Club Jade

Because it’s Monday and you need a pick-me-up, let this supercut inspire you. Or at least your lunch.

Eric Walker, who played Mace Towani in the made-for TV Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, is raising money to release Growing Up on Skywalker Ranch, a book documenting his “adventures in the Star Wars universe” and other behind-the-scenes tidbits. Interested? You can pledge funds at the link.

• The logo on the Celebration 6 teaser site is now gold. What does it mean? Sorry, but fool me once…

• On Etsy: Han and Leia wedding bands.
• Threepio, Chewbacca, Vader and a stormtrooper carved crayons.
• Death Star garbage masher cake and more from the blog Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons.
• The U.S. Army’s “walking truck” concept from the 60′s: a real-life AT-AT?
• On Tumblr? You’ll want to check out Lit and Star Wars and Texts from the Millennium Falcon.

Since it’s a holiday weekend – at least here in the U.S! – and we all have other things going on, here’s a quick sweep through the week’s best fannish links.

• Arkansas, of all places, has a Star Wars-themed grilled cheese food truck. Sandwiches include the “Cheebacca” and “Jack to the Future.” (Photo by redditpoweruser.)

• Vulture has a history of the movie prequel. There’s also how to make a sequel, but Star Wars doesn’t get a mention. Perhaps because The Empire Strikes Back ruined everything?
• Go offbeat with home decor that channels the Death Star and a Star Wars wedding down under. (Nice choice for a wedding dress!)
• Utah Vader and co. profiled in The Salt Lake Tribune
• Make a X-Wing soapbox derby car or an “I know” embroidery case.
• Brand Wars: From Sith, Jedi, and Vader to everything in-between.
• io9 takes a look back at “Lapti Nek.“

I have no idea if this is authorized (very probably not) but there’s no denying that the Artoo swimsuit is pretty neat. But since it’s a bit late in the season for swimming, perhaps galaxy leggings are more in order. (Only if you can accept that they are not pants, ladies.)

Women in Star Wars. MagnetGirl hijacks our pal Mandy’s blog to talk about Ahsoka and last week’s episode ‘Assassin.’

Craftacular. The Millennium Falcon apple pie, because edible crafts are the best crafts. And you know what this cries for? A lightsaber pie cutter.

Fanboy corner. Gizmodo’s Joel Johnson says it’s time to let the prequel butthurt die and forgive George Lucas. Yes, boys: You don’t have to love the prequels (Hell, I don’t) but just accept them as they are (until George SEs them) and move on. And on that note, Cracked has five reasons for Hollywood to stop making prequels.

It will not die. The rumor is still getting batted around, so Underwire brings us five reasons Lucas should film a new trilogy.

These products aren’t wacky in and of themselves: Who doesn’t love cookies and pancakes? It just seems a bit strange that they appear at a place like Williams-Sonoma. (Though they are a sister brand to Pottery Barn, so it’s not totally out of the blue.) Sure, $20 cookie cutters are mildly ridiculous, but we’re tremendously jaded, and at least you get Vader-shaped food out of it.

On the newstand. The 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back (and the upcoming Making of The Empire Strikes Back) lands the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly. The issue will be on stands (and hopefully in subscriber mailboxes) on Friday.

Prequel madness. With the release of his Attack of the Clones review, MTV has a an two-part interview with Mr. Plinkett/Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media for a sitdown on the reviews, copyright, mocking, and backlash. Meanwhile, Bryan Young continues his defense of The Phantom Menance.

Chartage. It’s equal mockery under the law for Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Avatar and Lost fans in the sci-fi superfan reference manual.

Younglings. Head over to Offbeat Mama for Darth Aesop’s Death Star party. The balloon sabers are particularly brilliant.

Cake! Neatorama spotlights Star Wars cakes.

Rebuttal. Big-time prequel fan Bryan Young has begun his response to the 90-minute Phantom Menace review that was going around a while back.

Presented without comment. Karen Miller, whose Star Wars books have been enthusiastically received by certain areas of fandom, wants folks to know that she’s not writing homoerotic subtext into her Clone Wars books. Okay then. (It seems the rant was inspired by this thread. Sigh.)

If we ever see an Essential Guide again… Suggestions for a book on GFFA politics. Dan Wallace is game!

Cakes! Clone Wars’ fame continues to spread with an impressive Republic Gunship and an adorable Jabba with Rotta. (via/via)

Crass fansumerism. Chewbika or soap? A bank?

Yippee-ki-yay. Star Wars is SpaceWestern.com’s #1 most influential space western. Please spare us all the argument about how it’s totally not a space western; It’s an amalgam, silly. (Also, while I don’t think anyone can deny Firefly, isn’t it a bit early to rank it quite so high on a list that’s supposed to be about influence? Far as I can tell, the only thing that it’s inspired so far is a funny clip of Castle and Fox renewing Dollhouse.)

Art or something like it. io9 collects the greatest velvet paintings of science fiction. (As Wookieepedia is to Cracked, Google Image Search is to io9.) Giant Samurai Vader was a big hit on Twitter, and the official site gives us another peek at Visions featuring some of Club Jade’s favorite things (non-alcoholic division.) Dude, we get it: It’s a Star Wars fine art book, right? Enough teasing already.

Contain your shock. Darth Vader is Lawful Evil. No!

Baked-good corner. Two extremely well-made Star Wars cakes – Jabba and Darth Maul – from L.A.’s Rosebud Cakes. For the 30-year-old child party moll in all of us. As for something we can all achieve, take a cue from the sarlacc bundt cake.

Collecting. The ten most embarrassingly collectible Star Wars toys of the 90′s. Why didn’t I sell my Special Edition Luke when it was actually worth something? WHY?

At random. Power Droid gots to get his money.

The internet’s favorite Star Wars cake – this week. As impressive as this Tauntaun grooms cake is, I’m not sure I’d want to eat it. Still, props to the folks at Cake Nouveau for really capturing the moment. And by moment I meant slimy tauntaun guts. (Their dazed-out Luke is amazingly good, too.)

Artoo found in Transformers 2. Are there enough oil baths in the world to get the poor droid clean after this?

Seriously? Someone is taking their dedication to authentic costuming a little too far.

Quack Vader. This unauthorized ’70′s Vader light looks like something Robot Chicken would come up with. Maybe Seth Green had one, too?

And finally… Sideshow has a site up for the customized stormtrooper figures they showed off at SDCC.

His biggest fan. Of course there was a Plo Koon cake, and of course it was eventually served to none other than Dave Filoni. (And Jeremy Bulloch. And Ashley Eckstein.)

Brains. StarWars.com celebrates the release of Death Troopers with Zombie Week. I wish I had the words to tell you how much I’m feeling Zombie Week, but I’m exhausted.

Obession corner. TFN’s Mike Barrick has collected Star Wars references on NBC’s 30 Rock, while GalacticBinder counts down the top 12 Star Wars guitar crossovers.

Charity. The Pennsylvania Star Wars Collecting Society is selling Obi-Wan medallions to help raise money for seriously injured service members.