There comes a time in a parent's life where they need to tell their child about Star Wars.

[Halfshell]

http://video.aol.com/video/talking-to-y ... /649277137

[inflatable dalek]

A woman at work has a boyfriend in his late twenties who has never seen any Star Wars film. How the hell does anyone manage that? It's like Bond or Carry On, even if you hate it there's no way anyone in this country should have been able to go that long without catching most of them over the years on a Saturday afternoon on ITV.

[Sades]

Aw. I can't decide if I feel sorry for the Yoda-baby or if I want to hug it.

A woman at work has a boyfriend in his late twenties who has never seen any Star Wars film. How the hell does anyone manage that?

But he's heard of Star Wars, yeah?

[inflatable dalek]

But he's heard of Star Wars, yeah?

That I didn't ascertain. When she found out his misses tried to make him watch the first one and he got bored and put wrestling on instead.

[Sades]

Actually that was much my reaction when I first tried to watch Star Wars. It was the toys that got me interested.

[Wildrider]

It's a different time my friends, a time of wizards and vampires, long gone are the days when you could share a drunken chat about who was the better pilot Luke or Wedge. (It was Wedge, by the way, two death stars and one AT-AT. In your face Skywalker!)

The first film I saw at the cinema was 'RotJ' at Southport cinema, my dad forcing me to go to the toilet so I didn't miss the final battle. First VHS ever owned was 'Star Wars', damn thing is imprinted on me. Happy days.

Damn you Rowling *shakes fist*!

[Cliffjumper]

Wedge didn't have no fancy force powers either. And he had to put up with being called Wedge.

[Halfshell]

There isn't a member of the Build Team named after Luke, either.

[inflatable dalek]

Wedge didn't have no fancy force powers either.

Though I bet one of the 80 0000 spin off books has made him a super duper super Jedi. And even given him a first name. Still, he's the only person in the proper Star Wars films to have been both in Holby and the Uncle to one of the main stars of one of the crap Star Wars films.

[Cliffjumper]

Mmm, apparently they even did books telling us how awesome that tit who's an old friend of Luke's friend from the first film - the one who marks himself out for death with his whole Dead Meat Thompson schtick.

[Wildrider]

Mmm, apparently they even did books telling us how awesome that tit who's an old friend of Luke's friend from the first film - the one who marks himself out for death with his whole Dead Meat Thompson schtick.

Agh Wedge Antillies and the chap you're referring to Biggs Darklighter! With the chequered helmet and moustache?

My long term memory is full of this shit, damn the bloody expanded universe, there were copiuos spin offs about Wedge and 'Rogue Squadron' which I read in my youth. And moustache man's siblings the Darklighters were involved and may or may or not have had force powers.

At least no one riffed on Lucas's lazy characterisation by giving the fat X-Wing pilot called Porkins his own novel.

Haha, Porkins...oh dear

If I remember correctly in 'RotJ' during the rat run into the deathstar one A-Wing branches of to try and lead some tie fighters back to the surface I think he became a major player at some point in the X-Wing novels. Captain Tycho or something, also Ackbar's sister is an X-Wing pilot! But OMG SPOILER, she's crap and buys the farm early on.

Damn I'm such a geek.

[Auntie Slag]

See, I thought Wedge was ace too, up until I saw Star Wars: Episode III and Captain Antilles (his Dad I presume) was depicted as a major player in the Rebel Alliance.

I don't know why I have such a problem with that, but I preferred it when I thought of Wedge as simply an average guy with a bit of a knack for X-Wings. He's clearly a better pilot than Luke, as well as knowing when not to be a dipstick and go for a suicidal hero run.

I don't want him to come from a rich background (no evidence to this, just my implication that a Captain must be drawing a fat salary, & the Rebels are no small organisation. They've got queens and moichandising).

Its like Legolas being the fairest Prince of all elves. The fairest and the toughest, quickest, best and hand-to-handest and with a bow-est ultimate sodding elf-est! Get out with that shite, Tolkein.

Legolas and Wedge are pretty much the same person. They should be 'everymen' with mad skillz, yo. Not two sodding princes, sodding (Spin Doctors remake).

[Cliffjumper]

Biggs Darklighter, that was it - I remember him having an utterly preposterous name even in context. And I remember Porkins... I wonder if the fat extra came first, or the name. It'd be great if the guy was called Perkins, but then they had a chance to cast some subhuman sack of lard so hastily re-writ the script.

I think my favorite random character is the guy off Waldorf Salad in Empire Strikes Back.

[Auntie Slag]

In terms of random character, I was interested in that mute bloke of Lando's. When Lando did something and mute guy opened his eyes whilst alone in the kitchen/office/loo.

Silent power, and all that. The kind of thing that Vader just wouldn't even bother messing with, perhaps through politeness.

[Cliffjumper]

I always wondered why he had that little naked Ewok instead in the third one.

[Auntie Slag]

I loved it when he shoved the drill in the virgin otters face.

[Cliffjumper]

If you ask me, Skywalker was bloody lucky to get away with turning off his guidance system.

[Summerhayes]

If you ask me, Skywalker was bloody lucky to get away with turning off his guidance system.

I always watch that bit and think to myself there is no way any military organisation worth its salt would ignore a pilot doing that because he was hearing magic voices in his head.

Oh, and referring to an earlier bit that I missed; I have had to introduce Star Wars to quite a few people over the years and it always astounds me. I of course start off with the originals, then give it a while so they can be properly disapointed by the prequels.

As kids, me and my best mate loved Wedge; we preferred the idea of this nice chap who happened to be good at flying a Space Ship and fighting baddies to all these super-powered, angsty heroes.

[Wildrider]

See, I thought Wedge was ace too, up until I saw Star Wars: Episode III and Captain Antilles (his Dad I presume) was depicted as a major player in the Rebel Alliance.
#.

I've read somewhere that Antillies is essentially the 'Smith' of the Star Wars universe, so Wedge's obscurity is assured. I always assumed the Captain Antillies referred to by C3PO was the guy Vader chokes out at the beginning.

Although now I'm not so sure, there's probably a 500 page back story to him. Even revisiting the prequels there are excellent nuggets of characters hidden amongst the fluff. Watto (?) the flying elephant bee thing and I have a terrible soft spot for Sebulba the Michael Schumacher of pod racing.

It's the little things open to interpretation that I prefer, reading a seven novel series about a minor player can take away some of the mystique. I quite liked the design of Plo Koon, the strange Jedi/Predator hybrid who got plenty of dialogue free screen time and even a exploding death scene in 'Sith..'

More fun to imagine than be told.

[Cliffjumper]

I thik the strenght of the films (we're just talking the three proper ones here) is that they're actually pretty good at giving little glimpses of people like Boba Fett, Wedge and so on that are interesting enough as it is... Even when I was in school everyone thought Boba Fett was awesome, they didn't need 200,000 words of spin-off fiction to catalogue exactly why.

I mean, I liked Wedge because he was a pretty decent average pilot who knew more or less what he was doing and just got on with his job, like a member of the Intergalactic Few or something. Any kind of book or comic that suggests he's some sort of outstanding paragon of everything would seem to miss the point...