Club Jade

Cosmic Book News is at it again! Today they’ve set on another spin-off concept, one featuring Obi-Wan during his Tatooine exile with old buddy Darth Maul and a possible appearance by a young Luke Skywalker. (via)

A similar story was published in 2005 as the lead story of Star Wars: Visionaries. But as story concepts go, we’ve heard worse, and Ewan McGregor hasn’t been shy about his willingness to return. But, as always, it’s only a rumor.

Ponders. Christian Blauvelt asks eight Star Wars authors (Drew Karpyshyn, Paul Kemp, Troy Denning, John Jackson Miller, James Luceno, Michael Reaves, Christie Golden and Aaron Allston) what they’d like to see in Episode VII and the other new films. Lots of love for the EU and female characters, naturally, which is more than I can say for most of the other wishlists that have been popping up daily.

Spin-offs. Ewan McGregor continues to voice his willingness to return as Obi-Wan. “I don’t know what he did in the desert,” he tells MTV. “We could make up some stuff.”

Superfans. Kevin Smith is (still) very excited. Though his casting for a young Han Solo is… the worst I’ve seen yet. Hopefully for the LULZ.

Video. J.J. Abrams D.I.C.E keynote speech.

Jimmy Kimmel broke the news (well, mostly the rumory bits) about the Star Wars spin-offs to Ewan McGregor on his show last night.

We’re still going strong over on Tumblr, though I have been very lax at mentioning it here. Here are few things that haven’t made the blog proper.

High fashion. Remember the Star Wars spread in the April 1999 issue of Vogue? It featured several of Queen Amidala’s costumes from The Phantom Menace.

Long reads. How obsessive fans built a better Han Solo blaster is strangely fascinating. Or maybe drop the ‘strangely.’

A Major Award. Of course there’s a Star Wars version of the lamp from A Christmas Story.. Of course.

It is the year of the GIF, after all. Who doesn’t love the floating head of Ewan McGregor?

Quick hits. Was that a dead Jaxxon on The Clone Wars? The Star Trek Into Darkness poster gets a Star Wars remix There are already Scoundrels costumes! And no roundup is complete without Star Wars infographics.

It seems like Salmon Fishing in the Yemen flew mostly under the radar this year, so there was plenty of surprise when it received 3 Golden Globe nominations – most notably, for our purposes, best actor in a comedy or musical for Ewan McGregor.

McGregor is up again Jack Black (Bernie,) Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook,) Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables,) and Bill Murray (Hyde Park on Hudson.)

The Golden Globes nominations are, per usual, very slight on genre.

The Episode VII frenzy has finally slowed down a bit as we wait for news of a director and confirmation of the Kasdan rumors – or maybe it’s just the upcoming holidays – but there are still a few things floating around.

Alumni. We already heard from him way back on D-Day, but Ewan McGregor reiterates that he’d be happy to come back “if they need me.” Samuel L. Jackson is up for it as well/ “I can come back as one-armed or a one-handed Jedi that’s still around that didn’t actually die,” he told E!

Directors. It was briefly speculated that The Prince of Egypt’s Brenda Chapman might be a dark horse in the director’s race, but the tail end of a recent profile in the Daily Record reveals that she’ll be returning the Dreamworks in the new year. Meanwhile… Peter Jackson?

Distribution. It was big news last week that Netflix and Disney had signed a pretty big agreement, but is Star Wars included? Well, distribution rights to the first six films remain with 20th Century Fox, but the Netflix deal doesn’t start until 2016 – so look for Episode VII to air on Disney’s current partner, Starz, first.

Box office. Here’s a little more kissing cousins competition for Episode VII – the Fantastic Four reboot.

I got a chance to drive this today. I’m more a vintage car and bike man, but…… was pretty cool! Dutch. ‘Spyker.’ twitter.com/mcgregor_ewan/…

— Ewan McGregor (@mcgregor_ewan) May 9, 2012

It was nice knowing you, ladies

You’ll need to find another source for regular Ewan-gazing, Wantons. HBO has declined to pick up the adaption of Jonathan Franzen’s bestseller The Corrections, which starred Ewan McGregor, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper and Dianne Weist.

Ewan McGregor spoke to /Film about his latest movie, Salmon Fishing in Yemen, his Oscar-winning Beginners co-star Christopher Plummer, the upcoming Jack the Giant Killer and, of course, the prequels:

Well I like them. I mean I saw them when they came out and I haven’t seen them since, but I was happy to be in them. I felt that it was great to be part of that huge legend of STAR WARS and you know I never involve myself in the discussion about it or the criticism of them or not. They are what they are and fortunately to the moment they’ve re-released the first one and there’s a whole generation of kids now who weren’t around when we released them before. Children love them, regardless of what the die hard STAR WARS fans from the 70’s think, kids love them to bits and I’ve always really enjoyed that with my discussions with them, you know when people’s kids who I haven’t met before come up and they see Obi Wan Kenobi. They’ve always got nice questions to ask and stuff.

He hasn’t seen The Phantom Menace 3D due to filming on The Corrections, but he hopes to go soon – and “take my kids along.”

From the maker of forty inspirational speeches in 2 minutes, for the mush-lovers