Club Jade

Cartoon Network released their schedule of panels at Comic-Con, coming up in a few weeks in San Diego. For Star Wars fans, they confirmed the Lucasfilm panel on Star Wars: The Clone Wars coming on Saturday, July 14.

From the press release:

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Onto Season Five
The aftermath of Season Four has left the Star Wars galaxy a very dangerous place: Darth Maul is alive, Asajj Ventress is a bounty hunter, and the Mandalorian Death Watch is deadlier than ever. How will these threads continue in Season Five of Star Wars: The Clone Wars? Find out in this behind-the-scenes panel, which will feature new clips, new insights and more. Join the discussion with Supervising Director Dave Filoni and head writer Matt Michnovetz (who wrote Season Four’s powerful Umbara arc). Moderated by Star Wars author Pablo Hidalgo. Room 6DE

Also from Cartoon Network’s announcement: panels for Adventure Time, Regular Show, DC Nation,Ben 10, and Mad and two new shows based on existing properties: Annoying Orange, and Dragons: Riders of Berk (from How to Train Your Dragon). The Adult Swim programming block will have a single panel on Friday to highlight seven of its shows, including Robot Chicken (and their upcoming DC Comics Special) and The Venture Bros.

Meanwhile, there’s been some confirmation from Tim Minear that Comic Con will also have a 10th Anniversary panel for Joss Whedon’s Firefly. That’s gonna be a mighty fine shindig. Will Nathan Fillion be there? Probably so, even if there’s no Castle panel. Who needs Castle when there’s a (Dan Harmon-less) Community panel?

See you in San Diego!

It’s been a while since we’ve had any releases at all, but this week thankfully bring a few! First off, on Tuesday, you pick up the Robot Chicken: Star Wars III DVD or Blu-Ray. Hilarity we haven’t seen since Robot Chicken: Star Wars II! io9 catches up with creator Matt Senreich on why there’s no Robot Chicken Star Trek and gets an exclusive deleted scene about Princess Leia.

If you’re a fantasy fan, there’s also A Dance with Dragons, the long-awaited fifth volume of George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. (You know, the one that began with Game if Thrones Which is now an HBO series? Yeah.) But more on that later.?

Meanwhile, there’s an actual comic in stores on Wednesday. A new storyline launches with Invasion: Revelations #1.

And come Saturday, it’s also time for the annual summertime wish-it-were-cooler tradition of the Hallmark Ornaments Premiere Weekend.

Next week? Choices of One! SDCC attendees and/or San Diego natives can enter a contest to win lunch with Tim Zahn and editor Shelly Shapiro while they’re in town for the con.

Robot Chicken Star Wars III is on tonight! The past two are some of the best professional parodies around, and this one is one of the year’s most highly anticipated events. (For this fan, anyway.) Get yourself hyped up:

• Seth Green sings the praises of Prune Face (Matthew Senreich sticks to Zac Efron) at StarWars.com.

• Green tells Entertainment Weekly that he wants to redeem Jar Jar. Well, if anyone can…
• Senreich tells Underwire that “Star Wars is above and beyond any other property that is out there.”
• Watch a clip of the Emperor being kind of a dick at io9

Green makes the Robot Chicken Star Wars III rounds out to TBS to talk about his wife, his childhood acting career and his trip with ‘Conan’ to New York and Robot Chicken toys. (There are Robot Chicken toys?) There’s an actual clip in there somewhere!

He’s also getting ink over at Hero Complex, where he reveals that a Mara Jade joke was cut out of the show. Now what will I laugh wildly at? NOW WHAT?!?

UPDATE: And again (with Matthew Senreich) at Big Shiny Robot.

Anamayhem. Seth Green talks Robot Chicken: Star Wars III and the comedy show that he and Matthew Senreich are doing with Lucasfilm. Which we’ll hear about in two years. Yay?

The audience is listening. A ten-minute segment on NPR this weekend featured J.W. Rinzler and Ben Burtt on – what else – The Sounds of Star Wars. You can listen or read about it! Oh, glorious text!

Upsizing! Lucasfilm’s facility in Singapore gets some love – and do I spy a hint at that World War II fairy musical we’ve been so wildly anticipating?

And in your gaming corner… EA CFO Eric Brown said at a gaming industry event that they hope Bioware’s upcoming The Old Republic MMO will last ten years. With even the less-than-wildly-successful Galaxies still (technically) up and running 7 years on, TOR making it a decade can’t be that far-fetched.

Just a couple of geeks, getting together, talking Star Wars. Including the secret origin of Star Wars Robot Chicken!

The Clone Wars received four Annie Award nominations: Best Animated Television Production (for the episode ‘Arc Troopers,’) writing and voice acting (Nika Futterman as Asajj Ventress and Corey Burton as Baron Papanoida.)

Meanwhile, Robot Chicken Star Wars III gained character animation nods for Savelon Forrest and Elizabeth Havetine.

The two even face off in the category Writing in a Television Production: Daniel Arkin for Clone Wars ‘Heroes on Both Sides’ and Geoff Johns, Matthew Beans, Zeb Wells, Hugh Sterbakov, Matthew Senreich, Breckin Meyer, Seth Green, Mike Fasolo, Douglas Goldstein, Tom Root, Dan Milano, Kevin Shinick & Hugh Davidson (phew) for Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III

As the date approaches (December 19!) three trailers for Robot Chicken Star Wars III have arrived! All three, ‘Heist‘, ‘Sitcom‘, and ‘Techno,’ are below.

Adult Swim’s embeds have gotten obnoxious, haven’t they? Oh well… At least you guys get to avoid the Sonic commercial.

io9 reports from the Robot Chicken panel at New York Comic Con:

After two half-hour specials, this one expands to a full hour and features a somewhat cohesive plot that runs from before The Phantom Menace to after Return of the Jedi. (Seth Green speculated that this is where the false rumors about their upcoming LucasFilm Star Wars comedy being set after Jedi came from.)

Head on over for a few more details. The special will air on December 12, with their Christmas specila following on the 19th.

The Emmys are tonight, but in this corner of the internet the biggest winner has already been announced: Star Wars: Uncut was named the Emmy winner for Interactive Fiction at last weekend’s Creative Arts awards. (A story even made the front of the Arts section of the New York Times.) Even Lucasfilm is down with the fan film’s success:

Lucasfilm said in a statement Friday that “we are really pleased that they won an Emmy for their efforts” and that its long-time partner for fan productions, Atom Films, is in talks with the producers. Atom holds an annual Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge, which culminates in screenings of winning films on the Spike channel, and “we hope that some day ‘Star Wars Uncut’ can air on Spike,” Lucasfilm said.

Also winning last week was Robot Chicken, which took home the Emmy for Short Form Animated Program.