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Thursday, July 11th, 2024
| Time | Event |
| 8:00a | Watch Hardware Wars, the Original Star Wars Parody, in HD (1978)
This past May, YouTuber Jenny Nicholson set off waves of social-media discourse with “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel,” a four-hour-long video critique of Disney’s hugely expensive, now-shuttered Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser in Orlando, Florida. Having gone viral enough to rack up over nine million views in less than two months, it’s arguably become more of a success than some recent Star Wars movies. In part, that owes to Nicholson’s having tapped into a growing discomfort, felt even among die-hard fans, with the transformation of an escapist space opera into an ever-vaster and less accountable business empire. The time has come, many seem to feel, to pop the Star Wars bubble. Some, of course, have felt that way for a long time. “I dutifully thrilled to the earlier films, to their contrast of black-velvet skies and blinding white sands, but I was a little too old to worship them or study their variorum editions,” writes New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane in his review of The Phantom Menace, from 1999. “Even in the late seventies, we had a suspicion that Star Wars was nerd territory.” That suspicion inspired such works as the Hardware Wars, the very first Star Wars parody. Released in 1978, this micro-budget production shot on Super 8 film spoofs the ramshackle bombast of the original Star Wars, then still playing in theaters, in the form of a thirteen-minute-long fictional trailer. “Steam irons and toasters suspended by clearly visible strings were the spaceships, a basketball was a planet on the brink of destruction, and the robot Artie Decko was a defunct vacuum cleaner,” writes Salon’s Bob Calhoun. But “from its cardboard sets to the costumes, Hardware Wars is an amazing facsimile of its source material, despite obvious budget and time constraints.” The goal of its creators Ernie Fosselius and Michael Wiese had been to meet Star Wars creator George Lucas, who later called it his favorite Star Wars parody. And indeed, its humor holds up these 46 years later, though younger viewers may need some help understanding the joke in a name like Augie Ben-Doggie, to say nothing of the final line, delivered by famed voice actor Paul Frees: “You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll kiss three bucks goodbye.” Above, you can watch Hardware Wars in a brand new HD transfer. Related content: Watch the Very First Trailers for Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi (1976–83) Fans Reconstruct Authentic Version of Star Wars, As It Was Shown in Theaters in 1977 The Making of Star Wars as Told by C‑3PO & R2-D2: The First-Ever Documentary on the Film (1977) A Star Wars Film Made in a Wes Anderson Aesthetic Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities and the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook. |
| 9:00a | Jimi Hendrix Unplugged: Two Great Recordings of Hendrix Playing Acoustic Guitar
As a young guitar player, perhaps no one inspired me as much as Jimi Hendrix, though I never dreamed I’d attain even a fraction of his skill. But what attracted me to him was his near-total lack of formality—he didn’t read music, wasn’t trained in any classical sense, played an upside-down right-handed guitar as a lefty, and fully engaged his head and heart in every note, never pausing for an instant (so it seemed) to second-guess whether it was the right one. I knew his raw emotive playing was firmly rooted in the Delta blues, but it wasn’t until later in my musical journey that I discovered his return to more traditional form after he disbanded The Experience and formed Band of Gypsys with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles. While most of the recordings he made with them didn’t see official release, they’ve appeared since his death in compilation after boxset after compilation, including one of the most beloved of Hendrix’s blues songs, “Hear My Train A Comin’.” Originally titled “Get My Heart Back Together” when he played it at Woodstock in 1969, the song is pure roots, with lyrics that bespeak of both Hendrix’s loneliness and his playful dreams of greatness. (“I’m gonna buy this town / And put it all in my shoe.”) Several versions of the song float around on various posthumous releases—both live and as studio outtakes (including two different takes on the excellent 1994 Blues). But we have the rare treat, above, of seeing Hendrix play the song on a twelve-string acoustic guitar, Lead Belly’s instrument of choice. The footage comes from the 1973 documentary film Jimi Hendrix (which you can watch on YouTube for $2.99). Hendrix first plays the intro, seated alone in an all-white studio, playing folk-style with the fingers of his left hand. It is, of course, flawless, yet still he stops and asks the filmmakers for a redo. “I was scared to death,” he says, betraying the shyness and self-doubt that lurked beneath his mind-blowing ability and flamboyant persona. His playing is no less perfect when he picks up the tune again and plays it through.
Solo acoustic recordings of Hendrix—film and audio—are incredibly rare. If like me you’re a fan of Hendrix, acoustic blues, or both, this video will make you hunger for more Jimi unplugged. While Hendrix did more than anyone before him to turn guitar amps into instruments with his squalls of electric feedback and distorted wah-wah squeals, when you strip his playing down to basics, he’s still pretty much as good as it gets. If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newsletter, please find it here. Or follow our posts on Threads, Facebook, BlueSky or Mastodon. If you would like to support the mission of Open Culture, consider making a donation to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your contributions will help us continue providing the best free cultural and educational materials to learners everywhere. You can contribute through PayPal, Patreon, and Venmo (@openculture). Thanks! Related Content: Jimi Hendrix Plays “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” Days After the Song Was Released (1967) Jimi Hendrix Opens for The Monkees on a 1967 Tour; Then After 8 Shows, Flips Off the Crowd and Quits Behold Moebius’ Many Psychedelic Illustrations of Jimi Hendrix Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness. |
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