Club Jade

It was announced this morning that The Empire Strikes Back is one of 25 films that the Library of Congress is making part of the National Film Registry this year.

But that’s not the only Lucas production making it in this year – Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB, not the feature film, but George’s student short – has also been added. (Random…) Star Wars and American Graffiti are already a part of the registry.

Saturday Night Fever, The Exorcist, All the President’s Men, The Pink Panther and Airplane! also made the cut for 2010.

The Clone Wars received four Annie Award nominations: Best Animated Television Production (for the episode ‘Arc Troopers,’) writing and voice acting (Nika Futterman as Asajj Ventress and Corey Burton as Baron Papanoida.)

Meanwhile, Robot Chicken Star Wars III gained character animation nods for Savelon Forrest and Elizabeth Havetine.

The two even face off in the category Writing in a Television Production: Daniel Arkin for Clone Wars ‘Heroes on Both Sides’ and Geoff Johns, Matthew Beans, Zeb Wells, Hugh Sterbakov, Matthew Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, Mike Fasolo, Douglas Goldstein, Tom Root, Dan Milano, Kevin Shinick & Hugh Davidson (phew) for Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III

Fresh off the Emmy broadcast, the Gemini Award nominations, recognizing achievement in Canadian English-language television, have been released.  And, unlike in the US, they tend to appreciate good genre television.

Stargate Universe did pretty well for itself:

• Best Dramatic Series
• Best Performance by an Actor – Robert Carlyle (Human), Louis Ferreira (Justice)
• Best Direction – Andy Mikita (Air, Part 1)
• Best Original Music Score – Joel Goldsmith (Light)
• Best Photography – Light
• Best Editing – Human
• Best Sound Series
• Best Visual Effect – Air, Part 1

Other genre nods:

• Alice – Matt Frewer (Best Performance by a Supporting Actor, Mini-Series), Andrew Lee Potts (Best Performance by a Lead Actor, Mini-Series), Caterina Scorsone (Best Performance by a Lead Actress, Mini-Series), Makeup, Costume Design, Best Writing Mini-Series
• Sanctuary – Christopher Hyerdahl (Best Performance by an Actor, Guest Role), Best Sound Series

The Emmys are tonight, but in this corner of the internet the biggest winner has already been announced: Star Wars: Uncut was named the Emmy winner for Interactive Fiction at last weekend’s Creative Arts awards. (A story even made the front of the Arts section of the New York Times.) Even Lucasfilm is down with the fan film’s success:

Lucasfilm said in a statement Friday that “we are really pleased that they won an Emmy for their efforts” and that its long-time partner for fan productions, Atom Films, is in talks with the producers. Atom holds an annual Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, which culminates in screenings of winning films on the Spike channel, and “we hope that some day ‘Star Wars Uncut’ can air on Spike,” Lucasfilm said.

Also winning last week was Robot Chicken, which took home the Emmy for Short Form Animated Program.

He has issues. Just not those. Psychology Today disagrees with the diagnosis of borderline personality disorder for the Sithling, saying “While Vader/Anakin seems to fit some of the criteria, a closer look shows the traits don’t add up to provide a cohesive portrait of a person with the disorder.”

Con of Cons. There’s no Spectacular at San Diego Comic Con, but since we weren’t expecting much news until August, I think we’ll manage. There is a Her Universe panel, though.

Ballot-stuffing for the win! Clone Wars fans beat out fans of Futurama, Family Guy and some show on FX I’ve never heard of to nab Best Animated Show in TV.com’s Now Awards. (Note to readers: Turn down your speakers before clicking. Note to TV.com: AUTOPLAY IS NEVER OKAY.)

Stop. Just stop. The leader of the Jedi Church has landed a “reality show,” except by “reality show” they mean he’s going to be filming himself and putting it on Youtube.

Casey Pugh’s brainchild of collaborative fandom love is up against against network-producted fare for Glee and Dexter for Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media – Fiction. Big congratulations to Casey and all who participated!

The Emmys are rarely a big deal for genre shows, but Lost is one of the few that have gotten plenty of love – and that adds up to twelve nominations for their final season, including Outstanding Drama Series. (Along with True Blood.) Matthew Fox, Terry O’Quinn, Michael Emerson and Elizabeth Mitchell are all up for acting.

Robot Chicken got two nominations, one for their ‘Full-Assed Christmas Special’ and another for Seth Green’s voiceovers.

As for the other genre nods, Ian McKellen got one for being the only part of The Prisoner remake that anyone liked, while Caprica, Stargate Universe, and V will duke it out with original flavor CSI for special effects.

The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar for Best Picture (and director – Kathryn Bigelow is the first woman to win) but the sci-fi extravaganza did take statues for visual effects, cinematography, and art direction. I don’t find this particularly heartbreaking: Avatar might have been a fun movie to watch, but Best Picture? Ehh.

Best Picture was really the only uncertain prize going in, so there weren’t many surprises for the genre winners: Pixar’s Up took Animated feature and Music, while Star Trek got Makeup. (District 9 will always have this, I suppose.)

Winter is actually coming. HBO must have liked the pilot for A Game of Thrones, because they ordered nine more episodes: By cable standards, that’s pretty much an entire season. Filming starts in June, and we can expect the series to debut next spring.

Shocker! Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen took the Razzies for Worst Picture, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay. As for actual entertainment value, Sandra Bullock showed up in person to accept Worst Actress for All About Steve: If she gets an Academy Award tonight (for The Blind Side) she’ll become the first actress to win both a Razzie and an Oscar in the same year.

Nothing new under the sun. Guy Ritchie wants to remake Excalibur “in the tone of Star Wars.” There’s also something going down with Warren Ellis, and didn’t Showtime have The Tudors team signed to do a Camelot series? To all this I say: Haven’t the Arthurian legends suffered enough?

Good news, everyone! Futurama returns to its rightly place as a half-hour show in June.

Pixar’s Up took Best Animated Feature last night at the Annie Awards. And while it might not be worth a mention from The Hollywood Reporter, Robot Chicken: Star Wars 2.5 nabbed Best Animated Short Subject. Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder was named Best Home Entertainment Production.

The Clone Wars’ Kevin Kiner was up for Music in a Television Production, but that honor went to The Fairly OddParents

Check out the complete list of winners at annieawards.org

Access Hollywood caught up with the maker himself at the Golden Globes (he had the Jack Nicholson seat at the show) and – naturally – asked him about the Best Drama winner and getting Star Wars in 3-D:

“We’ve been looking for years and years and years of trying to take ‘Star Wars’ and put it in 3-D,” George explained to Access. “But, [the] technology hasn’t been there. We’ve been struggling with it, but I think this will be a new impetus to make that happen.”

More of the same, basically: But is from George. (via)