Recommended music: Aaron Copland – Fanfare for the Common Man
This #WhateverWednesday, we’re looking ahead to the 10th anniversary of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in December. Check out these trading cards from Topps Star Wars: Rogue One: Mission Briefing!
Since my action figures are still packed away, waiting for a new display, the cards keep coming out to play.
In September 2016, Topps released the Rogue One: Mission Briefing trading card set in order to generate excitement ahead of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story; the main set consists of 100 cards featuring stories from Episodes I to VI as well as those from the animated series of that era, including the creation and destruction of the Death Star.
The Montages insert set offers a 9-card subset to chase and captures major characters and visual themes found in the pre-release material for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. The cards are printed on vintage-style 24pt Heritage cardstock, matching the retro look of the main set, and have attractive, collage-type graphic designs that combine characters, vehicles, and faction symbols into one stylized image.
Today, I’m showing the next four base cards, which focus on characters who first appeared in A New Hope. The idea of having one character per card is reminiscent of the ‘Star File’ cards from way back in the Topps Empire Strikes Back trading cards set from 1980.
TIE pilots operate the Empire’s starfighters in space combat and reconnaissance. Unprotected by shields, with no hyperdrives and no life support, they depend on speed, agility, powerful laser cannons, and the use of pack tactics to gain the upper hand in space battles; yet Han and Luke manage to defeat them while aboard the Falcon during Luke’s first time in the gunner’s seat.
As Chief of Naval Operations on the Death Star, Admiral Motti was overly confident about the station’s ability to destroy planets and openly mocked the Force until Darth Vader famously Force-choked him into submission.
In a 2007 episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Jordan Schlansky, who was both the show’s associate producer and a devoted fan of Star Wars, asked George Lucas a trivia question requiring the full name of the officer; since Lucas only knew him as “Motti”, he casually invented “Conan Antonio Motti” on the fly in honor of O’Brien. Lucasfilm officials and reference material immediately integrated Lucas’s on-air joke into the canon database and reference books, thus officially establishing the link between Conan O’Brien and Star Wars lore.
Leslie Schofield portrays Chief Bast, who has a presence in three scenes in A New Hope: he is seen standing beside Grand Moff Tarkin in the Imperial Conference Room sequence and also appears during the Battle of Yavin when he gives the warning about the evacuation, saying, “We’ve analyzed their attack, sir, and there is a danger. Should I have your ship standing by?”
There was also an additional scene with Bast walking through a corridor with Darth Vader that was deleted. While cut from the theatrical film, this footage was repurposed the following year with different dialogue for the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Finally, we have General Williard, on screen for about 15 seconds, greeting Princess Leia as she arrives at Yavin base. He delivers two quick lines, “You’re safe!” and “When we heard about Alderaan, we feared the worst”, and then steps aside. Eddie Byrne received high billing for this appearance, featured in the credits alongside actors like David Prowse and Phil Brown because of his prestige in British cinema and trade union billing rules. Because of UK actors’ union Equity regulations and agent negotiations, veteran actors often secured prominent “single-card” billing regardless of screen time.
Byrne originally had a slightly larger presence during filming, but his role was trimmed during editing, and his lines were dubbed over by American voice actor Michael Bell; however, his contractually guaranteed position in the credits was kept.
Spider-Man: Brand New Day is still the number one film at the box office, and if you’re after a summer movie to watch at home, you might want to take another look at Masters of the Universe, which has returned to being the top movie on Amazon Prime!
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