Club Jade

The EU Cantina posted about another summary today – this one for Matthew Stover’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor from the book’s Amazon UK page. Not going to bother to spoiler-bar this one, but keep in mind it is unverified.

The Battle of Mindor, where the forces of the New Republic, led by Luke Skywalker, take on the Black Stormtroopers, led by Lord Shadowspawn, self-styled new Emperor of the galaxy. What Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han, Solo, Chewbacca, C-3P0, R2-D2, Lando Calrissian, and the pilots of Rogue Squadron don’t realize is that the Battle of Mindor is a trap devised just for them – a diabolical attempt by Lord Shadowspawn to do away with the heroes of the New Republic so that he can crush the upstarts and restore the Empire – with himself at the helm. But Lord Shadowspawn has underestimated the bravery and resourcefulness of his enemies…

Shadows of Mindor is currently scheduled for an October 21st release.

There have been rumblings about this for a while, and now TFN is claiming that Dave Seeley’s CIV print ‘Rogue Leader’ might have been chosen as the cover art for October’s Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover. It does seem a likely choice, but remember nothing is official until we get word over at starwars.com.

Haven’t made it to the bookstore yet? Peek inside Making of Star Wars with a new feature on the Random House website.

Star Wars events all over this May, with author appearances by Timothy Zahn, Matthew Stover, J.W. Rinzler, Michael Stackpole, Helen Keier and more!

What if Quentin Tarantino made Lord of the Rings? Orodruin Dogs, Ring Fiction, Natural Born Orcs, and White City. Not as good as Star Wars Pulp Fiction, but still pretty damn funny.

Bill Moyers’ interview with George Lucas from The Mythology of Star Wars TV special, in four three parts: 1, 3, 4. I’m not sure where part 2 went, if it was ever there at all.

James Michael Tyler talks to Jonathan Rinzler about The Art of Revenge of the Sith and The Making of, as well as Matthew Stover about the ROTS novelization and James Luceno about Dark Lord.

Screw that, have more funny

• Matthew ‘General Grievous’ Wood and Warwick Davis sing a classic Disney song.

• Hayden Christensen on MTV’s TRL.
• Budweiser Star Wars. I’m sorry.
• To continue tonight’s slide into cheesiness, a Jeff Foxworthy/Star Wars mashup. Really, very, very sorry.
• Okay, okay, here’s something that will only make you cringe a little: 1977 cast interview on The Today Show.
  

SF Signal points to a blog entry by Lou Anders about his essay for the book Star Wars on Trial. The book includes contributions from Matt Stover, Karen Traviss, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Keith R. A. DeCandido for the defense, and the site even has a forum that I expect to show up on Fandom Wank the minute our nuttier fandomates discover it.

According to the International Digital Publishing Forum, the Revenge of the Sith script was the best-selling eBook of 2005, beating, among others, The Da Vinci Code, Michael Crichton, and the Bible.

I polled a number of CJers on the releases of 2005 and here are the results:

Best Movie
Revenge of the Sith came out on top with 45.5% of the vote. Serenity made a strong show for second place with 40.9%, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was third with 27.3%.

Best Fan Parody
No surprise here: it was the Star Wars Trilogy: Musical Edition that captured the majority vote with 61.9%. In second place, the comic I <3th Darth.

Best Star Wars Fiction
Matt Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization was the clear winner with 81.0%.

Best SW nonfiction/reference
With 66.7%, Dressing a Galaxy was our favorite non-fiction publication.

Best genre TV
I admit I slipped up here, forgetting to include at least two shows (Stargate and Stargate:Atlantis) so the majority vote was a tie between Battlestar Galactica and ‘Other’. D’oh.

This completely unscientific poll is still open for members.

The Washington Post has a special on-line only Star Wars section

Lots of good stuff here now with more scheduled for the next week, including web chats with Matt Stover and Jeremy Bulloch. There’s also a “Sith Sense” blog with entries about DC area news. The most interesting tidbit there is that the American Film Institute theater in Silver Spring MD will be showing ANH, ESB, RoTJ, TPM and AoTC in early July as part of the AFI’s tribute to George Lucas. Details to come.

Whoohoo!

The novelization Revenge of the Sith made it to number 2 on the Publisher’s Weekly bestseller list for hardcover fiction last week. It was beaten, naturally, by The Da Vinci Code.

And the PG-13 rating is finally official, for “sci-fi violence and some intense images.” Click over to filmratings.com to see for yourself.

The ROTS trailer with 133t subtitles. Sheer brilliance.

Hayden Christensen isn’t afraid of being typecast. Good for him. Speaking of future roles, Rob Cohen has talked to Christensen about a role in his Sinbad remake, which stars Keanu Reeves in the title role. Stars of Star Wars and The Matrix existing in harmony? Just imagine the fanboys head’s exploding at that one.

Also, someone on the list (memory fails me) found out where Matthew Stover is blogging since his original host went down. He’s blogging his book tour and other publicity efforts, so be sure to check it out.