Topps Widevision.
The ultimate in non-sports cards.
They're back.
In 3D.
And there isn't any half-thought-out garbage to junk it all up. These hearken back to a time before we referred to these as "episodes."
Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom:
46 "Plans for His Son"
With a Darth Vader-centric card, this pack is already a win.
31 "Magnificent Cloud City"
No crime, great schools, and an unbeatable public transportation system put Cloud City at fifth place on Forbes' annual "Most Livable Cities" list.
8 "Back From the Brink"
The Bacta, the weird underwear, the uncomfortable jostling... it's all as I remembered it.
Speaking of which, why don't we have Bacta available to cure our illnesses? Sure, there's Bactine, but that's the light version. We still need something for more than minor scrapes and burns. Why is the scientific community keeping this from us?
Overall, these are great cards. They don't quite work as 3D, since they use the old lenticular technology. It's more like a very subtle Sportflic with less movement. Images in the foreground are kept more or less in place, but the backgrounds move from side to side. The effect does create some illusion of depth, but it's not perfect. I might consider picking up the entire set on eBay at some point in the future, but who knows.
I don't even want to think about baseball tonight. In fact, I haven't wanted much of anything to do with baseball for the past week and a half as my Brewers are trying their damndest to keep themselves out of the playoffs for the better part of a millennium. For such an emergency, I've set aside a pack of Star Wars cards received as a throw-in from a trade from dayf. The little metal rod thingy on a chain has broken through the glass to retrieve a red-tipped fire axe. Behind the axe was this pack.
Let's tear in.
Top to Bottom: Nikto (Literary reference: The Day the Earth Stood Still, and later on, Army of Darkness.) Weequay Hunter (Literary reference: Melville.) Skiff (The vehicle that was built to fail. Few of these, if any, make their way out of a Star Wars sequence unscathed. Where is Ralph "Unsafe at Any Speed" Nader when you need him?) Don't Forget the Droids (Worthless in so many ways. I am in no way familiar with the rules of this CCG, but I'm willing to bet this is not a very desirable card. After all, someone in the Rebel Alliance had the forethought to design a backpack large enough to fit a Wookiee with the sole purpose in mind of carrying around the disassembled parts of a droid following a beatdown. Sure, R2D2 had that screwdriver/communication device thing that interrupted the garbage compactor, but any good tradesman could have done the same job in half the time. TK-427 my f--king ass!) Ishi Tib (Starfish-shaped head. Worst background character design since Ree-Yees.) Sandwhirl (In no way a part of the Original Trilogy. Think, this card could have been a Sarlaac. It's like buying a Yellowstone National Park collectible card pack and expecting Old Faithful and getting a Columnar Basalt card. Geology lesson, bitches!) Jabba's Palace Sabacc (Instead of an action shot of a sabacc game, which has never been shown in the films, we get an exterior shot. What is the one thing you expect to see in a gambling montage segment of a movie taking place in Las Vegas? Slots...lots of 'em, hitting lucky 7's. Jump cut to the close up of a hand shooting craps, jump cut to a close up of a roulette wheel, track out to reveal happy 1960s gamblers surrounded by women with Mount Rushmore-esque heads of hair. Instead we get this. This card fails.) Yarna d'al' Gargan (Six tits, none of them attractive. I'm curious to know if she's a meth addict like so many American strippers are. Be careful what you wish for...) Fozec (The rent-a-cop of the Star Wars Universe. I can imagine that when the shit started hitting the fan above the great Pit of Carkoon, this guy ran to the nearest pay phone and called the real Empire P.D. Either that or he escaped into the the most convenient Conan film he stepped out of earlier.) The first two cards were cool, but the rest sucked. I'm not quite out of my doldrums, but this helped a bit.
Brian chose the new Artifacts pack for the last post, then Steve threw a curve and selected the Star Wars pack. I got this pack sometime last year and forgot about it, but figured it deserved a little APAD love. I unfortunately got screwed out of a card and to add insult to injury there was no insert in the pack. Between the parallels, magnets, die cut puzzle cards and animation cels in the product, it's dang near impossible not to pull an insert, but them's the breaks. The cards themselves are pretty nice though, with good photos, spot UV coating on the front and judicious use of foil. Plus it's freakin' Star Wars. Ya can't go wrong with Star Wars cards. Here's the pack.
65 The Death of Dooku
Christopher Lee is a bad mothersucker. The recent movies catch a lot of deserved crap, but Dooku's character helps to justify their existence. It's also another notch for Lee in his rivalry with Ian McKellen for the most bad-ass old dude on the planet. Ian has been Gandalf, Magneto, Hitler, will play Number Two and has been damn near every Shakespeare lead including a fantastic Richard the Third (Best Shakespeare movie ever in the history of everything), while Lee has Saruman, Dooku, Death, Willy Wonka's dad, Sherlock Holmes and DRACULA on his resume. That's a tough choice, I say let 'em fight it out.
76 Muppets and Merriment
I don't know what's more fantastic about this card, Mark Hamill flirting with Miss Piggy, or the "surprise! buttsecks" look on Kermit's face. Yoda's having none of it though and appears to be checking out Miss Piggy's rack and I'm not talking about spare ribs. Dirty old alien. This seems like a good a time to link to the Muppets StarWarsepisode, eh?
92 Old and New Friends
Other than a couple clips here and there I've thankfully managed to avoid the horror that is the Star Wars Holiday Special, but any card with Carrie Fisher on it is all right in my book. According to the text on the back, she is singing the Star Wars theme with Thanksgiving themed lyrics. Ok, curiosity's gotten the better of me. I gotta hear this. YouTube to the rescue.
Oh Dear Jesus MY EYES. MY EARS. THEY BURN.
97 Charal the Nightsister
I don't know who the heck this character is, but she's sorta hot in a Goth cougar kind of way. Read all about her here, I'm moving on to the next card.
100 Introducing Boba Fett
Another Star Wars Holiday Special card, but this is supposedly the lone good thing to come out of that debacle. When I first saw the card, the drawing reminded me of early Ralph Bashki cartoons (please don't click on Ralph Bashki cartoons at work), but the sequence was actually directed by Ken Stephenson. He went on to direct episodes of Ewoks, Droids and the first clip of Heavy Metal, which is way way too filthy to link. That's probably why I recognize the very '70s style artwork. Here's the Boba Fett cartoon, which actually is pretty damn good...
119 Sneak Peek: New Animation
Speaking of animation, this here is a sneak peek at the new Clone Wars cartoon that is debuting on Cartoon Network this fall. It looks like a video game to me. I'll take the old crappy 70's animation with the goofy faces and rubber Artoo any day of the week. But, yeah, I'll be watching it anyway.
