It's got great fights, distinctive style and art, a diverse and flamboyant cast of muscly badasses.
It's as fun as Dragon Ball without the filler, as steeped in its own lore as Fullmetal Alchemist, and has more to explore than One Piece (there's over 120 volumes of the manga and still more to come).
Shifting the main character and setting every story arc makes it so that it isn't tied down to a single story. There's a mountain of pop culture references if you're into that. It knows exactly how silly it is.
Planet/location concepts by Ralph McQuarrie for the original Star Wars trilogy (that were reused later).
Coruscant started out as Had Abaddon, capital of the empire, and was going to be featured in RETURN OF THE JEDI. It was very very close, but eventually Lucas decided to go with a second Death Star.
Alderaan. I used to wonder why McQuarrie had bothered designing Alderaan as it would only be seen from space anyway. But Alderaan wasn’t always Alderaan: in one draft, the planet was a giant gas planet, and the capital of the New Galactic Empire.
Sicemon, originally the site of Jabba’s palace in RETURN OF THE JEDI. It was then re-purposed as the home of the rebels, then abandoned.
An abandoned “ice castle” on Hoth where the rebels would have their base of operations (you can spot a tiny Han and Chewie).
These images show Vader’s castle, which I’ve featured before. (In fact I’ve featured several of these images before, but I just wanted to do this overview and didn’t want to exclude the more significant concepts.)
The sinkhole planet that would become Utapau. This one dates back to 1976 I believe.
Bonus: This one, by Doug Chiang, is a concept painting for Jakku, which was conceived as a junk planet. Should have used it! I mean THAT is a planet you’d want to escape from. Plus we had already seen a sand planet.
The CollegeHumor Lay Offs and Why They Matter to Me:
I have always been a fan of comedy. I believe most people are in some way or another. I love Judd Apatow movies and Simon Pegg and weird Twitter and stand up comedy and satire and sitcoms and cultural commentary and everything in between. But until I really started engaging with the content from CollegeHumor, Dorkly, Drawfee, and Dropout comedy was something people older than me made, industry types or people who were soon to be industry types. The beauty of CollegeHumor to me was that it was made by people my age who really cared and who liked the things I like and who felt the things I feel. CollegeHumor was different than any other home for comedy online. They knew their audience. They knew their craft and you can tell they worked every day to improve and make the funniest shit they possibly could.
Comedy, when done with love and skill, is something that makes the world better and I believe they made the world better.
a character shaking their head in disbelief or disgust with hand on their forehead, looking down
that kiss animation used since origins and in every mass effect game where they very slowly go in, hesitate, bop their heads around, and really go in for the kiss
when a character, usually female, talks and puts their two hands in front of them like a robot and shakes them to illustrate their point
a character leans back on one leg with their arms loose
the exit-stage-right an NPC does after a conversation ends
angry limp wrist pointing
neck/collar bone scratch
a slow crossing of the arms in times of suspicion
that punch animation
drinking alcohol and violently shaking head
a character gives a half smile with an eyebrow raised
pointing behind with thumb, body turns very slightly