Visuals. Lucasfilm gave Maxim magazine some rare photos, and to save us classy broads from buying Maxim (err, sorry guys) they’re also on StarWars.com.
Disturbance. They also have a look back at the Emperor’s first appearance – including some seriously whacked-out concept art. Baron Harkonnen is totally jealous.
In other news…
- Sci Fi Wire’s Periodic Table of The Empire Strikes Back.
- The Beat calls Empire “the movie that made being a nerd cool.”
- Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera: ESB is “one of the best science fiction films ever made.”
- LA Weekly was also on hand at Wednesday’s Empire screening, chatting up stars on the red carpet; KABC-TV nabbed video of Harrison Ford and Ewan McGregor, while the Los Angeles Times has Ford.
- It’s “Empire Strikes Back Night” at tonight’s Dodgers game.
- io9’s Marc Bernardin pegs ESB as the film that “introduced an entire generation of moviegoers to the notion of tragedy.”
- Empire is (shocker!) Underwire’s choice as the finest in the trilogy. They’re also giving away one of those new Hasbro At-ATs and counting down 30 reasons Empire still rules.
- There’s another iPhone app coming for me to suck at. ‘The Battle for Hoth’ should show up in the App Store soon – it isn’t there as I type this, but I did find a Christian heavy metal song. (If you’re dying for details, TFN published the press release.)
- Hoth is coming to The Old Republic.
See any more unique tributes to ESB today? Post them in the comments or tell me on Twitter (@clubjade) and I’ll get them in.
