A JEDI SUMMER: WHY 1983 WAS SUCH AN IMPORTANT YEAR

To celebrate the launch of John Boden's  Jedi Summer: with The Magnetic Kid today we take a look at 1983, and why it was such a great year.  Many of you will be a similar age to me, and 1983 may seem like a very distant memory, I would turn 12 at the end of the year.  It was the year I went to high school, the year I discovered rugby, and the year where I changed from being a Rude Boy and transformed into a metal/ rock head, it was an exciting year, to say the least.  It was also the year when Return of The Jedi hit the screens, and for 32 years it would be the last good Star Wars film.  For me, it was also important as being the year that Marillion released their debut album Script For a Jester's Tear an album that even after 32 years still gets played on a regular basis.   For others of the Ginger Nuts of Horror team there were also important releases in the art world, so read on to find out why we think 1983 was a year to be celebrated.  

IT wasn't the first clown to freak me out.  In fact, when it comes right down to it there's no use trying to pretend, there is only one clown that can be considered the King of Clown scares and the award has to go to Robert Powell's Gregory from the 1980 movie Harlequin. Some of you may never have heard of this film which used the mythology of Rasputin as its basis and transported it to 80's Australia.  Powell had just finished his stellar performance as Jesus in Jesus of Nazareth another role where is glacial piercing blue eyes captivated the audience.  As a nine / ten-year-old boy who had snuck down the stairs after his parents had gone to bed to watch some late night telly I foolishly thought "oh look it's the bloke who played Jesus, this will be a good film to watch."  90 minutes later is was as traumatized as a young man could be at that age.  

Powell's performance as the insidious, mystically manipulating Harlequin chilled me to the bone.  That scene with a finger and a cooks knife will go with me to my grave; I couldn't look at a carrot without feeling sick for almost a year after watching it.  

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I’d read about her and I couldn’t wait to see her. In 1983 I was 18, just old enough to be there with her in the back row of the cinema, unable to take my eyes off her. To me she was gorgeous, she had obviously seen better days, but there was just something about her, y’know?
Sitting there for the duration I’d lost all sense of self. I was all about Christine. The longer I sat there, the better she got, absorbing me, taking me in completely, unrelenting in the pleasure she was providing. Damn, she was good.
Devoted? Yes, to the point of dangerous obsession. She’d found her perfect guy; nobody stands in the way of that. If you are sensible that is.
The film had finished, Christine didn’t, she stayed with me all these years, and to me at least, is as good as she was in ’83.
Based on Stephen King’s novel about a possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury, “Christine” had everything, great characters, lots of nasty stuff, and an excellent soundtrack of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll interspersed with the director, John Carpenter’s incredible score.
For me, 1983 was the year of Christine.

 
Return of the Jedi (Star Wars Episode VI), the third instalment of the original ‘Star Wars Trilogy’. 
 
This is the ‘Opening Crawl’ from the ROTJ, just so you know what it’s about:

“Luke Skywalker has returned to his home planet of Tatooine in an attempt to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt. Little does Luke know that the GALACTIC EMPIRE has secretly begun construction on a new armored space station even more powerful than the first dreaded Death Star. When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of rebels struggling to restore freedom to the galaxy...”
1983 was a much-anticipated year for fans of Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back. In a non-information-superhighway time we had very little knowledge forthcoming about the conclusion of what to many was a cinematic event unlike any other. We sat in cinema seats awaiting that all-important trailer, and then…

BIG RED LETTERS coming at us while John Williams’ soundtrack blasted at us in Lucasfilm THX high fidelity (launched in ’83 with ROTJ). Letters gone, sound remains, fighters battling in space, cut to… Speeder Bikes! Biker Scouts on flying motorcycles, how cool is that!  Vader vs Skywalker… Bring it on!

The movie itself eventually arrived, and I sat in a crowded theatre, preparing to be dazzled. This is where things change a little. Welcome, Ladies and Gentlemen, to the world of ‘Merchandising’. George Lucas pretty much invented movie related merchandising on a grand scale. Sure there had been items created to cash in on popular TV and Movies beforehand, but it was Lucas who created an industry out of it.

Why is this important? One word… EWOKS.

Maybe I’m being cynical, but I believe there’s absolutely nothing to justify having a bunch of menacing teddy-bears in a science fiction epic like Star Wars other than shooting more action figures at a demographic which hadn’t quite embraced enough of the toy line. Before you could say ‘available at a store near you’ there was a line of Ewoks, both ‘plush’ and mini-figures, weapons, even an entire ‘Village’ playset. It was a ‘missing’ aspect as, with the exception of Princess Leia, there was very little in the Star Wars universe which could be considered cute and cuddly.

Did Ewoks ruin the film? Not particularly, but they didn’t help it any. There’s something else which for me was an absolute NOOOOOOO!!! That, Ladies and Gentlemen, was the demise of Boba Fett. If you haven’t seen the film you won’t care, but for those of us who did… WTF! Give the guy some dignity! Did THAT ruin the film? No… almost, but NO.

There was a lot going on in it that redeemed it. Space battles, Speeder Bike chases, the defeat of Darth Vader and the Empire, plenty of good stuff, but I will leave you here with what is quite possibly the greatest reason any red-blooded male can have for watching ROTJ…
Slave Leia.
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There… I’ve said it. I have no regrets. I was eighteen, red blood in my veins, lead in my pencil. Leia was hot. Sure, when she was in the various costumes in the previous two films she was a real cutie, in ROTJ we saw her in combat fatigues on Endor, still cute, but the slave outfit? Based on work by Frank Frazetta it was a masterpiece of costume design, perfectly form fitted, and what a form! I think I can speak on behalf of the Star Wars nerd community (male section) when I say it’s sexier than pretty much anything in sci-fi before or since.

It was the Summer of 1983, a year where I  changed from being a Rude Boy into a rocker.  Gone where the stay press trousers, red braces and Dr Martins boots, gone were my Bad Manners and Specials albums, and gone was my crew cut.  Replacing all of these with long hair, band t-shirts and albums from the likes of Iron Maiden, The Scorpions and Marillion.  

It was a summer of many transitions, I was about to become a teenager, I had just moved from primary to secondary school, and I had just thrown off the last remains of a younger musical taste.  Then as now I existed on a sort of dual plane of existence, never fully fitting in, part jock, part nerd, part rocker, and part idiot, I hung about with all of the groups but never felt a proper part of any of them.  It meant I spent a lot of time hanging about school on my own, reading books, and looking at the world from an outsider's eye.  It's a feeling and a sense of belonging that still travels with me.  But then I was introduced to Script For a Jester's Tear by a friend and his group of mates, and for a small period, our mutual love for the album gave me that sense of belonging I so desired.  

Looking back at the album, it still stands strong, yes it's full of what we so commonly like to call Sixth Form Lyrics, and yes it does bear an uncanny resemblance to Genesis, but the raw talent, sheer enthusiasm and lyrics that seemed to talk to me like my subconscious was given a voice. made this an album to be loved then and loved now.