Once upon a movie storybook

You don't really see the storybooks for big blockbuster films anymore, but I genuinely used to think they were a vital part of the whole movie experience. 

Back when the idea of getting a copy of an actual movie was basically impossible, the storybooks were the next best thing - telling the plot of the film in a few dozen pages, with lavish full colour movie stills.

I still have a couple I had back in the day - the one for the third Mad Max film, which really made it look like family friendly fun, Thunderdome and all; the one for David Lynch's Dune, which really did make it look like the next Star Wars; and the the one for Return of the Jedi, which actually was the next Star Wars. 

I still cherish my copy of the Star Trek III: The Search For Spock storybook, because I got it right at he time I was first absolutely obsessed with all things Trek, and that love still radiates off the page when I flick through it; and I still have one for the Phar Lap movie, a film that absolutely nobody cares about these days, but was the only movie storybook that ever showed up in the Scholastic Book Club thing at school.

I read them all a hundred times before I ever saw the movies, and it may be part of the reason I'm not really bothered by spoilers. Because while these books gave you the entire plot, they never diminished the thrills of the actual film. You don't get the subtleties of the acting, or the rush of the music, just the facts, man. 

I'm sure kids these days find ways to obsess about movies long before they actually get to see them, but the storybooks always worked for me.