BEHIND THE SCENES: ON DISPLAY, AND WITH SEVERAL PREVIOUS USERS...

Here's a shot I took back in the Summer of 1990, whilst holidaying with family in Orlando, Florida- just a year after the DISNEY/MGM Studios Theme Park opened its doors to the public to give us the Indiana Jones Stunt Show Spectacular and the original version of Star Tours- showing the backlot area, featuring one of EMPIRE's Snowspeeders (starting to look a little worse for wear) and a Skiff used in the Arizona desert for the filming of JEDI. Both items had been donated to the park by LUCASFILM.

CLASSIC ART: WHO'S THE DADDY?!

Darth Vader hogs the limelight-and rightly so- in this lovely poster from 1990 that celebrated the first milestone ten years of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK-still the STAR WARS sequel yet to be beaten in its enduring popularity.

The aura of Vader-the man and machine-continues to this day. Check out our previous celebration PDF of the character here: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B80ITjM31EVRaW1xWkd4UGh6UTQ/edit?usp=sharing

Image via Cinemasterpieces.

CLASSIC ART: DARTH VADER STRIKES BACK!

Here's a revised commercial art version of Lawrence Noble's great work for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, of which a prior version had been originally considered as a theatrical release poster for the 1980 cinema engagements, and then finally put out as an official poster for EMPIRE's Tenth Anniversary in 1990. This new art version has substantially changed imagery at the bottom of it, including Rebel Snowspeeders and Imperial Walkers.

If you're in the UK, celebrate Darth Vader's epic return to fight the Rebels by catching the HD screening of the much beloved film this Saturday afternoon on ITV1.