Tuesday, March 07, 2017

the empire strikes bag

hello there


the obsession Tesco has with a Star Wars tie-in continues, then. this is something which more or less started, look you see, in late 2015, when the store elected to have a Star Wars themed weekend. it was a themed weekend which saw absolutely everything in their stores re-branded to reflect the popular series of films, with particular attention paid to the then most recent of films, Episode VII : Mission To Moscow, or whatever it was called.

a legacy of this branding has been the constant if not perpetual availability of "bags for life" being sold by Tesco - for £1 a go - which feature images off of Star Wars. well, selective ones. thus far one has been able to purchase bags what feature the first of the films, and the above mentioned one.

it was with some interest, and financial investment thereafter, that i saw they have now moved on to a third film released under the guise of the Star Wars series, and this time related to what many would argue as being the best and most treasured of the films. no, not that one, the other one.



yes, as you have probably worked out from all the clues and the title of this post, Tesco in their infinite wisdom now allow, or if you prefer encourage, patrons to purchase bags what have The Empire Strikes Back on them. indeed the above is presented in Commodore 64 mode, and to be sure a non-Commodore 64 mode version appears below if for some reason you want to see that.

and yes further indeed the above is one of the more iconic images off of the film, with Lord Vader, or if you like Darth Vader, reaching out to Luke after battering him. i can't say too much of what's being said in the above scene captured for it might be all spoiler related.

the other side of the bag? well, when you consider The Empire Strikes Back as a whole there are numerous iconic images they could have lifted. some would be predictable, others not. it would have been a wonderful opportunity to showcase two of the most endearing and popular characters from this film - Lobot and Lando Cardassian or whatever he was called, but instead Tesco went with something else. a less obvious image, granted, but something else.



that is indeed an image of the robot couple, C3PO and R2D2, watching that spaceship off the film - the Enterprise, or whatever - blasting off on some sort of space mission adventure quest thing. not, as i said, quite an obvious image for one to select off of The Empire Strikes Back, but also one what they would not have to pay too many royalties or image rights for using, since no faces feature.

i actually suspect that this image was used as a heading off sort of retaliation response to the criticism which Tesco did not quite get for not using the more recent Rogue One, or rather more appropriately called Renegade Ten, for branding and profit purposes. that most recent of films overtly implied a loving relationship between two gentlemen of the rebellion, and perhaps Tesco did not want to get involved or otherwise embroiled in a whole mass debate around homosexuality in made up stories.

Tesco turning around and using an image of the gay robots from the films -  two dearly loved characters who dominated the first 20 minutes of the first film and paved the way for other male relationship films like Brokeback Mountain and The Lord Of The Hobbits - would, you think, stave off any criticism of being against gay relationships in space.

it would be quite fair to say that Tesco are much, much better at being a supermarket or retailer than i am, but this should not be a barrier to throwing some criticism their way. the bags are, to an extent, rather shoddily made. have a look.



no, that is not me holding the bag up to a mirror. at the top, where the seam is to really tie the whole bag together, they have just used the same material. that's a bit wasteful of the prints that is, and is somewhat distracting when you use the bag for shopping, or whatever. well, what do you expect for £1 these days, i suppose. quite a bit from Poundland, actually, but not so much, i guess, from the of the prestige grocers.

there is but a limited and finite number of things which i could say about Tesco shopping bags and gay robot adventures in space, so to mix it up a bit here is what March has brought for me to gaze upon in regards of my "concept art" Star Wars calendar, what i have hanging in my shed.



for some reason Blogger has elected to load this up sideways as i type. with good fortune you will, however, be able to see it the correct way around on whatever device you happen to be looking at it on. if, indeed, you are looking at it. which you must be if you are reading this, otherwise i am partially wasting time typing it all. but i enjoy doing it, so there.

what is being seen here in this concept art? well, the top half shows what i presume to be a scene at that bar on that planet with two suns and that. the second, lower image would appear to hint at a proposed earlier confrontation between Darth Vader and that workshy, fake orphan sibling abuser called Luke. it's not, so far as i am aware, a scene which was filmed or ended up in the movie.

a look at the Darth Vader side of the bag, with that annoying mirror image thing along the seam, in non-Commodore 64 mode to finish off with, then.



i do look forward to seeing what Star Wars film them at Tesco use next. it would be nice if they used something off of the ever popular, highly celebrated "prequel" ones, as there were some absolutely amazing visuals in them. if they are going in sequence, however, we will probably get something showing that fat ugly slug thing off of Return Of The Jedi next. and, at the rate in which they produce them thus far, this will probably only happen next year, any how.

until then, then, or at least until the next post here,



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



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