Club Jade

Howard Roffman, speaking at a European licensing conference, says that we’ll be seeing the Seth Green comedy project (which may or may not be named Star Wars: Detours) “within the next two years.” From a press released found by Jedi News:

[Roffman] said that Lucas has always found Star Wars parodies extremely funny, citing a brutally frank French & Saunders parody as an example, and is thrilled to be exploring opportunities in a new area of the brand.

It’s not much – or anything all that surprising – but things have been quiet on the comedy front lately. (Yes, of course George has a sense of humor.)

I believe he’s referring to a Phantom Menace skit French & Saunders did in 1999 – unless they did another – which I’ve embedded below the cut. (more…)

Turning to Star Wars for comedy value is nothing new – in the past few years, three Family Guy parodies and three Robot Chicken specials have mined the saga for laughs. But LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace breaks some new ground for Star Wars entertainment: not only is it funny and full of jokes, it also tells a new adventure that builds on both the classic and prequel trilogies. It breaks from the style of the LEGO Star Wars video games by having the characters talk rather than just use gestures and non-word vocalizations, but it would be slow to tell a story if all the dialogue had to be pantomimed. The Padawan Menace in two words, stolen from one of the younglings: Totally Awesome! (more…)

Star Wars Insider: Issue #127 hits the shelves this week, with Titan Magazines putting an overview online of its 100 pages. The cover article explains why Han Solo is still the man, and other features include a look at the new Star Tours attraction, an interview with Timothy Zahn, a look back at the radio dramas, and an extract from Drew Karpyshyn’s forthcoming The Old Republic: Revan novel.

Meanwhile, Del Rey announced on Facebook that a Darth Vader short story (not written by Haden Blackman) will be coming to an upcoming issue of the Insider.

Riptide: Just as Comic-con was getting going, Del Rey released a third mini excerpt from the upcoming novel Riptide by Paul S. Kemp.

LEGO Star Wars: The Padawan Menace: After being broadcast over this past weekend on Cartoon Network, the animated LEGO Star Wars special will be coming to DVD and Blu-ray on September 16, coinciding with the Star Wars saga Blu-ray release. Also, Scholastic is putting out an adaptation for the kids of the show, sayeth Amazon. Stay tuned for our review of the hilarious adventure.

Friday is traditionally Star Wars day at Comic-Con, and we had a full slate of Star Wars-related panels, and Seth Green returned to crash another one of them. While there was no Star Wars Spectacular, attendees in San Diego got their fill from different Star Wars licensees.

Del Rey’s Star Wars book panel was minimally staffed this year – only editor Shelly Shapiro and Choices of One author Timothy Zahn were up on stage. Shapiro gave a quick overview of upcoming titles (both novels and reference guides) and release dates from Del Rey, with no new title announcements. She did mention that in X-Wing: Mercy Kill there will be two Wraith Squadrons, and neither knows about the other. The original novella being written for Lost Tribe of the Sith print edition was described as a “big chunk” by John Jackson Miller, lurking in the audience.

Tim answered questions about Thrawn’s characteristics. Shelly responded that the canceled Blood Oath is essentially erased and overwritten in the timeline, while Imperial Commando 2 isn’t being pursued for the near future, though they do want to finish the series. Tim talked about having his bits of his EU works overwritten by George Lucas by using Bill Slavicsek’s analogy of working in Star Wars: playing on George Lucas’ driveway when he could back up the truck at any moment. He also gave his views of how the Force works: for power or guidance, with Yoda focusing more on listening to the Force for guidance over using it for power. More questions focused on Tim’s response to Mara Jade’s death (and how Tim would have written Serenity), Shelley’s views on character death and the anecdotal revelation that George Lucas gave the approval to kill off Han Solo when they were developing Vector Prime for NJO (only Luke and Leia were declared no-kill). And, of course, some of the usual questions about continuity and such.

You can check out the Del Rey panel for yourself: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Randy Stradley, in his Imperial officer uniform, started off Dark Horse’s Star Wars panel with some minor announcements (apparently New York Comic Con will get the official announcements): Star Wars comics being finally available digitally (some even for free), a new John Ostrander and Jan Duursema project, a new John Jackson Miller project, and a new Tom Taylor project. He then got all the panelists to reveal their favorite Star Wars comics moments, which led to hoojibs. Some further announcements include the opportunity for The Clone Wars comic story between seasons 4 and 5, and that one The Clone Wars comic story will be adapted an story arc for the show, and a new Vader project by Haden Blackman. Most of the Q&A was directed at Holocron keeper, Leland Chee, but then later went to hoojib zombies, constantly making the galaxy bigger, and another new series – Agent of the Empire, with a focus away from the Jedi or Sith. And Seth Green took the podium in this panel to relate his favorite Star Wars comics: Tag and Bink, and mentioned that his upcoming animated Star Wars comedy series may “smell like Robot Chicken”.

Watch the Dark Horse panel: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

The LEGO Star Wars panel started off Friday morning as a one-stop shop for all things LEGO Star Wars: a little look at the most recent LEGO Star Wars video games, some of the upcoming LEGO Star Wars building sets, including a new TIE Fighter set, and the new Queen Amidala figure, and ending with a few clips of the LEGO Star Wars animated special, The Padawan Menace, which aired last night on Cartoon Network (and will be running a few more times over the weekend). My recommendation: watch this hilarious animated special. While it takes place in the Clone Wars and focuses on C-3PO (voiced by Anthony Daniels) as he manages a group of unruly padawans, while Yoda and a youngling named Ian (or is it really someone else we know that’s just one letter off?) try to keep Asajj Ventress from stealing some plans. Written by Michael Price (from The Simpsons), there is a lot of fun and comedy here for all Star Wars fans. It was revealed after the panel that The Padawan Menace will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 16, to coincide with Blu-ray release of the Star Wars saga.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any releases at all, but this week thankfully bring a few! First off, on Tuesday, you pick up the Robot Chicken: Star Wars III DVD or Blu-Ray. Hilarity we haven’t seen since Robot Chicken: Star Wars II! io9 catches up with creator Matt Senreich on why there’s no Robot Chicken Star Trek and gets an exclusive deleted scene about Princess Leia.

If you’re a fantasy fan, there’s also A Dance with Dragons, the long-awaited fifth volume of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. (You know, the one that began with Game if Thrones Which is now an HBO series? Yeah.) But more on that later.?

Meanwhile, there’s an actual comic in stores on Wednesday. A new storyline launches with Invasion: Revelations #1.

And come Saturday, it’s also time for the annual summertime wish-it-were-cooler tradition of the Hallmark Ornaments Premiere Weekend.

Next week? Choices of One! SDCC attendees and/or San Diego natives can enter a contest to win lunch with Tim Zahn and editor Shelly Shapiro while they’re in town for the con.

File this one under the ‘so not for me.’

Lucasfilm/LEGO/The Cartoon Network have a press release today detailing The Padawan Menace, a standalone TV special that will premiere Friday, July 22.

Tour guide Master Yoda leads a group of rambunctious Jedi younglings through Senate chambers when he senses a disturbance in the Force. Summoned to help save the Republic, he discovers that one of the younglings secretly boarded his ship…and has a taste for adventure! Meanwhile, C-3PO and R2-D2 are put in charge of the boisterous group and find themselves in over their heads. As the evil Sith prepare to wreak havoc, it’s up to Yoda and the droids to ensure that their young charges aren’t torn to bricks!

No doubt the kids will love it.

Coming soon spotted a LEGO Star Wars poster at at the Licensing International Expo that promises a TV special for Fall 2011. They also mention “a second animated series” with “a completely new and fun direction” that could be either this or the Seth Green comedy show. I don’t even know anymore.

George Lucas was on CNN’s Connect the World yesterday. In the video, he mentions, along with The Clone Wars, a TV show called Star Wars Detours. From the transcript:

But there’s a lot of different aspects of it that have been quite amusing and fun to be a part of. Like amusement park rides, and it’s — I really enjoy it. Now, I’m working on television shows, “Clone Wars” and another show called “Star Wars Detours.”

I would lay even money on Detours being the comedy show that Lucasfilm is doing with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, which from what little we’ve heard does sound like it could be something of a detour. But I’m not expecting we’ll get much more anytime soon. OR WILL WE? Hell, it’s probably just a working title. Oh, George!

Lucas also said that after Red Tails he’ll “probably move away” from Star Wars and “do my own personal kinds of movies.” Never heard that one before….

Den of Geek is claiming that British writer Matthew Graham, co-creator of the BBC shows Life On Mars (not the U.S. remake) and Ashes To Ashes, may be one of the writers on the Star Wars live-action series.

We got in touch with Matthew Graham and asked him whether the news was true. All he would say to us was that he had done some work out at LucasFilm during 2008 and 2009 “on something unbelievably cool”, and that his contract “had come to an end”. “I hope one day I’ll be able to talk about it,” he told us.

Possible? Possible: Rick McCallum said in a 2008 Star Wars Insider interview that two of the show’s writers were British.

Graham also wrote a recent Doctor Who two-parter. Other high-profile Brit genre TV writers have been approached: Russell T. Davies, who spearheaded the current Who revival, said he down an offer from George Lucas.

The Star Wars scripts are currently shelved; Producer Rick McCallum recently said they hope to start production in “three or four years.”

Producer Rick McCallum, in an interview with Czech Position, says that the live-action series is several years away.

“The TV series is on hold, but that has nothing to do with the Czech Republic; it has to do with [the episodes being] so ambitious,” McCallum told Czech Position. “We have 50 hours of third-draft scripts, but the problem we have is there is a lot of digital animation; we don’t have the technology yet to be able to do them at a price that is safe for television. Since we would be financing them, it would be suicide for us to do this [now]. So we are going to wait three or four years,” he said.

In addition to giving us a tentative production timeline, he reiterates a few things about the basic premise of the series.

“Basically, it is like ‘The Godfather’; it’s the Empire slowly building up its power base around the galaxy, what happens in Coruscant, which is the major capital, and it’s [about] a group of underground bosses who live there and control drugs, prostitution,” McCallum said.

So… By Celebration VII, then? Maybe.