Club Jade

April Fools! Here’s one we missed: First Showing spotted what appears to be an Episode VIII script or treatment that appears very briefly in Peter Jackson’s latest Hobbit behind-the-scenes video, which was released on Monday. Of course, there are also appear to be scripts that say The Silmarillion, which I don’t believe anyone even has the film rights for, so take it as you will. I’m sure you can guess how I’m leaning. Well played, hobbitses.

Box office. The Motley Fool predicts that Episode VII will make a lot of money. Not just a a lot of money (because duh) but that it will go where only James Cameron has gone before: To make $2 billion worldwide. Well, if anyone can, it would be Star Wars… Right?

People. J.J. Abrams talks Star Wars and Star Trek with SFX, while Harrison Ford’s lips are sealed on Entertainment Tonight Oh the humanity. Or maybe he’s just tortured his publicist enough this week.

Back… To the future! Movies.com gathers some Lucas’ quotes on earlier plans for extending the saga.

No, Disney isn’t putting Star Wars in the vault, or pulling a Sleeping Beauty on Lucasfilm. Big thanks to everyone who played along (as is our tradition) and for those of you who fell for it… Better luck next year?

The screen-oriented
The first Star Wars prank of the day was pulled by none other than George Takei himself, who announced on Facebook that he’d be playing “Master Ceti Maru” in Star Wars Episode VII: Galactic Empire. Later on, Tor.com reported statements from Michael Arndt revealing that the film would “contradict the continuity and events of all the existing Star Wars films.”

Meanwhile, Tosche Station asked a newbie what she’s like to see in EpVII, Big Shiny Robot cast Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan, The Bearded Trio ‘confirmed’ that Michael Bay would direct a spinoff film and Fangirl had look at some of The Clone Wars bonus content.

Fandom
The 501st Legion approved some startling new costuming regulations, while Wookieepedia rebranded themselves as Memory Aurek, a “Star Wars/Trek encyclopedia.”

Books and merchandise
Del Rey announced the video game tie-in Pinball: Boba Fett by John Jackson Miller, while ThinkGeek included a Death Star Trench Toss among their arsenal.

Roqoo Depot went for numbers, ‘announcing’ the return of Karen Traviss, a new Denning book and a Doctor Who/Star Wars crossover comic, among others.

This is certainly not everything, so what was your favorite prank this year?

The cancellation of The Clone Wars was not an isolated incident, it seems.

We’re hearing word that Disney is ceasing the release of all new Star Wars products and merchandise until such time as Episode VII is released.

“Star Wars and the fandom has proved to be a bit more of a handful than Disney was expecting,” our source says. “They knew you guys would be difficult but the reality was a complete shock to the company. Their own fandom is, for the most part, far more accepting and docile. Disney isn’t really used to their decisions being greeted with such outright hatred and protest…”

“They’re going to shut everything down and clear the market for a while while they reaccess the situation. The sequel trilogy is still happening, but it may be delayed as late as 2019, depending on various factors.”

Anything that’s not already deep into the production pipeline – aka actually sitting in a warehouse somewhere – will simply not be coming out. Disney expects the last products to drop early this summer, after which nothing new will be produced until we approach the release of Episode VII… Whenever that ends up being.

Disney has long used their ‘vault’ in the service of making animated releases scarce. This is, to our knowledge, the first time an entire franchise has been placed on hold.

We are, however, hearing that no further layoffs are taking place at Lucasfilm itself, although curiously a series of giant thorn bushes had grown up around such company outposts as the Letterman Digital Arts Center and Skywalker Ranch…

You know the drill. APRIL FOOLS!

Has Del Rey even done a prank before? I don’t even remember. But this year, they whipped up a doozy. Beginning with ‘An Apology,’ and then the reveal of the post-Fate of the Jedi series, The Clone Wars 2, by Timothy Zahn. “A series with no end, as long as clones are available there are stories to tell.” (And yes, Zahn actually wrote the excerpt!)

Other Star Wars pranks: StarWars.com introduced the TIE Swatter; Wookieepedia is merging with the Fanon Wiki with the blessing of Dave Filoni, who unmasks himself as SuperShadow; Tom Taylor announces Zombie Fett; Mimobot introduced a limited-edition Jar Jar model; Roqoo Depot begins a ‘Grand Ewok Escapade;’ Jedi News on the sequel trilogy, and the 501st was hacked by the Rebel Legion.

The April Fools Day MVPs at Thinkgeek did it again. Their Star Wars offering is the Admiral Ackbar Singing Bass. The rest are pretty good, too. Some highlights: Keurig 5-Star Meals, Star Trek Inflatable Captain’s Chair, the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie, Game of Thrones Fire and Blood perfume and a Barbie™ Digital Fashion Styling Head for iPad.

Another winner is Spielburgers, a theme restaurant based on the films of Steven Speilberg. Menu offerings include the The Bruce burger, Catch Me If You Cannelloni, Jurassic Pork Pulled Sandwich, and Raiders of the Lost Artichoke.

On the book side, Tor.com has a few gems. The biggest is a manga adaption of last year’s prank, John Scalzi’s Shadow War of the Night Dragon. (All in good fun, Scott Lynch took some expection to the news. They also found a massive Game of Thrones leak and a surprising Robert E. Howard collaboration.

We weren’t the only ones to pull in My Little Pony; MC Chris wrote a song and WeLoveFine is offering hoof-hands and, for fans of another 80′s classic, Jem and the Holographs Projecting Earrings. Synergy!

Pablo announced that he’s going to the Brony Side with the My Little Pony Vault.

Of course, there are plenty of other pranks out there! Some of the most popular are AdBlock’s Catblock, Youtube on DVD, Charlize Theron’s phone hacked, Reddit Timeline and, of course. Google Maps 8 bit (for NES!) Adfreak collects some of the best brand pranks, while April Fools on the Web collects… Well, everything.

We’re only a few months out from Celebration VI, and, Friday’s announcement aside, news has been fairly thin on the ground so far. Luckily, Lucasfilm and Reed have give us at Club Jade a first look at some of the convention’s programming.

Head beneath the cut for some, ahh, treats.

(more…)

As you no doubt already figured out, we’re not actually quitting news blogging to become a recipe blog, as tempting as that may be. However, Club Jade did produce The Ewok Cookbook way back in the mists of internet past, and most of the recipes in that post were from it. Hell, if you can’t joke about eating Ewoks in Star Wars fandom, what can you joke about?

There were quite a few Star Wars pranks this year, but the one that probably got the most coverage was ThinkGeek’s Lightsaber Popsicles. Will they be their next prank to become a real product? Only time will tell! And be sure to check out all of Thinkgeek’s pranks.

StarWars.com ‘rediscovered’ an old zine that ‘predicted’ parts of the prequel trilogy. Wookieepedia went 3-D, TFN reported that The Holiday Special was coming to Blu-Ray, while RebelScum introduced the Vintage Mini Collection. Improve Everywhere’s Jar Jar got ‘accidently’ beaten up on the New York subway. Artist Grant Gould announced a new comic, Jawa Rebellion, while the StarWars.com forums killed off Artoo.

My favorite: The 501st is switching gears to become a costume club for Monty Python And The Holy Grail on their Facebook page.

There are just so many pranks out there, that from here on out I’m just going to link you to Cinema Blend’s April 1 roundup. This is in no way connected to the fact that they link us.

What were your favorites? What did we miss? Go ahead and tell us in the comments.

I’ve been hanging around fandom a long time. But now, every year brings less and less Star Wars that actually appeals to me. The Old Republic? Not a gamer. The saga in 3-D? Meh. Novels focused on brand-new characters? That’s what the rest of the SF/F section is for. The Clone Wars? No thanks.

And there are so many news blogs out there right now, run by young, fresh names and faces. You don’t need us anymore.

So what’s left that really excites us about Star Wars? Why are we still here? What is the deep dark secret of Club Jade? (more…)

I finally had a chance to catch up with my usual source the other day. S/he has proved a bit skittish on the classified information since last year blew up so spectacularly. (Rumor has it that someone close to George is a recovering Anita Blake addict, unknown to LucasBooks, and when the word of Jaded Conquest trickled up The Maker himself squashed the book.)

Luckily for all of us, this next project is a great deal more G-rated. (more…)

L.A. Weekly checks in with the progress of making ThinkGeek’s April Fools TaunTaun sleeping bag a reality. Thinkgeek PR guy Shane Peterman says:

We are definitely trying to make it in to an actual item to be sold on our site. As of right now, it’s still an “if,” but it’s turning in to more of a “when.” Things are looking pretty good, we just don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. There’s certainly been enough of a demand, both from customers and from those of us that work here. Right now, we’re aiming to have it available for the holidays, or at the latest, the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back next spring.

But what of Lucasfilm?

We’re still working with Lucas to get approval for a final design. Again, it’s looking good, we just can’t say too much right now since it’s still in the works.

Well, we’re patient.

So it turns out that the maker of ThinkGeek’s most talked-about April Fool’s prank, the tauntaun sleeping bag, is actually a friend of CJ’s own Rach. She didn’t come up with the concept, but she did assemble it, and you can check out the photos at her Flickr.

And yes, in case you haven’t heard, the response was so positive that ThinkGeek is looking into licensing it for real!