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Alien and Star Wars art director Roger Christian was given £25,000 by George Lucas in 1979 to make a 25-minute medieval B-feature called Black Angel. This spiritual tale of a knight on a strange quest was inspired by Christian’s near-fatal fever when he fell ill in Mexico making Lucky Lady. Black Angel made a huge impression, not least because it shared the dark tone of Empire Strikes Back. John Boorman showed it to the crew of Excalibur as a template for how he wanted his film to look, and Black Angel went on to influence films such as Dragonslayer and Legend throughout the 1980s and beyond. But it has not been seen by anyone since ‘Empire’ finished its theatrical run. Two weeks ago Roger Christian unearthed a print of a film that was thought lost forever, and in this interview he talks about Black Angel, and provides the only picture from the film that has ever hit the Internet.

– Via Slashdot (2010)

As obvious above, Black Angel is now on YouTube.  What was once thought lost is found.  Enjoy.

* Joseph Campbell (one of George Lucas’ most important influences)

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As we transport ourselves to a time a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we might recall that it was on this date in 1999, after 22 years, that Star Wars officially returned to the big screen with the release of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, the first of three prequels to the extremely successful original Star Wars trilogy.  Despite mixed reviews and much fan criticism of the character of Jar-Jar Binks, The Phantom Menace was a massive box office success, earning over $920 million on a $115 million budget.

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