With 2021 finally dawned upon us, it brings a new beginning to what was for sure one of the most tumultuous years in anyone’s recent memory in the year 2020, with a plethora of events that occurred (and many still recurring) that need no repeating. We all know of what went down and what’s going on, things which have spilled over and are still extreme challenges in this new year. In short, 2020 was a year most of, if not all, of us would soon rather forget.

However, what shouldn’t be forgotten are the names of the many luminaries in entertainment that we lost last year, also a stunning amount of creatives and well-knowns of seemingly every type and stripe. While in a lot of ways an “in memoriam” list seems rather arbitrary and irrelevant considering the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the United States alone last year during the pandemic and of people who became global martyrs by way of insurrectional behaviors by authoritative figures all across America, a list like this becomes in a way necessary, as it’s important to give the proper respect and final send off to some of the individuals who touched our lives in so many ways, especially during last year, when all forms of entertainment became not only entrenched in its typical “escapism,” but also became a healing balm in a sense, something that helped people push through during the darkest times of necessary state and governmental-enforced bondage on us all. And it is for that reason, that we present some of our heroes, guiding lights, inspirations, and illuminations who left us in 2020.

The truth: I was having trouble coming up with a Star Wars Day “May the Fourth” feature that would be just as good or better than what I wrote last year. I had more time then, I do a lot of reviews now, and my brain wasn’t working. Luckily, I ran into my friends Brad and Christine who provided me with an idea. Based on the passion with which they spoke about it, it seemed like something worth talking about, especially since “Hans shot first” is obviously out of the way. The question?

Why doesn’t Darth Vader or Obi-Wan acknowledge C-3PO (or R2-D2), when the former built Threepio as a child and hung around a lot with R2, and the latter spent so much time with them?

Thanks to my DVD subscription to Netflix, I’ve had the splendid opportunity over the last couple of years (as other fans have no doubt) in being able to rediscover and revisit some episodes of Classic Doctor Who, some of which I’ve not seen in decades.

In the course of these nostalgia trips, I began noticing that there were quite a few actors who were popping up in many of the classic serials that had also played a role in some of the Star Wars films. On top of that, there has been some Star Wars actors show up in the new series as well.

About a year ago, I came across a few submissions at the Doctor Who Subreddit over at Reddit.com – notably this one and this other one – showing the crossover of Doctor Who actors who had also been in Harry Potter.

Consequently, in the lead-up to the premiere of Series 7, I decided to put together a bit of a timey-wimey infographic matrix thingy that looks at the crossover of actors between Doctor Who and Star Wars. Hope you like it, and feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The People vs. George Lucas
DVD | Instant Video
Directed by Alexandre O. Philippe
Starring Neil Gaiman, Francis Ford Coppola, Chris Gore, Kevin Rubio, Gary Kurtz, David Prowse, Todd Hanson, George Lucas
Lionsgate
DVD Release Date: October 25, 2011

The People vs. George Lucas is a quasi-documentary film which uses a courtroom debate approach to explore the issues of filmmaking and fanaticism pertaining to the Star Wars franchise, and its creator, George Lucas.

The film combines filmmaker and celebrity interviews with fan-created content and fictional dramatizations to present an all-encompassing look at the indelible mark Lucas has left on pop culture and the film industry.

Interviewees include author Neil Gaiman, writer/director Kevin Rubio (Troops), actor David Prowse (Darth Vader), and Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz. Lucas himself appears frequently in archival footage, but is never interviewed directly by filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe.

The People vs. George Lucas discusses the extent to which the Star Wars franchise is an incomplete artistic creation of Lucas (and subject to his evolving vision) versus a cultural phenomenon that belongs to the general public.

In 1977, right after the original Star Wars made its debut in the theaters with lines around the block as audiences couldn’t whet their appetite enough about viewing the trials and tribulations in the galaxy that was oh so far away all that time ago, the first wave of pop culture fallout started. While it’s totally taken for granted now that tons and tons of Star Wars goods exist today, physical confections in all shapes and sizes, from T-shirts to action figures, to cereal bowls, towels, and Lego sets to video games for all platforms which have become commonplace by way of large, sprawling department stores around the globe, in 1977, the marketing blitz had just begun, and it was waters tested slowly, which eventually built to financial fever pitch for all involved in it.

To participate in today’s Star Wars celebratory “May The 4th Be With You” and right on the heels of the film’s 35th Anniversary on May 25th, comes a rather rare and fun clip from 1977 from the television game show To Tell The Truth, in which a panel of B-grade celebrities had to guess who a real person was among three — the one out of three who actually did the endeavor or the skill or the task mentioned by the game show moderator before the guessing game is played.