Goodbye Daala…
–edit. I just improved the FX in the final panel, George Lucas style. Hit refresh–
That’s it for the Death Star! We raced through three strips this week in order to get here. Starting next week is the rebel ceremony to be closely followed by our interval material which will lead into the Boba Fett cartoon and the Star Wars Holiday Special. Look out for some new appearances in the coming weeks. We’re currently 15 strips ahead and almost finished with the immediate interval “story arc”. We have some surprises in store! 🙂
As we are finally and sadly bidding farewell to one of the Star Wars trilogy’s best villains, I’d like to take a brief moment to discuss Tarkin’s famous line:
“Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.”
Back in the early days of the worldwide web, I came across an article by a Star Wars fan concerning the rationale behind Tarkin’s position against evacuation. I have since lost the article and the name of the author (it’s been a shocking twelve or more years at least!) but I agreed with it wholeheartedly. It’s conclusion was that Tarkin realized the danger but had no choice but to remain aboard. In a nutshell, Tarkin’s gamble that the Death Star would bring order to the rebellious Outer Rim territories weighed his entire political career against the success of his doctrine of fear. Even if he had lacked the honor to go down with his ship, he would be stripped of his authority and influence and possible executed. The novels imply he had ambitions for the Emperor’s throne, but with the failure of the Death Star it is unlikely he could even marshal an Outer Rim Imperial fleet for his own protection. He was a victim of his own ambition and his own sense of honor.
Here are the last two strips from this week in case you missed them in our rush…
Rebel base in range
Cup-holder
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::::wearing black armband for Grand Moff Tarkin/Peter Cushing::::
In an interesting turn of events, revisiting Tarkin’s role in this story through your webcomic inspired me to check out some of Peter Cushing’s other work, and I’ve become a big fan. It’s like losing him all over again as we say good-bye to one of his most recognizable characters, played magnificently, as usual for him.
RIP, Sir Peter, and RIP, Grand Moff Tarkin. : (
Some of our favorite Peter Cushing films include rarities like Cash on Demand (supposedly coming out in a DVD pack later this year), Brides of Dracula (one of his most heroic roles) and Captain Clegg (aka Night Creatures in the USA). The latter is Leanne’s favorite. The Hammer films version of Hound of the Baskervilles is also very good. Heck so is Curse of Frankenstein and Horror of Dracula. The list could go on and on…
For Christopher Lee I highly recommend The Devil Rides Out. Sadly, Peter Cushing is not in this film, but it does allow Lee to be the hero figure and he does a great job.
Christopher Lee also gets to play the hero in The Gorgon, which I caught on YouTube earlier this week. I also started to watch the episode of Space: 1999 where Peter was a guest star. I’ll have to finish watching that one.
I’ve also seen his appearances on the Morecambe & Wise comedy show. There was this great running gag about how, after his 1969 appearance on their show, when he portrayed King Arthur in a sketch, he’d never been paid, so he made several cameo appearances, asking for his “five pounds,” and Morecambe would always worm his way out of the obligation. He got even during the Christmas episode of 1980, and during an episode of “This Is Your Life,” where he was the guest of honor, Morecambe paid him his five pounds, then wormed it back from him. Peter was delighted and exclaimed, “I still haven’t got my fiver!”
Plus, if you and Leanne haven’t had the chance, check out his interviews on YouTube. He’s so charming and unassuming.
And the one role that always getting forgotten:
Peter Cushing played Doctor Who
Yes, he did. Twice.
I always inclined to get that remembered.
As Cushing fan and as Doc Who fan …
(I know it got nothing to do with our all fave role of his.)
I loved his performance as Doctor Who. It was a very different “Doctor” but it had its charm as a children’s movie and Peter Cushing (I believe) loved playing the part. I believe that he said it was his favorite role. I miss him.
<- will watch Peter Cushing as Doctor Who in some minutes.
It's great that someone else knows those flics … i started to feel alone with that knowledge.
To bad i don't own a copy of the Star Wars flics anymore. -.-
Would make my day perfect. 😉
I like the last panel, it’s true in the film Luke does seem very unconcerned with the amount of people he has killed.
Why didn’t the base on Yavin evacuate like they did on Hoth, surely they had as much, if not more, warning?
Can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with to get us to ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.
Maybe they didn’t have enough transporters on Yavin? Or maybe staying helped to coordinate the assault on the Death Star, which they knew that they had to destroy?
And everyone knows that killing people in explosions doesn’t count. It’s bloodless! And Stormtroopers aren’t real people, they have no faces. And what’s a million people anyway? According to the Wookieepedia, Alderaan had two billion people. That’s two thousand times more, so that makes everyone on the Death Star a mass murderer. So Luke just killed 1.2 million mass murderers. That’s awesome!
Should he have felt a lot of voices suddenly scream in terror and then silence? I don’t think so. He didn’t feel Alderaan, and 1.2 million is significantly less, and he’s not a significantly more powerful Jedi than he was at that time.
There was a link a few updates back that had some great shots from the sets. It included one of Tarkin head to toe, but with boots on…not sure if it really was Tarkin, but I paused and looked really close for the slippers.
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/30-awesome-rare-star-wars-photos/rare-star-wars-photo-13#content
Just thought I would pass that along.
Yeah, this is the only shot of Tarkin in his uncomfortable boots. All the rest were shot at angles where he could be wearing his slippers instead. That’s from his autobiography. I should have specified. This is actually the photo I used to base the art for the Fleet trooper playing old arcade games gag a few strips earlier.
Awesome awesome awesome it’s been a great ride! can’t wait to see more.
Hey man, go big, or go home!
aparently, he should have gone home…
Aren’t there a few officers on the Death Star that showed up in Empire? Maybe they heeded the warning.
“Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate their chances.”
It seems Tarkin has forgotten a basic truth…Your enemies should be left with NO chances.
I know that this is a bit behind the times of the comments above, but I just had to point out a quote by Stalin. “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic.”
Personally, I think the difference can be boiled down to the crew of the Death Star being comprised of Military Personnel. There’s a big difference between blowing up a battleship and blowing up a passenger ship that happens to be smuggling artillery (e.g. The RMS Lusitania).
The two pics from the blurb are currently missing, thought I’d say something.
Also, nice job- I’m divided on if I think BMS is or Darth and Droids is the better webcomic… you do an amazing job, but they actually managed to redeem the prequels and that crappy Gungan…
Decisions, decisions…
The Prequels are irredeemable to me. :-/ And I don’t mean to sound like a dick by saying that. I truly wish I could find a way to like them, but they just aren’t my kind of movies. So much so, that I don’t even want to go near parodies of them.