Club Jade

George Lucas is the subject of a lengthy profile in the New York Times today, and gives them the full story on his ‘retirement.’

“I’m retiring,” Lucas said. “I’m moving away from the business, from the company, from all this kind of stuff.”

He was careful to leave himself an out clause for a fifth “Indiana Jones” film. But otherwise, “Red Tails” will be the last blockbuster Lucas makes. “Once this is finished, he’s done everything he’s ever wanted to do,” says Rick McCallum, who has been producing Lucas’s films for more than 20 years. “He will have completed his task as a man and a filmmaker.”

The profile focuses on Red Tails, of course, but also features a bit of frank talk on Star Wars. Of the special editions, prequels and backlash, and why we’re not going to see any more:

Lucas seized control of his movies from the studios only to discover that the fanboys could still give him script notes. “Why would I make any more,” Lucas says of the “Star Wars” movies, “when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a terrible person you are?”

It also covers the Indy 4 refrigerator, girlfriend Mellody Hobson, ‘personal’ films and all things “corny and wonderful.” It’s worth a read.

Now that everyone’s settled back home and able to blog more easily, we’re starting to see a few more con reports. StarWars.com has recaps of The Empire Muggs Back and the Robot Chicken Skate party (which is now moving on to L.A.,) while Rebelscum posted a gallery of Sideshow’s customized stormtroopers. Meanwhile, Atom.com has recruited G4 hostess Olivia Munn to help with their Fan Movie Challenge. We can only pray that mullet-play is optional.

In EUish news, the Scribe Awards were also given out at the con, and Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space did not take the Best Novel – Adapted prize under Speculative Fiction. It went to an actual adaptation, Bob Greenberger’s novelization of Hellboy: The Golden Army. However, James’s Rollins novelization of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull did take the Adapted prize in the category of General Fiction. (How are aliens general fiction, again?) Congrats to Rollins and condolences to Miller, in any case.

The International Association of Media Tie-In Writers has announced their nominees for the 2009 Scribe Awards, and two Lucasfilm works are on it. Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space got a nod for Best Speculative Fiction Adapted, while James Rollins’ adaption of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is up for Best General Fiction Adapted. Miller is “massively chuffed!”

This is the first Scribe nomination for any Star Wars (or Indy, though that pool is considerably smaller) work, though Alan Dean Foster was named last year’s Grandmaster.

The nominations for the 35th Annual Saturn Awards are out, with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull scoring five nominations, including Best Science Fiction Film and nods for both Harrison Ford and Shia LeBouf. The Clone Wars also picked up two nominations, one for Best Animated Movie and another for Best Syndicated/Cable series.

The Saturns are presented by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor genre film and tv, so pretty much everything of note has a nod. The Dark Knight leads with 11 total. Expect to hear about the winners in June.

First the ‘good’ news: The Clone Wars did not take home the Razzie for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel. The bad news is that Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull did. Oh well!

(I still think it should have been the other way around. ::ducks fruit::)

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has won the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Online Sensation, in the 35th Annual People’s Choice Awards, beating out other such online sensations as “Paris Hilton’s response to McCain ad”. In the other geeky categories, Heroes nabbed the spot for Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show, Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne/Batman got favorite superhero, and Christian and Heath beat out Harrison and Shia for Favorite On Screen Match Up. The Dark Knight beat out Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Iron Man for both favorite movie and favorite action movie.

Both Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Clone Wars have been honored with Razzie nominations for Worst Prequel, Sequel, Remake or Rip-Off. I doubt either will take it – Meet the Spartans is also up. But you never know!

Disney gives Narnia the boot. Well, it’s official – Disney has decided not to adapt the third Narnia book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, for “budgetary and logistical reasons.” (Prince Caspian wasn’t exactly a flop, but it didn’t take in nearly as much as Lion.) That’s not to say all is lost – Walden Media is shopping around for a new partner.

Really do hope that Dawn Treader gets made – I can take or leave the rest of the series, but it’s my favorite. In the meantime, you can find the old BBC productions pretty cheap on DVD. The production values may not be as good, but I thought they were pretty neat as a kid!

• Wishful thinking. This fanmade Thundercats movie trailer, starring Brad Pitt, Hugh Jackman, Vin Diesel and Chiana from Farscape swept the internet on Monday. It mostly makes me hope for an end to this 80′s cartoon movie trend…

• Fun stuff. The How I Met Your Mother teamed up for Entertainment Weekly for a Best of 2008 photoshot, including Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Neil Patrick Harris makes a better Indy than you might think!
• Let’s not forget about Twilight. The Golden Compass’ Chris Weitz will direct New Moon; Bitch on the books; Robert Pattinson cuts his hair! Oh noes!
• The rest of the garbage. Keanu Reeves wants to star in Cowboy Bebop movie; Frank Miller aims to whore up Buck Rodgers; Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby?

I know I’m not along in facepalming every time the man talks about Indy IV – and I swear, I was mildly entertained by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – but he’s doing it again. Luckily, Coming Soon also asks him about Star Wars 3-D (don’t hold your breath,) Red Tails (in casting,) Samuel L. Jackson (we’ve heard it) and directing, to which:

I’m getting rid of all my development. Everything that I’ve ever developed is going to be finished in about a year, a year and a half or two, and then I’m going to go do my own films.

Oh, George. Perhaps Clark will finally get an answer on those Howard the Duck sequels.

In less winceworthy news, how about his student film? Racecars! Vroom vroom! Yeah!

Using the web to its fullest potential, an online poster for the upcoming Terminator: Salvation has appeared on aintitcool.com.

Appearing at this past weekend’s Firefly con in Burbank, QMX has released a double-sided map of the ‘Verse for Firefly/Serenity fans: Where in the ‘Verse is (Carmen) Miranda?

And some British archaeologists search for the facts while watching the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull DVD.