Pinball Hall of Fame

In Las Vegas, no too far from the Strip, there's a wonderful place for those who love classic arcade and pinball games called, Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame. It's on Tropicana right across from the ruins of the Liberace Museum. And just down the street from a great English pub, The Crown and Anchor (serve great, traditional fish & chips).

I took my daughter here a couple of days ago, along with my new Canon T2i and took some pictures. So enjoy stepping back into the 80's arcade.

Click on picture to enlarge.

The Hall of Fame has pinball from all eras (50's -today)

Tons of classic pinball machines.

Many of the machines have notes and QR codes

Double-fisted Star Trek.

 The Pinball Hall of Fame also has tons of old 70's and 80's arcade games and what I love about them is that they are the originals not the replicas that you seen at Ruby Tuesdays.

Spy Hunter is my favorite classic arcade game.

The Tron joystick brings back memories.

Because the graphics were horrible, the game depended on glass design to portray the actual story of the game. When a spy car is really just a 16 X 16 pixel white block with a couple of red pixels for headlights, it's hard to imagine you're the new James Bond. That's why the glass had to be exciting and thrilling.

If you grew up in the 80's this vector Star Trek game was the shit. It did not get any better than this game - Red Barron, Tail Gunner and BattleZone came close. I have so many fond memories of this game.

Strange crack the safe game

A claw game you can actually win

Old fashioned baseball game

There are also quite of few traditional, mechanical penny arcade games as well.

And last but not least they have a Star Wars pinball game with the original "Death Star" lever to release the ball.

Love the graphic here .. I wonder if this came with the original package.

If you're in Vegas, you got to give this place a try. It's a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of Tim the owner. He's always there at the back. Drinking a diet and listening to NPR.

Tim Arnold enjoying his creation.

All photographs are copyright and property of Kmuzu / Cram. All rights reserved. Copyright 2011 Cram / Kmuzu. No replication, duplication, publication or manipulation without first written permission from me the author.

My Vision of Star Wars

33 years ago I saw Star Wars at the now demolished Parkway Theater in Las Vegas. I was twelve years old and forgot my glasses. There was only room in the last two rows and I saw the whole movie as one blurry, color smudge. No matter how much I begged, my parents never took me back. That was my Star Wars experience.

Two years later my friend got a bootleg copy of the movie on Betamax and I finally got to see what all the fuss was about. I watch the movie like fifteen times. So many times, that my friend ended our friendship because all I wanted to do was watch the movie.

One year after that, Empire Strikes Back was released and this time I wore my glasses. Star Wars was good but Empire was so much better. It was dark and complex. There was so much more time and effort invested in the characters and almost all of the silliness had been taken out. Even Yoda was a bad ass.

Where Star Wars was more of a space opera, Empire Strikes Back was closer to 80's cyberpunk. Luke, like Hamlet was brooding and unsure; driven too much by his emotions to be a good Jedi. Hans was almost an anti-hero - selfish, egotistical, and a bit of a user - but it was only a shield to protect a vulnerable heart. And Leah was the perfect princess - Passionate, beautiful and an ass kicker.

Empire completely captivated me and I would have turned into the biggest Star Wars Geek had the series stop there .. but ..

In 1983, the year I graduated from high school, the last Star Wars movie - Return of the Jedi was released. You have to remember that this was the height  of American scifi/fantasy/horror movie making. E.T. was released in 1982. Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981. Alien in 1979 and Aliens in 1986. Ghost Busters in 1984 and Back to the Future in 1985.

I'm sorry if you were younger than 10 in 1980, because you missed it. This may be going a bridge too far but the 80's was the last great period of American Exceptionalism .  America hit this incredible height and then by 1990 it faltered. More like stumbled and fell.

Back to Star Wars ...

I was right there during the actual movie premiere experience of Star Wars and it's hard to fathom now my excitement for the last movie, Return of the Jedi - which was supposed to be Revenge of the Jedi. I remember purchasing tickets the moment the theater box office opened and then waiting in line with my friends - finally pushing our way in and sitting down in the middle of the middle row.. squarely facing the screen.

The lights faded .. and that classic Star Wars music started in .. with that classic Star Wars Chyron generated yellow script flowing past .. my body tingled ..The movie starts with C3PO and R2D2 at the front of a giant metal door - it was so exciting what could be behind that door .. The door opens and the two droids enter Jabba the Hutt's chambers. It's dark and it's hard to make out what the creature is .. finally light illuminates it .. and it turns out to be the stupidest D&D orc- holding a battle axe.

It never got any better. There were was the torturing of droids by placing hot irons on rubber feet. Lucas made R2D2 into a cocktail waitress. There was this monster in the desert that represented a vagina. Little Teddy Bear creatures named Ewoks. And Darth Vader turned out to be some old bald white guy. It was just sad.

Return of the Jedi wasn't a horrible movie - it was a bad movie and one of the greatest let downs ever in my movie watching experience. Even worse than Highlander II or Mission to Mars or even that one Star Trek movie where they go to meet God. The worst part is I really couldn't say anything cause all my friends were gooshing .. gaga .. wasn't that fantastic .. I hated them.

It was almost like Lucas purposely ruined his own dream.

Later on I discovered that Empire Strikes Backs was directed by Irvin Kershner, who made Eyes of Laura Mars - a great thriller. And that by the time Empire was in production Lucas was not as interested in the creative process and had relatively little influence ..

But the success of Empire led to the destruction of Return of the Jedi. Lucas I guess had to show he still had the balls to direct and you can see all of that now infamous Lucas Marketing Scourge all over the film.

Had it not been for Return of the Jedi, I would have been one of those Star Wars fans .. that dress up and go to all the conventions.

The next three movies after Jedi are really the first three movies. Who knows .. it would take too long to follow the logic. Anyway the three films after Jedi may be the saddest point in Scifi movie history.

If you have some time please watch Red Letter's Nine Part Star Wars Review ---> Star Wars