Club Jade

Last week, folks from Del Rey and Dark Horse were at Lucasfilm to discuss future Expanded Universe projects. Frank Parisi shared a tease from Del Rey, and new editor Jennifer Heddle tweeted that she’s “Feeling very energized about SW publishing!” There’s also an interview with Heddle at Suvudu, though note it does predate the big meeting.

Hopefully this means we’ll be seeing more news trickling out in the coming months… The cupboard has been pretty bare lately!

Emily Lewis, right, and her pal Jason at the Yoda Fountain. (Photo by Emily Lewis.

A dispatch from the mainstream. The Yoda statue at the Presidio is a landmark for Star Wars fans, an Associated Press article says this week. No, really? Other key Star Wars locales, like Tunisia and Lake Como, are also mentioned.

ILM looking north? The Hollywood Reporter says that Industrial Light + Magic is looking into opening a facility in Vancouver.

Your daily dose of stormtroopers. The Illinois 501st get profiled in the Chicago Tribune.

Baseball. The San Francisco Giants are freezing pitcher Brian Wilson (not the Beach Boy) in carbonite for the Star Wars day on September 4th. Wouldn’t it make more sense to freeze the visiting team’s pitcher?

Science! Spoilers are good for you, says a study by UC San Diego. Okay then!

Cnet goes into the belly of the beast at at LucasFilm’s Letterman Digital Arts Center a few years back. (Via /Film, who also has some photos of Pixar’s render farm.)

Bonnie ran a whole collection of photos through the Tilt Shift Maker, transforming the realistic into toy-like miniatures. Not surprisingly, the effect is particularly impressive when used on Stormtroopers!

The 501st inducted concept artist Ralph McQuarrie into their ranks today. The deed was done in front of the Yoda fountain at the Presidio.

Gawker’s sci-fi blog gets a look inside, peek at upcoming games.

It pales in comparison to the news of the week, but Mark Hamill is one of Times Online’s 33 funniest Simpson’s cameos for Mayored to the Mob, the episode that features the classic ‘Luke be a Jedi Tonight’ The only clip I can find of it on Youtube is mostly dubbed in Spanish. Except for the song. Okay!

In the News

• LFL’s $5.8 million a year Presidio rent helps with upkeep of the national park

• The Marc Ecko line gets some press in USA Today
• IGN interviews Breckin Meyer about Robot Chicken. Lots of Star Wars special stuff, mostly on the second page.
• Report on James Earl Jones’ Declaration of Independence reading
• Claudia Kaven, who played Padme’s sister Sola Naberrie in the prequels, landed a lead in Daybreakers, a futuristic vampire flick.

From the Blogside

• AT-AT stroller dad at it again. More pictures!

• What would Chewbacca drive?
• Darth Vader doesn’t want an iPhone – he wants this phone.

Fandom doings

• Star Wars Egg Art. Well… it’s… um… different.

• Costumed fans pitching in at Wings Over The Rockies Air Museum next week.
• There’s a post-Star Wars void? No one told us!

Kara Swisher’s visit to Lucasfilm and ILM. There are people who don’t know who Boba Fett is? Perhaps there is hope for humanity yet. Seriously though, this video offers a good look at some of the movie stuff hanging around the place.

Just aired here on the east coast – we can only hope the interview portion of the night will be online at NBC soon enough. (His visit to the Presidio is already there, and of course a behind the scenes video has been up at StarWars.com for most of the day.

UPDATE: Interview is on Youtube.

This may be one of those things that everyone but me knows, but I had no clue that the Presidio, in the Star Trek universe, is the home of Starfleet Academy. There’s also a Skywalker Division that builds ships for Starfleet.