Journalist Jon Mooallem has written an article about Star Wars fans who hunt down original filming locations - and it features me! You’ll find it on page 62 of the March 2009 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Once you get your copy, read along here for my comments, pictures, and more!
Raiders of the Lost R2 - The Reader’s Companion, by Jad Bean
Page 62.
“Jad Bean flipped open a three ring binder on the hood of our rented Trailblazer to reveal a satellite map…”
Here’s the same satellite image of Buttercup Valley, in Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, California. In 1982, this became the site of a pivotal scene in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
“It was on this particular tract of sand that a fragment of another world’s landscape temporarily took up residence.”
This behind-the-scenes shot should give you an idea of how the set was built up off the desert floor.
Page 63.
“”We’re looking for wood,” Jad answered…”
That’s what she said.
“… he owns a Jad Bean action figure, dressed as an X-wing fighter pilot and cast from a digital scan of his head…”
True! The 12″ figure was custom made by Gentle Giant, and was a prize I won from Rebelscum.com in a contest celebrating their 10th anniversary. You can see the video of the digital scan by clicking “SEE JAD ON YOUTUBE!” at the top of the page. The X-Wing pilot uniform is just one of many costumes for my figure; here I am as Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight.
“Footnote 1: Jad has gotten several Star Wars actors to write letters in support of this campaign, including Gerald Home, who played Squid Head…”
Gerald Home and me, at the Star Wars Celebration IV convention in LA, May 2007. The article says Gerald was in “a single scene,” however he actually appeared in many scenes, and on 5 different sets. His Squid Head (Tessek the Quarren) character appeared in Jabba’s Palace and inside the Sail Barge (filmed in England, not in the desert), and his Mon Calamari Officer appeared several times on the Rebel Capital Ship - look for him in a brown tunic, usually behind Admiral Ackbar.
“Recently, he blogged wryly about not knowing exactly how to feel when, after two years of his monomaniacal crusade going wholly ignored, a new Star Wars animated series rolled out a character with the name Cad Bane.”
Here’s my original post on that subject. I wrote to Skywalker Sound master Matt Wood (aka the voice of General Grievous) and asked him if he knew how Cad Bane got his name. He didn’t answer my questions, but he did send back a nice signed photo. I also wrote, twice, to Clone Wars director Dave Filoni with similar queries. Both of those letters were returned to me, “unread,” with matching Lucasfilm form letters.
“…strolled up and down the same steps tread by the character Queen Amidala…”
Yours truly, in the Reggia di Caserta, in the town of Caserta, Italy.
“… a sheer white landscape of glaciers in Finland featured in The Empire Strikes Back.”
Oops! Hoth’s exterior scenes were filmed near Finse, NORWAY, not Finland!
“… he settled in Wroclaw to live with a Polish woman he’d met at a hostel in Spain.”
Jon does a great job of describing this phase of my life. My attempt at the expat lifestyle ended in a broken relationship. After nine months of being surrounded by a foreign culture and having very few friends, I needed to do something for myself. Before coming back to the US, I traveled through Tunisia, finding Star Wars locations, but also finding balance and a sense of my place in the world. I’d like to think that the experience of that failed relationship taught me more about myself than any other part of my life.
The article doesn’t mention it, but my wife Mary would like you to know that I’m now happily married. If you’d like to see more pictures of my travels to film locations throughout Tunisia, Italy, Spain, and more, then please click here. Ever the adventurer, Mary accompanied me on my first trek to Buttercup Valley; I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Page 65.
“I waited for someone to make a Stormtrooper comparison…”
Well done, Jon. I recall that at the moment, I wasn’t thinking of Stormtroopers; I was thinking that we were all about to be arrested. It turns out, had the Border Patrol officers not shown up, we would not have made it in or out of Buttercup Valley. I ought to have known that deflating the tires would allow us to drive on the sand. Let me assure you, this is a lesson I won’t ever forget.
Page 66.
“The three remaining members of our party descended into Buttercup Valley…”
This is the view you see when walking into Buttercup Valley. The large dune on the right is Competition Hill…
… and this flat furnace is Buttercup Valley, decades after it was transformed into another world. What a desolate place this is.
Page 69.
“Soon he came over, holding up a thin plank of wood streaked with silver paint. “Dude, dude. This is from the front!” Jad said, astounded. “That’s from the front!”"
When Bru found his silver-painted piece, my first reaction was to match it up to images I had of the front of the Sail Barge. Many behind-the-scenes pics show that the front is more silver than the side or top, such as this shot, which I had with me on that day.
I have since compiled more images of the set, which show that the entire structure had a coat of silver paint underneath the more recognizable brown. Presumably, this lent the appearance of metal to the wooden structure.
So, I was somewhat premature in declaring Bru’s wooden piece as a relic from the front of the craft. Undoubtedly, though, the silver paint does indicate that his fragment came from the set. It seems there is always more to learn about Tatooine.
“We turned and saw a dark SUV bouncing up and pounding into the sand as it sped toward us.”
The sight of Jillian barreling our Trailblazer over the dunes was truly indescribable, and I believe more than a few colorful words escaped my mouth. At first, I thought Border Patrol had had a change of heart, and had decided to arrest us anyway. That was replaced with elation when I realized it was Jillian at the wheel, that she was not dead of heatstroke, and that we wouldn’t have to walk back out of Buttercup. A sense of dread then crept in, as I considered how fast she had been driving, and how easily she could have toppled the vehicle among the dunes, and that if that had happened, we wouldn’t have known about it for hours - AND that when we drove back out, we would have to navigate those steep dunes again. Naturally, we did make it out without incident.
“In the end, I made the day’s most impressive discovery: a foot-wide, brittle polygon of wood, marked by three clear bands of silver-white paint…”
The piece Jon describes is the large wedge-shaped wooden relic in this picture. Above it are other wood scraps, and below are chunks of the ubiquitous Sarlacc Pit foam, embedded with the sand that was visible in the film. Tangible evidence of a world that really did exist a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.
“Jad poured water over his head and handed me his video camera.”
Jon’s article ends with him recording a video of me, in which I encourage other would-be adventurers to make the journey to Buttercup Valley. I would dearly love to show you this video, but unfortunately, it didn’t properly record. What apparently happened is Jon hit the button in the wrong order - the camera captured the moments immediately before and after my performance. I don’t blame Jon, though - in the heat of the full desert sun, my mind was on getting the four of us back onto safe pavement, not on verifying what the camera had recorded.
Though you might consider it something of a consolation prize, I can show you those moments that were saved. At least you can see a bit of the location, and hear the joy (and exhaustion) in our voices. Fair warning: the camera moves around quite a bit.
I believe there’s something positive to take away from this. Just because we can’t always have everything the way we want it, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth struggling for. I would have loved to have that performance of mine captured so that I could share it with you, but it’s gone forever. I would equally have loved to have a Star Wars character proudly bear the moniker ‘Jad’, but that’s not going to happen either. No point in complaining. If it wasn’t for my JadOnTV campaign and this blog, I would have never met up with Jon Mooallem, nor would I have had this amazing adventure through the desert of Tatooine. I have experienced more incredible moments than most Star Wars fans dream of, and I am eternally grateful for each one. Jon has written a wonderful article, and I am truly honored to have been a part of it.
I’ll leave you with my favorite picture of myself, staring out across the Tunisian salt flats. The world is big; there is always more out there worth searching for.
Fellow Star Wars fanatics - I’ve had an amazing experience. I just read an advance copy of a magazine article about me and other fans who have traveled to the original filming locations. It’s written by Jon Mooallem, who journeyed with me to the Sarlacc Pit site last June, and the article will appear in the March issue of Harper’s Magazine. It’s quite a nifty piece, if I do say so myself. Also, since it mentions this blog by name, I’ve decided to renew the url for another year. So I’m not going away just yet.
As soon as I see the issue on the stands, I’ll let you know!
Hey folks. Time to get this out in the open. The new year has brought me new perspectives and interests, and this blog isn’t one of them. I’m shutting down JadOnTV.com. I had a good run, and even got in contact with a few friends from the past, but it’s time to step away. I’ve found that blogging just isn’t my passion right now - and when your hobby isn’t your passion, it’s just another chore.
And so, as of February 19 2009, I’ll let the domain expire. If you want to buy it and pretend to be me, you have my blessing! So your impersonation may be authentic, you should know I like applesauce, chips & salsa, and Anchor Steam - but not mixed together.
I have already shut down my MySpace, Flickr, Digg, and Twitter accounts, and have changed my display name on the few discussion forums I visit. With each of these acts, this has felt more and more like the right thing to do.
Please do not weep for me! So I’ll never get a character named ‘Jad’ in a Star Wars TV show - the second Lucasfilm rejection letter I recently received made that clear enough. I considered continuing the blog as a chronicle of building a full-size R2-D2, my next big thing, but there’s already dozens of blogs like that. So, I think the internet can go on just fine with one fewer blog clogging the search engines.
Thanks to everyone who read my posts and left the occasional comment. Thanks to George Lucas (but not his phalanx of lawyers) for inspiring and influencing so much of my life. And a big, big thanks to my wife Mary, who always supports me in everything I do, or try to do, or halfheartedly plan on starting to begin to try to do.
Hey folks, I hope you’re having a splendid holiday season. I came across this over at Rebelscum and found it amusing.
Apparently, if you’re a famous Star Wars artist and author like Matt Busch, you can sneak a new character into the universe and name it after yourself! Behold: MB-RA-7.
This is a two-year-old post, but for some reason all the pictures dropped out of the original in the archives. Some kind readers asked about it, so I’ve reposted it here with the pics!
If you’re like me, you like to have a Halloween costume that makes an impact. I’ve found that of all my homemade costumes over the years, nothing had such an impact as the time I was Jabba.
Being that Halloween is mere hours away, I thought I’d share with you my process for making a Jabba the Hutt costume (or, for the ladies in the house, Gardulla The Hutt) in two hours flat.
YOU WILL NEED:
An old baseball cap
An old belt
A khaki or tan shirt, & pants
Miles of packaging tape, clear or tan-colored
Yards of tan construction paper, brown butcher’s paper, scrap wallpaper, etc.
Many magic markers - green, brown, blue, red, orange, etc.
Many garbage bags - the cheap, lightweight, white ones
A whole lot of scrap paper - newspapers, PhD dissertations, anything that can be disposed of
A desire to avoid open flame - this costume is heavy on the paper!
Basically, there are two parts: the head, which you wear as a hat, and the body, which is slung off the belt. First, put your baseball cap on a stand - I used my vacuum cleaner. Start filling garbage bags with balled-up scrap paper, and tape them onto the hat. Keep going until you’ve built up a rough shape of the dome-like head.
You’ll want a big gut on the front and a big bulbous back, but leave space on the sides for your arms to stick out. You can start drawing on the paper with your markers - use horizontal lines to give the impression of overlapping layers of fat. Now you can start cutting smaller pieces of paper and forming the face. I made mine so that I could see out of the nose holes. Again, your process is a continual application of paper, marker, & tape. Eventually you may end up with something like this.
Be sure to put in a red tongue, lolling out the side of his mouth! Use flaps of brown paper to cover the tops of your arms; this will completely sell the illusion that you are in fact a 1000 pound intergalactic crimelord slug . Tape is your friend; you can always pull off and redo any part that you don’t like.
The process for making the body is basically the same, and should go a lot quicker. Cram your scrap paper into your garbage bags, tape them to the belt, repeat. Use as much as you possibly can - you want to have BULK! Cover the body & tail with the brown paper, secure with tape, and keep drawing on it with your markers. Having a few reference photos of Jabba is handy, but not necessary. Eventually you’ll end up with your costume’s two parts: head & tail.
Put it all together, and you should look something like this:
Now, if I had it to do over again, obviously I would make the tail quite a bit bigger. At the time, I was under a serious time crunch. Plus I ran out of paper. You’re looking at me, circa May 1999, entering the Waterloo, Iowa KFMW Rock 108 Episode 1 Costume Contest. Did I win? Frak yeah! I got like 90 bucks worth of stuff, including the Phantom Menace soundtrack, a Sammy Hagar CD, two t-shirts, and a ballcap, which was handy, seeing as how I destroyed a ballcap in making the costume!
Seriously, if anyone out there attempts this costume, send me some pics and I’ll post them here! I think you’ll find this is a lightweight, impressive, disposable, and above all CHEAP costume that will definitely make an impact. Try to stay in character by uttering deep evil laughs; say “wookie nipple pinchy” a lot; or, better yet, get a chained up slave girl!
Rebelscum has just revealed some UK-exclusive Topps trading cards showing some new characters from the Star Wars: Clone Wars TV show. [Spoiler Alert if you don't want to know anything about the show, but this is a minor spoiler.]
Check out this picture:
See that fella at the bottom left?
Cad Bane.
My name is Jad Bean.
Hm.
If you’re new to this site, let me bring you up to speed. I started this campaign over two years ago to solicit, plead, and beg to have a character, however minor, named ‘Jad’ on one of the upcoming Star Wars TV shows. I’ve written to many Star Wars celebrities, asking for their support, and have gotten a few replies, for which I am very grateful. Then I wrote to George Lucas and other Clone Wars writers and producers, showing them I had the support of Boba Fett, Squid Head, and others, and to please consider the name ‘Jad’ for a character, however minor or insignificant that character may be.
But I have had no positive replies from any of my letters to Lucasfilm. In fact, my letter to Clone Wars Director Dave Filoni was returned to me with a Lucasfilm form letter, informing me that since my letter contained ‘unsolicited creative ideas or projects’, it was unread. I got that back on the 23rd of June ‘08, and haven’t blogged about it because I was so discouraged.
So now I find myself at a crossroads. There is now a Star Wars character that has a name REALLY REALLY REALLY CLOSE to my name. In all my letters to Lucasfilm, I never asked to have my last name, ‘Bean’, used in the character’s name, yet this Cad Bane’s surname is eerily similary to Bean! But I have no concrete reason to think that Lucasfilm is actually aware of my site or named the character after me. Furthermore, now that there is a ‘Cad’, I have to ask myself if it’s likely Lucas would also name a character ‘Jad’. For example, would we expect to find a new character named ‘Shan Holo’?
So now I have to ask myself, do I go on with this campaign?
It’s like, if I had never started this website, and then they revealed the Cad Bane character, it would be my new favorite character, because his name is so similar to my name. I’m genuinely excited to see him on the cartoon, and I’m sure when his action figure comes out, I’ll buy one. However, I set out on this task to get a character named ‘Jad’, and while ‘Cad’ is very close, that one letter difference is still a difference.
Alright, so here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to write to Dave Filoni again, and ask if the name ‘Cad’ was indeed inspired by my name. There’s a chance, however unlikely, that one of my letters to the Lucasfilm creative staff actually got through. It’s possible my name was the inspiration for Cad Bane, and I just never heard back from the Powers That Be.
Do I think this is the most parsimonious explanation? Of course not. It’s far more likely that whoever named the character Cad Bane did so without a whit of knowledge of my site. But, there is no harm in asking.
Mr. Dave Filoni, if you’re reading this, that means my second letter got through to you. Please let me know if my name was the inspiration for Cad Bane’s name. If not, please let us all know what was the inspiration for that name, as I always enjoy trivia like that. Also, if you think it would make me feel better, please don’t hesitate to lie!
UPDATE!
On the March 25 2009 episode of The Force-Cast Podcast, I submitted a question to Dave Filoni, asking him to confirm, finally, if Cad Bane was named after me, Jad Bean. He responded that Cad Bane was named by George Lucas, and his name was NOT inspired by my name. It’s just a coincidence. There’s no more definitive word on the subject than Dave Filoni’s. I can’t say as I’m surprised, as it had always been a long shot.
Many thanks to Jason, Jimmy Mac, and everyone else at the Force-Cast for asking my question, and putting this issue to rest!
A curious item heralds my return to blogging. Most of you will remember that I am a huge fan of DST’s Minimates. While I was at San Diego Comic Con ‘08, I stopped by the DST booth and immediately checked out the Minimates display. I had already seen most of the new figures online, but then I spied an odd, colorful package tucked away at the bottom of the case. Witness:
Click the pic if you want to buy your own.
So, a toy of a Food Network Star. What does this portend for the future? The potential is limitless! I want a little Guy Fieri with which to film my own mini-TGI Friday’s commercials. Perhaps he and Jamie Oliver can face off against an army of Rachel Ray clones (Rachel Ray loses, BTW). And I have always wondered: could Alton Brown wield the Power of Grayskull??? (The answer is yes, at least on my living room floor).
Does anyone remember those awful late 80’s toys Food Fighters? I’m going to have to track down a Combat Carton for my Chef Duff.
Howdy folks! I’ve taken a hiatus from blogging recently, because sometimes you just gotta rent a Mustang convertible and drive up Highway 1 to San Francisco, eating all manner of tacos and seafood and chicken feet and other delicious things along the way. Summer is short, people, and life is even shorter. Well, you know what I mean.
But not three days since returning to San Diego, the A-Bomb of Geekdom storms through town: San Diego Comic Con. I’ve been wanting to go to one for years. Mary and I moved to San Diego last year on August 1st, just barely missing SDCC ‘07. The copious Iron Man banners around the city served as shiny reminders that we missed out on THE COOLEST EVENT IN SAN DIEGO.
Or so it would seem.
I have only had two other fan convention experiences. The first was in junior high, when my dad took me and some friends to a baseball card & comic show in Davenport, Iowa. We met Terry Beatty, artist on the short-lived DC’s comic series Wild Dog. Speaking to an actual, real-live comic book artist was a transformative event for our tiny geeky minds. That is, until we discovered girls the next year.
Who am I kidding, it took us DECADES to discover girls.
Anyway, my second con was Star Wars Celebration IV in May ‘07 in Los Angeles, which was a significant step up from the Davenport baseball card show. I’ve written a lot about Celebration IV, suffice it to say that it ws an incredibly fun experience.
So I had high hopes that SDCC ‘08 would be all the fun of CIV times a million-billion. After all, it’s the biggest comic/sci-fi/fantasy/gaming/hollywood convention ever, and it’s right in my back yard! What could go wrong? Well, as Yoda wisely said, ‘Size matters not.’ It turns out, Comic Con is just too big for its own good. Last year had a record turnout of 125,000 people, and this year will probably top that. The crowds are thick, the lines are long, and what’s even more disappointing, it’s not about the subculture anymore. Think about it - the top movies of the year include The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and even Hellboy II, with Watchmen (!) a highly anticipated early ‘09 release. You see, comic book culture isn’t subculture anymore - it’s just culture. There is no cache in going to Comic Con when all the scoops are instantly blogged, all the new toys are instantly photo’d and posted. I wish it weren’t true, but Comic Con just isn’t that much fun.
Now I’m sure there are plenty of people who are having a blast at the con, even as I type this at 10 AM on Saturday morning, the opening hour of the con’s busiest day. For many, Comic Con is the best time of the year, and I’m glad some people do enjoy the experience. So let me recap my personal highlights from Thursday, the first full day of the con and the only day I attended.
- I saw William Katt and the whole cast of Greatest American Hero - believe it or not.
- I bumped into Steve Sansweet on the exhibition floor, and while it was crowded, I got to say ‘hello’ briefly. He remembered me from my visit to his Rancho Obi-Wan.
- I shook the gigantic hand of Lou Ferrigno, though I refuse to pay the $20 he was charging to get a picture with him.
- I saw Nite Owl’s Archimedes ship from the upcoming Watchmen movie, James Bond’s Aston Martin from Quantum of Solace, the huge Iron Monger suit from Iron Man, and a ‘driller’ vehicle from the GI Joe movie. Nice pics of all of these can be found here and elsewhere around the interwebs.
- I got a free Minimate at the Diamond Select Toys booth, and saw the upcoming Minimate of Chef Duff, star of Ace of Cakes. Minimates of celebrity chefs - how cool is that?
- And finally, my personal favorite moment, I got to meet Richard Hatch, star of old and new Battlestar Galactica!
My first encounter with a BSG actor, and based on how friendly Mr. Hatch was, I hope it’s not my last!
I am sad that Comic Con didn’t turn out to be what I was expecting, but so be it. I’m glad I gave it a shot, and hope everyone there right now is enjoying themselves!
Alright everyone, it’s time to show your support for the greatest Star Wars podcast around - The Force-Cast! The fine crew of the Force-Cast along with TallestJawa has assembled a humorous clip that defies description, called George Lucas Hip Hop Awards. What’s more, if this clip wins, then Force-Cast host Jason will fly out to San Diego Comic Con to personally receive his reward!
If you love the Force-Cast as much as I do, then you should vote early and often! And if you happen to hate the Force-Cast, then you should STILL vote for this clip, because Jason HATES flying!
There is a natural, logical cycle to life, and it is thus: the better the weather outside, the lousier the television programming inside. Summer is upon us, which means the television landscape has become a dumping ground of reruns, game shows, and other assorted dross. That means I’ll be posting less frequently - I refuse to cover I Gave Your Grandma An Orgasm or whatever dreck that Fox thrusts at us.
But I just may find time to check out Dr. Horrible this summer, as it fulfills a number of entertainment prerequisites:
Joss Whedon involved? Check
Starring Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris? Check
