Rental Recommendations: Star Wars (1995 VHS)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing well. For some reason I said that today's Rental Recommendation was going to be Can't Hardly Wait, even though that was last week's post. So, instead I'm going to talk about the 1995 VHS release of Star Wars. POV: It's 1995 and the Star Wars Trilogy has just come out on VHS one last time.

Star Wars is back on video. According to George Lucas and the people at Lucasfilm, this is the last time the original version of this movie will be available on home video as the movie's special edition is purported to be the "ultimate" version of the movie. So this is your last chance to rent this classic before the new version of the movie comes out in theaters in 1997. 

You all know Star Wars, so I don't need to tell you about it. However, what makes this videocassette special is there is a special interview with George Lucas at the beginning of the tape. Conducted by Entertainment Tonight's film critic, Leonard Maltin, George Lucas spends the interview talking about the genesis of the movie's production, as well as the formation of Industrial Light & Magic, and how the effects people created the spaceship battle at the end of the movie. He also revealed how he ended up casting Harrison Ford as Han Solo. 

The movie is spectacular of course. It has held up very well over the years even though the effects were done 19 years ago. So, if you haven't had a chance to see Star Wars yet or you've been waiting to show it to your kids, this is the perfect opportunity to do so.

Of course, in reality, I was 9 years old when my dad got this Star Wars VHS for Christmas in a boxset with The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. This was how I saw the movies for the first time. So this tape comes highly recommended if you can track it down.

That's it for me for this week. I'll be back next week with more awesome nostalgic blog posts from the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. Until then have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Peace out!

Chris Isaak's Second Album is Great!

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm pretty great. Last night I appeared on The VHS Club Podcast to talk about Spaceballs with Katie and Nat and we probably spent more than half the episode just saying quotes from the movie. Today I'm going to be talking about an album I originally first heard on cassette many many years ago. The album is from 1987, so we're going back there. The POV for this post is just someone who listened to the album on cassette in 1987. Let's get into it.

Two years ago, Chris Isaak released an album called Silvertone, but it hasn't sold well. But, I think his new, self-titled, album is really good. It starts off with "You Owe Me Some Kind of Love" and ends with "Waiting for the Rain to Fall". Isaak has his full band on this album and it sounds good. He's also honed his musical style in the last two years.

"You Owe Me Some Kind of Love" is the quintessential rock song, complete with a guitar solo. It's also my favourite song on the album. Being on cassette, side 1 ends with "Fade Away" and side 2 starts with "Wild Love". I do think side 2 has the weaker songs on the album, but those five songs on that first side are amazing. I love it.

I recommend picking this album up. It's available on cassette, compact disc, and vinyl record at all record stores. It should be easy to pick up. Especially if you like rock music.

So back here in 2026, Chris Isaak is the first album I remember hearing when I was a kid in 1990. My dad owned it on cassette and I remember sitting in the kitchen of the townhouse my parents were renting at the time, while he played it on the boombox he had on the counter. I told this story over on Josh's Geek Cave, but he eventually got the album on CD and I ripped it to my computer as soon as I had the opportunity.

Lately however, I found a way to listen to these albums from the '80s as if I was listening to them on cassette. I looked up what songs were on each side of the cassette version of the albums and made two playlists on my iPod, one for each "side" of the "cassette". I listened to Chris Isaak  that way while sitting outside this afternoon, before I sat down to write this blog post. And it was still fun.

As I mentioned in the 1987 portion of this discussion, the album opens with "You Owe Me Some Kind of Love" and that song, along with the other four songs on side 1 of the cassette are probably the songs I remember most from this album when it comes to memories of sitting in the kitchen, listening to the cassette with my dad. 

Alright, that's it for me for today. Tomorrow morning, we're heading to 1998 to talk about Can't Hardly Wait on Rental Recommendations. Until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Peace out! 

Star Wars: The Greatest Space Fantasy Film of All!

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I'm here to do a review of Star Wars from 1977. I know, I've reviewed it several times on my other blogs, but, this one fits into my theme for this blog discussing the past through the past. Because Star Wars came out in 1977, the POV for this review is going to be someone writing a review for it after seeing it in 1977, so a little further back in time than I would normally go, but worth it. Let's get into it.

Star Wars is the first movie in a very long time that I've wanted to get back in line and watch again as soon as the credits rolled at the end. It's just that good. Cinema these days have been very dark and cynical. A testament to the times we live in right now. Even Jaws, which is great on a technical level, is scary. Star Wars harkens back to the days of the science fiction serials and adventure films of the 1930s and early 1940s. The era of swash-buckling heroes and villains who were you knew were villains. And I loved it.

Unlike Mr. Lucas, I didn't grow up watching Flash Gordon on TV. Instead, I watched Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves, as well as Star Trek and Batman in the late '60s. Yet, I understand Mr. Lucas's fascination with these classic films through watching and enjoying Star Wars. I guess Storytelling never changes. 

I was 18 when I sat down to watch American Graffiti in theaters four years ago and related to the teenagers in that movie. Mr. Lucas recaptured the spirit of that movie in Star Wars. Luke Skywalker does not start out as a hero. In fact, when we meet him at the beginning of the movie, he's a whiny farmboy, itching to get off the farm and explore the big city, similar to Ron Howard's character in American Graffiti. But, it's fascinating to see how George Lucas captured the same feeling in both movies. Mark Hamill plays him incredibly well.

As soon as Darth Vader walked on screen, I knew he was menacing. He didn't even have to talk to convey that feeling. I can see him being the scariest part of the movie for some kids who see this movie. But that's how villains should be. Scary. And mysterious. The only thing we know about Vader is that he was once Ben Kenobi's apprentice, but betrayed the Jedi Knights, wiping them out and murdering Luke's father, Anakin.

Princess Leia is amazing. She's sharp, willful, and a strong personality. Carrie Fisher is the only woman in this cast, but she's such a strong presence that she carries the film on her shoulders. Particularly when Luke and Han Solo screw up rescuing her and she ends up leading them out of the detention block. Sure they end up in the garbage masher, but they escaped. 

Han Solo, played by Bob Falfa himself, Harrison Ford, and his partner Chewbacca the Wookiee are in debt to a gangster named Jabba the Hutt. We only know this though because Solo was confronted by one of Jabba's goons, named Greedo, and Solo killed him in cold blood. So throughout the movie, we don't quite know what side Solo is on, except that he hates the Empire, but also isn't too thrilled about the Rebel Alliance either. He does come around in the end though.

Star Wars is THE movie to see this summer if you haven't seen it already. There's no other movie like it. At least, not since The Wizard of Oz came out back in 1939. So go see it.

That's it for this review. Of course, here in 2026, I've seen A New Hope numerous times on VHS, DVD, and Disney+, but I'm planning on going to see the movie in theaters when Lucasfilm re-releases it theatrically for the 50th anniversary next year. 

Alright my friends, that's it for me for today. I'm going to be appearing on the VHS Club Podcast tomorrow night to talk about Spaceballs with Katie and Nat so that'll be fun. I'll be back here for another Rental Recommendation on Saturday, so stay tuned for that. Until then, peace out!

Star Trek: The Next Generation: After Seven Years All Good Things Come to an End

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing well for a Sunday morning here in 2026. Today we're going back to 1994 to talk about the series finale of a show that defied all expectations of a spin-off from a '60s Sci-Fi show, Star Trek: The Next Generation. The POV for this post is someone who just watched "All Good Things..." the night before and is now writing about it on the early internet message boards. Let's get into it.

Seven years ago Captain Picard and the new crew of the USS Enterprise were put on trial by the entity known as Q for the crimes that Humanity had committed over the centuries. However, they were also placed on trial by Star Trek fans, or Trekkers as they are sometimes referred to. To them Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov were sacred that could and should never be replaced. They were skeptical of this new show, without their favourite characters and ship in it. Yet, despite the show's rough first season, it soared, overtaking its parent series by 99 episodes and four seasons in terms of the number of stories.

As a Trekker myself, I too was skeptical when it was announced that Star Trek was returning to television, but without the familiar cast and setting. Set 100 years after the time of Kirk and Spock? A older captain? A Klingon on the bridge as a regular character? It was crazy. Yet, I had faith in Gene Roddenberry, and if he said that this is what the show would be, then it was fine with me.

"All Good Things..." does an incredible job at bookending the show with the story established in "Encounter at Farpoint" back in 1987. The writers of the episode, Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore, weren't even working on the show when "Farpoint" aired. Yet, they crafted an episode that feels like Picard, Riker, Data, Geordi, Worf, Beverly, and Deanna have come full circle. Which gives me great hope for the upcoming movie, Star Trek Generations as they also wrote the movie according to what I've seen in various news articles. 

It was wonderful to see Denise Crosby and Colm Meaney back as Tasha Yar and Miles O'Brien, even though O'Brien seems to be doing very well over on Deep Space Nine. I thought the cast did a wonderful job playing three different versions of themselves. Particularly Patrick Stewart as Picard, as he carries the weight of the episode on him.

This was a great end to a fantastic show. While season 7 has been all over the place in terms of quality, it still had some very solid episodes, despite the production crew also working on DS9, the upcoming movie, and the fourth show in the franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, which I believe is set to debut in early 1995, similar to how they premiered Deep Space Nine last year. 

Here in 2026 I watched "All Good Things..." on VHS to commemorate the 32nd anniversary of the episode's premiere. But back in 1994, I was 7 years old and we lived in an old log farmhouse, where we didn't have cable. May 23rd, 1994 was a Monday, so we didn't actually watch it until the Saturday after the episode aired. My grandparents taped the episode off of TV for us and didn't get the tape to us until that weekend. I do remember all five of us, sitting upstairs in the play area that my siblings and I had, watching the episode together, as we would later do with the series premiere of Voyager in January, 1995.

Alright my friends, that's all for me for today. Don't forget, here at My Nostalgia Blog it's always the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. So, whenever you need an escape from the real world, come down here and hang out for a while. Until next time, have a great rest of the day and I will talk to you all later. Peace out!

Rental Recommendations: Can't Hardly Wait

 Hey everyone! Welcome back to Rental Recommendations. This week I'm talking about a classic teen comedy called Can't Hardly Wait, which stars Ethan Embry, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lauren Ambrose, Seth Green, and Peter Facinelli, among many others. The POV for this week's installment is someone writing a review of the movie on home video as soon as it came out in November of 1998. Let's get into it.

If you're a teenager, you're going to love this movie. If you're a teenager at heart, you're going to love this movie. I missed it in theaters, but I watched it last night on home video and it surprised me. I remember seeing mixed reviews for it when it was in theaters earlier this year with Ebert giving it 1.5 stars out of 4. If you recall, Ethan Embry stole the show in Empire Records a few years ago, and while he's been in a few movies since then, I think this is his best performance. Of course Seth Green just came off his sort of successful performance in Austin Powers. The best performance in this movie is Jennifer Love Hewitt. She brings a authenticity to the role of Amanda Beckett. Everyone's favourite teenage witch, Melissa Joan Hart, has a background role as Vicki, who can't get anyone to sign her yearbook.

The movie is available on both VHS and DVD. I recommend giving it a watch. Especially if you're fond of teen movies from the past like American Graffiti, which also takes place over the course of one night. It's fun, not too slow, but also reminds me of people who peaked in high school and had delusions of what college would be like, probably from watching Animal House or Revenge of the Nerds too many times. Definitely check it out.

Here in 2026, I watched the movie on DVD and I'd never seen it before. Katie and Doc reviewed it on the VHS Club Podcast when the show was first starting out (Nat wasn't on the episode for some reason). I thought they undersold it because I actually enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would based on their review. Of course, with the exception of one or two people, I recognized the entire cast having seen them in a number of things, though this was my first time seeing Jennifer Love Hewitt in anything. It's actually interesting that Melissa Joan Hart was able to be in this movie considering filming started while she was filming episodes of season 2 of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

That's it for me for today folks. I'll be back tomorrow for a fun review of the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation, "All Good Things...". Tonight is the 32nd anniversary of that episode's premiere, so I'll be writing the review as if I'm watching it for the first time tonight, even though I'm watching it on VHS tonight, and have seen it numerous times in the last 32 years. Until then have a great day and I'll talk to you all later. Take care.

Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made (1999) Book Review

 Hey everyone, happy Friday! I had a really busy week this week so I didn't get to post as often on here as I had planned on doing. Today we're in 1999 as I talk about a book that isn't in my usual wheelhouse when it comes to what I post on either of my blogs. It's a biography of sorts of Michael Jordan called Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, written by David Halberstam. I got this book as a get well present from a friend of mine from youth group when I was in the hospital in March 2003, but I never read the whole book, just a few chapters. I decided that with Space Jam celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026 (this year in the outside world), I would read this book and write about it on here. So, let's get into it!

While the title implies the book is solely about Basketball legend Michael Jordan, it isn't. What Playing for Keeps is is a book about the NBA and Michael Jordan's role in it as Basketball started to become very popular in the '80s and '90s. It's also about the other NBA stars, their teams, the owners of the teams, their agents, and their coaches. Which makes it a more fascinating read than if it were just a biography about Michael Jordan.

I'm not a sports person, so I never followed Michael's career, nor did I follow Basketball when I was growing up. However, Basketball was everywhere. Aside from Michael and other players of the time, including Charles Barkley, appearing in Space Jam three years ago (30 years ago in 2026), I played Basketball in elementary school and had a net beside our garage for most of my teenage years and early adulthood, as well as a ball. So while I played Basketball a little bit, I've never followed it on TV or the radio.

The book is a great snapshot of what Basketball was like in the '80s and '90s, which is great because it's not written from a nostalgic point of view. The author was a historian so he wrote this book with lots of historical perspective, both in the overall history of the NBA in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, but also within the lives of players such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, and Scottie Pippen, as well as coaches like Phil Jackson, and Chicago Bulls owner, Jerry Krause. 

I really like this book because not only does it provide needed historical context for those of us who aren't into Basketball or any other sports, but it also provides insights into the players, without going too personal into their lives at the time the author collected the information for the book. Seeing celebrities like Jordan as real people makes it easier to understand their choices because they're people, just like you and I are. Which means they're just as fallible as everyone else is.

Overall, I found this book to be interesting throughout despite me not being interested in sports. It's not a typical biography or autobiography. It's super informative but never monotonous. Which makes it a really good book. 

That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow for this week's Rental Recommendation, and then I might be back on Sunday for a special TV episode review. Until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you later. Peace out!

Star Wars Insider: A Retrospective

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I decided to write about this topic because Star Wars Insider magazine is one of the staples of my life, and its final issue came out last week. I decided to place this post on this blog because the magazine began in 1987, less than a year after I was born, and so it falls into the category of '80s, '90s, and early 2000s nostalgia, so let's get into it.

Star Wars Insider magazine is a publication that began as the magazine for the Official Lucasfilm Fan Club. It ran between 1987 and 2026 with a total of 237 issues. The final issue has a great interview with the people behind the creation of the magazine, including the various editors the magazine has had over the years. However, in order to talk about the magazine, we must first go back to before.

Star Wars Insider has its roots in The Official Star Wars Fan Club Newsletter, a periodical that began publication in 1978 following the release of Star Wars in 1977 and the launch of the Official Star Wars Fan Club in 1978. The purpose of this periodical was to keep members of the fan club updated on the making of the second movie in the series, as well as give them a look behind the scenes of the making of the movie.

Beginning with issue 5, the newsletter gained the name, Bantha Tracks, which it would be called for the rest of its run.

By 1987 however, Star Wars had ended. The Droids and Ewoks cartoons had ended, Marvel had wrapped up its comic book series, no new novels had been published since 1983, and nobody knew if George Lucas would ever make more Star Wars movies. Therefore, the decision was made to shut down the Official Star Wars Fan Club and cease publication of Bantha Tracks.

Dan Madsen, who'd been running the Official Star Trek Fan Club for Paramount Pictures, and was publishing Star Trek: The Official Fan Club Magazine for the club, met with Lucasfilm to see if he could revive the Official Star Wars Fan Club. However, because Lucasfilm wasn't doing Star Wars stuff anymore, except for licensing the IP to West End Games for a Role-playing game and accompanying material, they worked it out with Dan so that the new fan club would focus on Lucasfilm as a whole since Willow, Tucker: The Man and His Dream, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were all in various stages of production for release in 1988 and 1989. Dan agreed and The Official Lucasfilm Fan Club was launched. A magazine called The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine began publication. The first issue celebrated the 10th anniversary of the release of Star Wars and featured C-3PO and R2-D2 on the cover, with Threepio holding a birthday cake.

As the years went by, Star Wars started gaining traction with the popularity of the Dungeons & Dragons type tabletop role playing game that West End Games was publishing, as well as the publication of the novel, Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn in 1991. Finally, in late 1993, George Lucas announced that he was returning to the Star Wars Universe to produced a trilogy of prequel movies that would tell the story of the fall of the Old Republic, the rise of the Galactic Empire, and Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Darth Vader. So, in 1994, with issue #23, The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine became Star Wars Insider and the fan club changed its name back to The Official Star Wars Fan Club.

 

With issue 32, the magazine got a new logo and focused on the 1997 theatrical release of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, as well as updating fans on the development of the prequels, mainly focusing on Episode I, which didn't have a title yet.

I first discovered Star Wars Insider when my mom picked up issue 43 for me in April 1999, prior to the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. With the release of the new movie only a month away, Star Wars was everywhere in 1999. Even here in Canada. Like with other fans in the '90s, this issue showed me that the two friends I had at school and I weren't alone in our Star Wars fandom. It was also the first time I found out that Del Rey was publishing a new series of Star Wars novels called The New Jedi Order. The issue also announced the fan convention, Star Wars Celebration, the first of many, which was held in Denver, Colorado from April 30th to May 2nd, 1999, while I got the very issue of this magazine where it was announced.

In 2000, Dan Madsen sold Star Wars Insider to Wizards of the Coast, who'd just taken over the Star Wars role-playing game that same year. Wizards of the Coast took over publication with issue 51, which announced that Christopher Lee had been cast in Episode II. I was still in middle school when this transition happened, and as a result finding new issues of Star Wars Insider anywhere was difficult. After I got issue 49 earlier in 2000, I didn't get another issue until issue 57, which was published in early 2002, though I do remember seeing issue 55 on the magazine shelf at Chapters, which had Samuel L. Jackson as Mace Windu from Episode II on the cover, though I wasn't able to get it.

Star Wars Insider continued covering the production of Episode II, now known as Attack of the Clones, but starting with issue 62, Paizo Publishing began publishing the magazine. The publisher was founded by two former members of the arm of Wizards of the Coast that had been publishing the magazine since Dan Madsen sold it in 2000. So they were able to carry the entire staff from Wizards to the new company. Under Paizo, the magazine continued covering the prequels, as well as Star Wars's return to TV with Genndy Tartakovsky's micro-series, Clone Wars in 2003. Though the prequels were coming to an end with Revenge of the Sith in 2005, and I think fans were wondering if they'd see a repeat of what had happened in the '80s when George had wrapped up production of the Original Trilogy.

Beginning with issue 77 in 2004, Star Wars Insider got a facelift both on its cover, with a new logo, and inside the magazine, as well as a new publisher, IDG Entertainment, who was also publishing GamePro Magazine at the time too. IDG sheparded the magazine through the end of the Prequel era of the franchise.

Around this time, in 2005, I started finding issues of the magazine again when I found issue 80 at a local hobby store that my dad went to, and where I first started getting comic books in 1992. I didn't get every issue, but by this time I was 18, going on 19 and getting ready to enter my delayed final year of high school, so I was starting to be able to spend my own money on the magazine. The only thing that prevented me from getting every issue was being able to get to a store to buy it, as we still lived in Greely at the time, and none of my friends were driving yet.

Beginning with issue 93 in 2007, U.K. magazine publisher, Titan Magazines, took over publication of Star Wars Insider from IDG. Titan had gained the license to publish a version of their Star Trek magazine in North America, which replaced Star Trek Communicator in 2006. Unlike in the '80s, despite the end of George Lucas's Star Wars movie saga, Star Wars wasn't going anywhere. In addition to the dozens of comics, novels, and video games being produced for the franchise, George Lucas was shopping around the idea for a live action Star Wars show to all the networks, as well as a new animated Clone Wars series, this time using 3-D animation rather than the traditional 2-D animation like Tartakovsky's micro-series had used. I started college around this time and as 2008 and 2009 came along, I wasn't able to pick up the magazine even though they started selling it at the grocery store I go to regularly.

Starting with issue 120, I started picking up the magazine regularly in 2010. I had finished college that spring, and while I was still five years away from starting my original Josh's Geek Outpost blog, I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands, so I started hanging out with my friends more, and going to stores more. Back then social media wasn't what it is today either, and even the official Star Wars website was going through a revamp, so a good deal of information was still getting passed down from the people at Lucasfilm to the fans in the magazine, and it was still up to date info too, unlike today. I still missed a few issues here and there, but I picked up the vast majority of issues of the magazine that were being published monthly.

Even when Disney bought Lucasfilm and took over stewardship of the franchise in 2012, Titan Magazines continued to publish Star Wars Insider and so, other than the Disney logo appearing on the business info page at the front of the magazine, nothing actually changed though new editors did come and go throughout the magazine's nearly 39 year run. 

 

For nearly 39 years, Star Wars Insider has kept fans informed and entertained. It's also brought fans together because of Star Wars Celebration and other events. It's how many of us in the '90s and early 2000s discovered that there were other Star Wars fans out there, because very few of us had people in our lives who were also fans. So it is sad to see the magazine end after all this time. Especially because I can't seem to really find out why, even though the Star Trek magazine ended last year.

That's it for me for today. I've got lots of fun '80s, '90s, and early 2000s stuff coming your way, so stay tuned. Until then have a great evening and I will catch you on the flip side! Peace out!

Rental Recommendations: Spaceballs

 Hey everyone! Welcome to Rental Recommendations, the new blog post series where every week I pick a movie on VHS to recommend to rent as if we were still in the '80s, '90s, or early 2000s. That's the perspective I'll be using for this series. This first edition will be on a great '80s parody movie, and I'll be recommending it from the perspective of 1988, 1997, and 2000, as those are the years the movie was released on home video. Let's get into it.

Did you miss Mel Brooks's latest movie when it was in theaters? Did you see it, but want to watch it again? Have no fear, because Spaceballs: The Video is now available! Unfortunately, it's not an instant cassette like it was in the movie itself, but it is finally available on home video. While Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert were not favorable to this movie, I believe you will absolutely enjoy it. Especially if you're into parody.

It's been ten years since Spaceballs came out in theaters to mixed reviews from critics. However, in celebration of the 10th anniversary of this parody masterpiece, Spaceballs has returned to home video. You'll rediscover the Spaceballs and their plot to steal the air from it's neighboring planet, Druidia, as well as their inept leaders, President Skroob, Dark Helmet, and their idiot flunky, Colonel Sandurz. Luckily they're opposed by Princess Vespa and her entourage of fools, Barf and Lone Starr. Spaceballs is the movie to rent this weekend.

Spaceballs is back on home video! For the first time ever, the movie is available on DVD! Don't have a DVD player? Not to worry, MGM remembered to re-release it on VHS, because even though it's the year 2000, DVD players are still expensive, and not everybody can afford them yet. Relive the buffoonery, the sheer stupidity of the villains (and heroes), and the homage to numerous science fiction movies and TV shows (surprisingly). The jokes will be making you laugh at ludicrous speed! May the Schwartz be with you!

There you go folks! My first rental recommendations for Spaceballs in 1988, 1997, and 2000. Of course, here in 2026, the movie is available on Blu-ray, 4K, and on streaming (somewhere), but back then, all you had was VHS, unless you were rich enough to be able to afford a Laserdisc player, and then later, DVD. Again, I'm not always going to do Rental Recommendations this way. I just thought it'd be fun to do it this way for Spaceballs, just because it IS a parody film. Have a great weekend everyone and I will talk to you later. Take care.

The Mission Statement of My Nostalgia Blog

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well for a Saturday. So you may have noticed that I put my reviews of The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin and My Pet Monster over on Josh's Geek Cave. I had planned to just return everything to that one blog and just do what I used to do on it. However, I had an idea. From now on, Josh's Geek Cave will be for talking about everything I like that came out from 2006 to now. My Nostalgia Blog will be for everything that came out before that. Today, I'm finally going to give you this blog's mission statement. So, let's get into it.

On My Nostalgia Blog, it will always be the '80s, '90s, or early 2000s. It doesn't matter what year it is in the outside world, on here it will always be 1980 something, 1990 something, or 2000 to 2005. Always. So if you feel nostalgic for those eras of entertainment media and physical media, you'll know you will always be there when you come here to read my blog posts.

I'll be covering everything from TV show premieres, CD/audiocassette releases, comic books, magazines, novels, and home video releases. For example, when I'm finished this post, I'm going to do my first post in a new series called Rental Recommendations, where every Saturday morning I will do a quick post recommending a VHS tape you might've been able to rent in the '80s, '90s, and early 2000s. This won't be a review of the media on the tape, but it will be a quick little recommendation of something to rent/watch on a Friday or Saturday night, whatever night you rented movies on. 

I'm dedicating this blog to those three decades, from 1980 to 2005. However, because I like shows from earlier decades, like Star Trek and Batman, I'll be covering those shows from the perspective of watching them in reruns because that's how I watched them.

So please, come join me in the decades of the Millenial and late Gen X childhood, where we can talk about them with fondness, love, and respect. Not in ignorance of the present, but as a safe space from the horrors of the modern world, even if it's for a few hours every day. Take care. 

Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire Novel (1996)

 Hey everyone, how's it going? I'm doing pretty well. I tried to do a blog post on this blog earlier this week, but I wasn't into either topic I tried to write about even though they are topics I want to talk about. The reason for that is I have THIS topic that I'm super excited to talk about this week. It's the novel for Shadows of the Empire, written by author Steve Perry, who is not the lead singer for Journey, unlike the other guy with that name, who IS the lead singer for Journey. This book came out 30 years ago today, along with some of the other elements of the Shadows of the Empire Star Wars multimedia project. I decided to write about just the novel today, though I'll be sprinkling in other posts about the project over the course of the rest of the year. So, let's get into it.

Star Wars was in a very transitional phase when Shadows of the Empire was published on May 1st, 1996. The original trilogy had ended over a decade earlier with Return of the Jedi in 1983, but the franchise continued to thrive through novels and comic books, beginning with Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn and Dark Empire by Tom Veitch and Cam Kennedy in 1991. However, by the time Shadows of the Empire was published several things had started to happen. George Lucas was working on the Prequel Trilogy, and had actually announced it in late 1993, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition was in production, the Original Trilogy had been re-released on VHS in 1995, ahead of the 1997 theatrical re-release of the entire trilogy, and sales for the novels had started to drop. Though they were still selling well enough that no drastic changes were made unlike what would happen two years later that led to The New Jedi Order being developed.

I've said this in other places, and I'm pretty sure Perry, and the other people involved with this project, have said that Shadows of the Empire is a movie without the movie since it had every type of tie-in that movies had in the '90s, including a soundtrack album. So I think Lucasfilm was using this as an experiment for both the upcoming Prequel Trilogy and Special Editions. Because if this novel and it's various elements hadn't been successful, then what chance would the re-releases and the new movies have? 

The thing about Star Wars is that it has always been on the fringes of pop culture. Whenever it's been really popular with people who aren't part of the Star Wars fandom, it's usually been at a time when something in the franchise was a novelty. Such as Heir to the Empire being published in 1991 after eight years of no Star Wars novels being published. Or the return of the Original Trilogy to theaters in 1997, or The Phantom Menace being released in 1999 after sixteen years of no new Star Wars movies being in theaters, as well as the anticipation leading up to the movie's release. But, as I'll talk about with other movies, books, TV shows, comic books, and music, that mellowed out over time. As I mentioned, the sales for Bantam Spectra's Star Wars novels started fizzling out sometime in the mid-'90s and those books didn't hit the New York Times Bestsellers List, the way the earlier novels did, though according to the mass market paperback's cover, Shadows of the Empire did make it onto the list.

For me personally, I didn't get this book until probably 1998 or 1999. I don't remember if it was before or after Garrett, my best friend in elementary school and middle school, started lending me Star Wars books when we were in the same class for the 1998-1999 school year, or if it was after. I just remember it was after I'd gotten The Paradise Snare by A.C. Crispin, and it was definitely after it had come out in paperback because I haven't actually seen the hardcover in person before. The original paperback was released on March 3rd, 1997, so it was definitely after that, when I got it.

I think what's unique about this book is that, so far, it's the only novel to take place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. As far as I know anyway. Unless there's a more recent novel that takes place between those two movies. It's definitely the only Legends novel to take place between those movies. We've had two comic book series, both by Marvel, that have taken place in this time period, but no novels other than this one. The 1977 Marvel comic book series took place in this time period between 1980 and 1983, during the time when audiences were awaiting the release of Return of the Jedi, and then in 2020 Marvel restarted their main Star Wars series, which had originally started in 2015, and the new series was set between those two movies. 

Something I find interesting is that I keep hearing complaints about how uncomfortable Prince Xizor is due to how he treats women, particularly in that extremely uncomfortable scene between him and Leia near the end of the book. Well yeah, he's supposed to be uncomfortable. Xizor is not a good person. He is not above molesting women, even his own assistant, Guri, the Human Replica Droid, when he wants entertainment. In fact, I'd say he's a villain that is even more relevant now than he was thirty years ago. And not in the timeless way that characters like the Emperor and Darth Vader are either. No, Xizor is exactly like the rich men who are running most of Western society these days. I mean even Vader can't stand him.

Getting away from the darker and uncomfortable elements of the book, I love the humour in this book. Particularly the banter between Leia, Lando, Dash Rendar, Luke, Chewie, Artoo, and Threepio. While it's not as good as Aaron Allston would incorporate into his five books in the X-Wing series, beginning in 1998 with Wraith Squadron, it very much feels like the kind of banter that we saw in the original three movies.

I have the 2016 mass market paperback reprint with the golden Legends banner across the top, and one of the things that I like about these reprints is that they retain the page layouts and typography of the original paperback editions from the past. Even though the Legends Novels Timeline that began with Vector Prime in 1999, was included along with ads for the more modern Star Wars novels coming out at the time, since Del Rey reprinted it, the chapter headers are the same, and the print is the same size with the same font. Which is awesome, because so many reprints of older books change the page layouts and chapter headers so that the book feels different than the earlier edition did. 

That's my two cents on the novel of Shadows of the Empire. Like I said, I will cover the comic and video game in the future, but I don't have anything to say about the toys, trading cards, junior novel, or soundtrack as I've never owned any of them. But I do own five of the six issues of the comic, and we rented the video game for the Nintendo 64 in the early 2000s, so I've got plenty to talk about with those.

In the meantime though, I will be back on Tuesday to talk about the first three Free Willy movies, as I have them on DVD, and I have quite a bit of history on them. Until then, have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.