Club Jade

Those of you not already sick of it can pick up The Clone Wars #2 at your comic shop on Wednesday. But never fear, my fellow Clone apathists – next week finally brings us Millennium Falcon!

Oh, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comes out on DVD. Duh.

StarWars.com posts all of the Star Wars events at San Diego Comic Con: Mostly on Friday, mostly The Clone Wars, with some Indiana Jones thrown in for good measure.

The script for Frank Darabont’s Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods – the one Spielberg and Ford liked, but Lucas rejected – has reportably been leaked online – but good luck finding a copy now.

I kind of missed the pie charts, until I made two of them in a single night. Anyway, here are the results of our two-week polls concerning the two biggest events of May: the final Legacy of the Force novel (fig. 1) and the long-awaited fourth Indiana Jones movie (fig. 2.) Overall, it seems you guys liked them – although you clearly liked Indy a lot more. Of course, he received the most votes as well – 154 to Invincible’s 119. (Not too shabby on the book’s part, even considering that our audience is a bit skewed in that regard.)

I love concept art, and so do you, I hope! io9 has some Crystal Skull pieces from The Complete Making Of Indiana Jones, and I swear they’re all a lot more exciting (and spoilery) than the one above.

• People: Emmy-winning comedic actor Harvey Korman, who died on Thursday, is probably best known for his work on The Carol Burnett Show… But he also had a role in The Star Wars Holiday Special as the four-armed chef Gormaanda. Over at StarWars.com, Bonnie Burton pays tribute.

• Technology: Yahoo’s Ben Patterson ponders when Star Wars and Indiana Jones will make it to Blu-ray. He’s way more optimistic than I am, not that I even own a Blu-ray player.
• Disney: An article on ILMer Hayden Landis’ work on Indy IV confirms that a Star Tours makeover is underway. (via)
• Jediism: Time interviews Jedi Church co-founder Daniel Jones.
• Music: Nerdcore in The Guardian.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has now been out for almost a week. To celebrate this event, I ate some crispy minty Indiana Jones M&Ms and drank some Indiana Jones Dr. Pepper yesterday. Now that the caffeine headache has gone away, here’s what I learned:

• 2nd biggest Memorial Day opening, with domestically $151 million (after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End) – and $311 million worldwide.
• JediNews.co.uk and Lightsabre.co.uk have a joint review.
• Scientific American plus a few articles that are tangential to archaeology and the kingdom of the crystal skull.
• Communists in St. Petersburg, Russia are protesting the portrayal of Soviets of that era. What next, Ukrainians protesting Cate Blanchett’s accent?
• Shia LeBeouf’s entrance a homage to Brando in The Wild One? Signs point to yes.
• Indiana Jones vs Carrie Bradshaw: this weekend – will it be Sex and the City.. or Snakes and the Lost City?
• and one of the shorter reviews: The Five Word Review

Head on over to Livejournal for a great three-part analysis of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull from screenwriter Todd Alcott. (via)

Reuters is reporting that, perhaps unsurprisingly, the new Indiana Jones movie has annoyed members of Russia’s Communist Party.

“Our women don’t look like Nazis, but maybe Cate Blanchett was threatened by unemployment, so … she made this film,” says one. Adds another: “Harrison Ford and Cate Blanchett (are) second-rate actors, serving as the running dogs of the CIA. We need to deprive these people of the right of entering the country.”

Honestly, you just can’t win these days when trying to pick cartoonish villains for your George Lucas movie.

Okay, so I promised to keep the Invincible poll up for two weeks. And I am! But now it has a friend, because the new Indiana Jones movie came out today! Vote below the cut, or on the sidebar… And yes, it will also be there for two weeks. (more…)