Tag Archives: star-wars

Michael Heilemann on the Disney / Lucas deal »

November 1st, 2012

Heilemann, who has been writing about Star Wars for years and is a self-proclaimed Star Wars historian, jotted down his thoughts on the deal and he agrees with me:

On second glance, it’s a staggering deal. Remember, this isn’t ‘simply’ Star Wars; it’s all of Lucasfilm, including the Indiana Jones franchise, and films like Willow and of course Howard the Duck, as well as companies like Lucas Licensing, Lucas Books, ILM and Skywalker Sound and all of the rights associated with them.

I also liked this tidbit.

Also, just as an aside, it’s fun to note how interconnected all of this is. Not only has Disney and Star Wars had a lot of crossover merchandising for years, but Pixar sprung from Lucas’s first attempts at digital filmmaking, Marvel jumped into bed with Star Wars for the comic books as early as the late 70s and The Muppets have had several similar Star Wars crossovers (and of course a certain 3′ green jedi master).

And that just scratches the surface.

A 70-minute video review of The Phantom Menace

December 21st, 2009

This is the best thing I’ve ever seen. Watch it.

/via Every Star Wars geek I subscribe to.

PS. There is a lot of backstory that goes along with this link. An example of which is that Damon Lindelof, the major creative driving force behind LOST and the recent Star Trek film, watched this and said: “Your life is about to change. This is astounding film making. Watch ALL of it.” That is why I’ve decided to leave my link to this video as simple as possible and just say watch it.

The real story behind that Princess Leia bikini photo

November 10th, 2009

If you’re a Star Wars geek, like I am, then you’ve probably seen the photo of Princess Leia and her stunt double soaking up some sun during a Return of the Jedi shoot. The Official Star Wars Blog decided to set the record straight about the origin of the photo – since some of the media outlets that “covered the story” had said the photo leaked onto the net recently.

Yub Yub means “Devour the weak”

June 16th, 2009

This is just awesome. In classic McSweeney form, David Mcardle reports for the Republic Science Academy about the general culture and habits of the Ewoks on the third-moon of Endor. A must read for any Star Wars fan but I’ll quote a short piece here from the section titled Breeding Practices and Mate Selection:

“A grundi rundi traditionally begins at sunset, with ranking males imbibing a highly alcoholic, hallucinogen-laced mead called hibi hibi. Afterward, they fornicate with as many eligible females as possible. Fatalities during and after the grundi rundi are not uncommon, as the animated posturing and intimidation displays often escalate into full-scale physical exchanges.”

Again, a must read.

Random 60: How would you use The Force?

April 14th, 2009

Random 60: How would you use The Force? | Favorite on Viddler.

My friend Chris Coleman and I, from Panera Bread, discuss what we’d do if we had The Force. Chris, who I must thank for allowing me to use his shiny Kodak Zi6 to record today’s Random 60, says that he’d use Jedi mind tricks on dogs. Really, I didn’t want to know more. I think I’d use The Force for simple yet annoying tasks like trying to reach the TV remote when it is out of reach and I’m laying on the couch all comfy-like.

How would you use The Force?

George Lucas, Following his heart back to Star Wars

July 8th, 2008

“I can go and make half a dozen ‘THXes.’ I’ll lose everything I put into them, guaranteed. But I can have a lot of fun doing it.” — George Lucas

Ugh.  This is the same drivel that we heard from George Lucas while he was making the Star Wars prequels.  He kept saying, and I’m quoting loosely here, that “once I’m done with these prequels I’m free to make whatever movies I want, even if I lose money”.

As it turns out, “whatever movies I want” is turning into more Star Wars projects. A lot more.  Currently Lucasarts has created a full-length computer-animated feature-film (like the overuse of hyphens there?), a follow-up episodic computer-animated TV show (of which there are a reported 100 episodes in the bag), and a live action TV show that is currently in the works.

These are a lot of work, even with a staff of thousands that Lucas can beckon any time he needs them.  Producing a film is no small task.  So I think it will be years before we see a THX-esque style film from Lucas.

This isn’t to say that I’m complaining.  I’m a Star Wars fan to the bone marrow. More! More! More!  Oh, the reason I’m writing all of this is to tell you that this is a pretty good article in the New York Times.

Source: Free to Follow His Heart Right Back to ‘Star Wars’.

Just a side note about this article:  The title of the piece is “Free to Follow His Heart Right Back to ‘Star Wars’” while the page title on the Web is “George Lucas, Free to Follow His Instincts Right Back to ‘Star Wars’”.  I found that sorta interesting.

A few fun facts about Star Wars

June 30th, 2008

No where near a complete list of some of the most interesting facts surrounding the creation of what is now one of the most iconic film epics of all time, but there are some interesting tidbits.

A few of the more notable omissions on this list, since they nearly mentioned them but somehow failed to mention them are:

  • Harrison Ford never really read for the part of Han Solo but was filling in to help out with the casting of the other characters.  Lucas and Co. couldn’t find anyone better than Harrison and he agreed to play the part.
  • George Lucas, although he managed to get funding through 20th Century Fox via Alan Ladd, Jr., managed to pen an unprecedented deal for marketing rights.  This included the creation of toys, tshirts, and other products based off of the movie.
  • ILM, or Industrial Light and Magic, the foremost experts in Special Effects and used for a large portion of the movies that continue to be made out of Hollywood (including a division that was spun-off, bought by Apple, Inc. CEO Steve Jobs, and is now named Pixar) all came to be during the filming of the first Star Wars film.
There are others I’m sure.  But I have to recommend that if you are interested in this sort of thing – be sure to watch the special features that ship with the special edition DVD box set of the original Star Wars films.  There is tons of information to be found there.

A storm trooper, Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and I in Hollywood, California

June 19th, 2008

Darth Vader and friends.

Today I did a search on my site for Vader and came up empty-handed.  I just couldn’t stand for that and so I’m posting this photo of me, taken by Daniel Nicolas, with a storm trooper, Darth Vader, and Boba Fett.

As a side note: I paid them $5 to take this photograph.  Vader, Fett, nor the unnamed trooper are friends of mine.  I roll with the Rebels. 4eva!

Ten Star Wars toys that unintentionally look like celebrities

April 15th, 2008

Slave Bale

Slave Bale?

Doesn’t this toy look like ________? How many times have you said that? Topless Robot has found more than a few Star Wars toys that unintentionally resemble celebrities.

“But what about the toys that unintentionally resemble celebrities? In its early years, the Star Wars line suffered from a lot of terrible likenesses, and while we couldn’t find any that looked like Cary Elwes (although there were too many who looked like Corey Feldman to count), we did find ten figures that were the spitting images of actors they were absolutely, positively not intended to resemble.”

This one (pictured) of “Slave Leia” looks more like Christian Bale than it looks like Carrie Fisher. Visit the site for nine more examples.

Source: Topless Robot – The 10 Star Wars Toys that Unintentionally Look Like Other Celebrities.

The Lightsabre Interview: John Mollo

April 8th, 2008

John Mollo, Academy Award winning costume designer, is interviewed by Lightsabre.co.uk. He says this about his work on Star Wars.

“I fins I am very self-critical when I see my work on the screen. In Star Wars I was quite pleased with the officers, guards, pilots, ground crew etc, both Imperial and rebels, for which we had no input from the States, especially with the Imperial officers. In Empire I thought the Snowtroopers worked pretty well.”

Yeah, they worked pretty well.

Source: The Lightsabre Interview.