Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Samuel L. Jackson – aka Mace Windu, Nick Fury, Jules Winnfield and a host of other iconic characters – has joined Twitter as (what else?) @SamuelLJackson. Yes, the account is verified, so it looks like the real thing. With The Avengers gearing up, I’m sure he won’t run out of things to say.
You can find more Star Wars names with our handy Twitter list.
The price of the box set has been lowered to $79.99 on Amazon!
New Way (above,) Phenomenon and Galaxies. Anyone seen any of the commercials live yet?
Star Wars Aficionado got a look at some of the deleted scenes from the Star Wars Blu-Rays, and details several of them.
I heart prequels: What makes the prequels so great? International House of Geek picks their top ten great things from the Star Wars prequels, from the Jedi Order to the score to battle scenes to Ewan McGregor. Not quite sharing the love (though sharing a few favorites), one of Tor’s bloggers picks five great things from the prequels, and five classic trilogy fizzles. Over at Big Shiny Robot, Bryan makes the case that Episodes I-III are more liked than is generally thought.
The soft side of the Force: Check out these plush Star Wars characters and these crochet granny square TIE Fighters.
This Artoo unit has a sweet motivator: Two times the R2-D2! Check out this remote controlled LEGO Artoo and place an order for a custom knitted R2-D2 sweater.
The planet that it’s farthest from: A war photojournalist visits some of the Star Wars filming sites in Tunisia this summer, and comes across the Mos Espa set, Owens farm, Jawa rock and more.
Making the lists: General Grievous pops up in io9’s list of computer generated characters that actually look cool, Darth Vader is on Total Film’s list of horrible movie bosses (Hey, if your boss chokes you on the job and you die, there’s no workman’s comp claim!). And of course, Jabba the Hutt makes Andrew Liptak’s list of sci-fi gangsters not to mess with.
Who’s scruffy looking? Ewan McGregor’s facial hair in Revenge of the Sith (along with the beards of Harrison Ford, Samuel L. Jackson and Ian McKellan) gets rated on The Men of Whisker Wars Rate Famous Screen Facial Hair.
Speaking of beards, Sunday is the Star Wars Day at the San Francisco Giants ballgame, where the cool giveaway is a three-sided statue of Brian “Fear the Beard” Wilson in carbonite, a more traditional Han Solo in carbonite and a Giants / Star Wars logo.
A new extra? On a weekend? Alrighty then.
The HDRoom’s Dan Bradley was another tech-oriented journalist invited to Lucasfilm’s Blu-ray junket. The first part of his report covers a few basics we’ve heard about from the other sites and Lucasfilm themselves. Part two focuses on Matthew Wood and sound mixing. And part 3 takes on, of course, the deleted scenes, special features and Dennis Muren.
Here’s one interesting bit:
In response to my question, Kayleen answered “You’ll have to wait and see! The Holiday Special is a challenge, but look for some Easter Eggs. What’s a Star Wars release without a couple of Easter Eggs?” I read into that as something pertaining to, if not the entire Holiday Special is hidden on these discs. These Easter Eggs are also what LucasFilm is referring to when stating the leaked bonus features are “incomplete.”
An additional Blu-ray inner sleeve depicts a scene from Droids, the animated cartoon revolving around the further adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. Does that mean an episode of Droids or maybe something from the Ewoks television show is hidden as an Easter Egg? We’ll have to wait and find out on September 16, 2011.
I’ve always thought that the Holiday Special – or the less tedious bits of it, anyway – would make an excellent Easter Egg.
We’ve seen a few of these stills in the fan articles that have emerged in the last few days, but now StarWars.com itself has a rundown of some of the corrections and improvements made on the Blu-rays.
This is apparently the ‘new and improved’ CGI Yoda who has been rumored to be on The Phantom Menace blu-ray, replacing the traditional puppet. (I’m told this is different – or at least longer – than the clip on the Revenge of the Sith DVD.) Better? Worse? I was never a fan of the TPM puppet – he looked off – but I’m not sure this is any better. (via) 
Some fans love to rank things, and argue things, and just get all obsessive over who/what/where/how is better/worse that another who/what/where/how. I am not one of those people: I have my own favorites, of course, but I just tend to find the whole enterprise of categorizing them further than that exhausting. And thus Lucasfilm’s new site Star Wars Moments is just making my eyes cross. But if that is your thing, hey: Go for it. It’s certainly more productive than trolling Wookieepedia talk pages.