30 Years ago today (May 21st 1980) The Empire Strikes Back debuted in theaters.The above AT-AT is from Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy by Matthew Reinhart.
This book was given to me a few years ago and it is truly a feat of papercraft engineering. Today we'll look at a few Empire Strikes Back pop-ups from the book. The book goes beyond the traditional concept of a pop-up per page and often has pages with huge central pop-ups flanked by mini pop-ups, pop-ups within pop-ups and moving components that actually animate some of the pop-ups as they...well...pop up! The above AT-AT scene is clearly the central pop-up of that section but the section also contains four more separate pop-ups. Cool!
On another page is an example of a smaller pop-up, here showing Luke on his Tauntaun. If you pop open the tab to the left, a Wampa leaps out at them.
On this page you can pop-up Han Solo...
...and if you continue to pop-up the section further...
...Boba Fett appears to freeze Han in carbonite!
As you open up this section the papercraft forms into Darth Vader's helmet, but it's brilliance lies in the fact that the helmet construct itself over an image of Anakin's face!
How cool is that?
Finally, there are light up lightsabers in the final two pop-ups of Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. I am only showing Vader here because the image chosen for Luke represents Return of the Jedi, not The Empire Strikes Back. This image of Vader of course represents that thrilling cinematic moment in which Vader reveals his true identity to his son Luke. I still remember that moment, sitting in the darkened theater with my parents. I remember reacting much like Luke did, turning to my parents and saying "Is that TRUE? That can't be true!!!"What an epic film and a great cinematic and cultural moment to have been a part of. Happy 30th, Empire. May the Force be with you. Always.
OMG! The book is epic too!
ReplyDeleteThat is a very cool pop-up book!
ReplyDelete@Wow! That's incredible!! I especially like the Vader helmet that forms over Anakin's face.
ReplyDeleteI remember standing in line for Empire like it was last summer. A couple buddies and I had our Moms drop us off at the theater at about 10:00 in the morning and we were 3rd, 4th, and 5th in line. These days, 40 or 50 knuckleheads would have been camped out from the night before.