Morning news sarcasm: High culture, low culture

operaHigh culture, with bunnies. A friend of mine actually went to see this production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre involving lightsabers, but us uncultured barbarians are probably better off with Chuck Jones and DVDs.

High culture, geek edition. Does the world really need another Tolkien book? Apparently, yes.

It’s on TV! Variety’s Season Pass blog has a great interview with Lost‘s Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. Sorry, no snark here: If you watch the show, this is a must-read.

Video games. Bad reviews make creators sad? Come on guys, you work for LucasArts. Embrace the pain.

The Clone Wars as a season, why little boys like Star Wars and more…

The Clone Wars: Storm Over Ryloth

Several reviewers have summed up their opinions after seeing a whole season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. IGN gives it a 7.7 out of 10, saying “it has a ton of great action and adventure, is increasingly great to look at, and has had some surprisingly effective character moments.”, calling out ‘Rookies’, ‘Cloak of Darkness’ and ‘Trespass’ among their favorite episodes. Ki-Aaaron-Mundi blogs about the impressive first season on his sw.com blog, pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. Lazypadawan highlights the sophistication of the writing, and the great new characters.

Reviews are also coming in for the Star Wars: The Clone Wars DVD – A Galaxy Divided (containing 4 episodes containing 4 episodes: the Yoda-centric ‘Ambush’ and the Malevolence three-parter). IGN also panned it for weak episodes and no extras – good for kids, but adults should wait for the full season 1 release. SWCloneWarsReviews sums it up: the reviewer bought the DVD so you don’t have to.

Meanwhile, SW.com takes a look at the latest issue of the UK’s The Clone Wars comic/magazine. EUCantina reported on briefly seeing “The Force Unleashed – Special Edition” on Gamefly, releasing at the end of September.

And the Washington Post’s Parenting blog looks at Star Wars and other kid obsessions, keying off of a Slate article by Emily Bazelon on why Star Wars resonates with little boys.

EUbits: Gizmodo discovers the GFFA; TFU up for writing award; First look at Insider #107

Great things on the Wookieepedia: Gizmodo has blogged the Wookieepedia’s galaxy map (originally appeared in Star Wars Insider #65) thus making it legitimately cool on the internet. Or something. Not that I’m saying you kids still don’t have some work to do.

  • Comics: Randy Stradley has an update at Dark Horse’s Star Wars Zone. Big news is that The Clone Wars comic will go on (monthly!) for six more issues. And there will be two big announcements at New York Comic-Con.
  • The Force Unleashed: The game is a nominee for the WGA’s award for 2008’s best videogame writing. (via)

  • Magazines: Could the Star Wars Insider be on the road to improvement with a new editor?
  • Authors: Karen Traviss is up for the Philip K. Dick award for the final book in her Wess’har series, Judge.

The Clone Wars: TFN talks to Filoni and Gilroy

Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy answer fan questions on The Clone Wars over at TheForce.net. A lot of interesting tidbits on the show, its relation to the EU, George’s involvement and other food for thought, like Gilroy’s comments on the unique challenges of writing a digital show:

It wasn’t really an issue of balance. When I wrote the first episode, I wished I could have used the entire Jedi Council, but because we were just building the studio, the only characters I had available were Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda. Mace wasn’t originally in the movie story, because he wasn’t built yet, he was added way later. This was the incredible challenge as the head writer, I was tasked with writing Star Wars and making it feel as big as Star Wars, but only allowed to build ONE new character per episode (I started with 9 — can you name them?). So Luminara and Kit showed up at the very first chance I could put them in the show.

Oh, and there’s also something in there about George and the Wookieepedia. Yes, seriously.

In other interview news, EUC has one with The Force Unleashed’s Sam Witwer, and is taking questions for Matt Stover.

Awarding the Waru: The wackiest Expanded Universe happening of 2008

I originally meant to do a big year-end poll on the year’s EU offerings, but time flies, so we’re just going to have to settle for this: The The Crystal Star Memorial Award for Expanded Universe wackiness, aka the Waru. This award is given to the one Expanded Universe event (both in-universe and without count) that made you go ‘What?’ The one event that most shocked, confused, or even amused you in a deeply sarcastic way. Think hard. Award ironically. Continue reading “Awarding the Waru: The wackiest Expanded Universe happening of 2008”