Wear Star Wars Every Day: Weeks 31 & 32


Wear Star Wars Every Day moves into August with some summer Star Wars fashions! Week 31 wraps up July and kicks off the 8th month, then Week 32 is all about BB-8, since the 8th day of the 8th month falls during this week! We’ve got shirts, shirts, shirts, and a belt!

Due to the August prize drawings, we’ve had a nice uptick in donations in this two-week period, so huge thanks to Kismet, Nancy, Fen, Mark, and Anonymous! That’s over $300 in just two weeks, including one person who paid their entire year’s daily pledge at once! Big thanks to Scott and Brian for donating shirts. And thanks to everyone who has lent me apparel that I’ve worn in these weeks: Danielle, Caitlin, Anastasia, Paul, Christian, Lori, and Mark! Remember, every day i keep the streak of wearing a different Star Wars apparel item going, that’s another $4.65 pledged from my donors!

Looking at this week, we’ve got stuff from the 501st Legion at Celebration Japan, Chewbacca on a fixie, Admiral Ackbar’s Fish & Chips, and a whole lot of BB-8. This review for Weeks 31 and 32 covers July 29 to August 11 of my wearathon, and an update on fundraising for Collateral Repair Project, a non-profit organization that provides emergency assistance, education, and community support to urban refugees.

Thanks to everyone who has supported Wear Star Wars Every Day so far, both our one-time donors and our per-day pledgemakers. Each day I continue my project is another $4.65 donated by our pledge makers. I’d love to get that total up to $5.00 even (or higher!) for the second half of 2016. If you’d like to chip in at a dime a day or a quarter per day (or more), make your pledge at the per-day pledge form and you can choose whether to support the project for the entire year, or just start at the beginning of July. Or you can just make a one-time or monthly donation at GoFundMe.com/WearStarWars2016. Remember, if you donate in August, you might be eligible to win the prize drawings for an ARC of the upcmoing Ahsoka novel, a Star Wars Celebration Europe Crew shirt, and more!

Get more info on what Wear Star Wars Every Day is all about, or make a donation or a per-day pledge!

In the news: Reports of 3-D Blu-ray coming in spring

Rumor! Pocket Lint report that sources at the Panasonic conference in Hamburg are saying that The Phantom Menace 3D will be coming to Blu-ray in the spring.

Being Ackbar. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub catches up with Erik Bauersfeld, the radio dramatist who provided the voice of Admiral Ackbar and Bib Fortuna.

Sports. Sports Illustrated features Amanda Lucas. She claimed an open-weight women’s championship Saturday in Japan.

Honors. George Lucas accepted a Vanguard Award from Samuel L. Jackson at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards. In his presentation, Jackson talking about lobbying for a role in the prequels: “I’ll be a Storm Trooper and just run across the screen. Nobody even has to know I’m in it.”

A new season of The Clone Wars approaches

The first two episodes of The Clone Wars S4 had their big premiere over the weekend. Bryan Young of Big Shiny Robot attended, and has his review up and ready to go. (Fairly mild spoilers, but only if you haven’t been paying attention.) Be warned, he does say the “level of detail and carnage in these episodes makes Landing at Point Rain look like child’s play.”

If you haven’t been paying attention, USA Today has a feature on the season premiere, or rather, Admiral Ackbar. As far as actual news go, they do drop the name of the Mandalorian that Katee Sackhoff will be voicing later in the season – Bo-Katan.

For everyone who didn’t get an invite to California, the two-episode opener will debut on Cartoon Network next Friday night.

Comic-Con: The Clone Wars Season 4 and more

Thursday’s lineup at Comic-Con in San Diego included panels for The Clone Wars Season 4, The Old Republic MMO.

The Clone Wars panel started off with a general trailer for season four, which will be subtitled ‘Battle Lines’ – the preview showed off many cool things, primarily focusing on an underwater battle between Republic forces and Mon Calamari fighting against Separatist forces, Quarren, and more. Also shown were clone soldiers getting their type two armor & helmets (moving closer to the Revenge of the Sith look). Moderator Pablo Hidalgo tossed questions to director Dave Filoni and producer Cary Silver and showed several more video clips and art slide shows, which hinted at:

  • “Battle Lines” will focus a lot on “Things going boom!” – more action and battles.
  • Initial story arc focusing on the underwater battles between the Mon Calamari (and a young Captain Ackbar) and the Quarren, with Kit Fisto and scuba clones assisting the Mon Calamari, while the Quarren have separatist droids and a new shark-man villain who can slash through a pack of Calamari, like…well, a shark through calamari.
  • Another arc will take us to the always-dark world of Umbara for a clone-centric story as the Republic forces take on the native Umbarans (a first instead of simply attacking battle droids), who have a very different look to their technology. Look for massive ground and space battles (and the introduction of Z-95 Headhunters!
  • A new Jedi general, with a different look on things, of the species of the four-armed Dexter Jettster.
  • Comic episodes with C-3PO and R2-D2 experiencing the war in their own way (and hijacking a Y-Wing) as Grievous duels Adi Gallia. Threepio also ends up with some clonetroopers on a planet mission and hilarity ensues.
  • The Mortis arc from season three is just the beginning into an exploration of the mysticism of the Force, and those Force-wielders.
  • Asajj Ventress and the Nightsisters fighting against a droid army. Dave previewed this rough uncolored clip after he brought up a group of Nightsister costumers from Team Unicorn on stage.
  • As released on Wednesday online, Death Watch is back, and Katee Sackoff voices Pre Vizsla’s lieutenant, who rounds up Lux Bonteri and Ahsoka Tano on a snowy world with her squad of Death Watch Mandalorians.
  • The return of characters such as Bossk, Boba Fett, Cad Bane, Pre Vizsla and Savage Oppress – and the introduction of Dengar!

During the Q&A, Filoni mentioned that he has put a lot of though into Ahsoka’s eventual fate in the show – and that he keeps changing it (at least 8 times) & discussing it with George Lucas as the show and her character continue to develop. Also from the Q&A:

  • No Han! Dave Filoni isn’t interested in introducing a young Han Solo, despite Chewbacca’s appearance at the end of the third season.
  • During the planning of the Holocron Heist story arc, they thought about bringing Durge in as the main villain before George Lucas came up with Cad Bane.
  • Clone commandos may yet return, though it won’t be Delta Squad.
  • Clone commander Wolffe has changing armor designs because Dave Filoni accidentally realized that white on gray for his wolf logo was more visible than the other way around, and apologized to costumers who then had to change paint jobs — then only to change the shape of Wolffe’s helmet entirely. Filoni does now expect clone scuba troopers costumes, possibly functional, at Celebration VI.

Seth Green was invited up in the Q&A, and he helped field a few audience questions, but nothing specific to his upcoming comedy animated Star Wars series.

Overall, I am very excited about season four – it looks like they are going to where the show is the strongest: good Star Wars stories: lots of action and battles, and bringing in new heroes and villains, and some more fun with the droids. And no, Captain Ackbar won’t learn from Anakin Skywalker about the possibility of getting snared by enemy forces, so that he can later recognize his situation at Endor.

As for The Old Republic MMO: Pre-orders have officially begun, with a release date of “Holidays 2011” but with major beta test weekends in September. All panel attendees were given tickets to redeem for guaranteed pre-order reservations. I’m not an MMO player, but given what I saw and heard about TOR, and Bioware’s track record with KOTOR and other single-player role-playing games (Mass Effect, Dragon Age), I’m a bit excited for The Old Republic.

Star Wars at Detroit’s Urban Craft Fair

I headed out to the Detroit Urban Craft Fair this morning… And came across a couple of Star Wars items. Jason Gibner does simple but adorable character paintings. It was Robocop who originally caught our eye, but I bought the Wampa you see above, but he still had a few (including Yoda, Jabba Boba Fett and an Ewok, right) when I left. You can check out the full array on Facebook.

(Irony: I actually blogged about Gibner back in ’07, when his Star Wars pad made the Metro Times’ Motor City Cribs feature.)

The jaunty watercolor Ackbar by Leslie Gauthier also caught my eye. (Have a better look at her blog.)

Of course I forgot my real camera, so apologies for the cruddy iPhone pics. The show is open until 7pm tonight and runs through tomorrow at the Fillmore Detroit (nee The State Theater) downtown. If you’re in the area, I strongly suggest you head out. There’s plenty of art and handmade goods to please everyone!

Quotable quotables: Ackbar rules

It really was a trap, you know? LT sometimes likes to harsh on Admiral Ackbar for so theatrically pointing that out, quite a while after the fact, but I always tell him fuck you. Ackbar rules. He had the balls (figuratively, at least; anatomically, it’s unclear) to say so out loud! Plus, so dashing in the white uniform.

– Mimi Smartypants, ‘as discriminating as a goat’

Ole Miss students campaign for Ackbar mascot

Some students at the University of Mississippi are looking to get the GFFA’s own Admiral Ackbar as the new mascot for the Ole Miss Rebels.

I hate to bring realism into this, but I don’t think the university is chomping at the bit to share merchandise profits with Lucasfilm. Still, one can’t help but wish the crusaders luck. (You can, too: They’re on Twitter.)

And hey: At my university, a bunch of (I say with affection) freaks once managed to muster enough votes to get Burt Reynolds onto the student council. Anything is possible.