Club Jade

Already thinking about travel plans for the summer and rest of 2013? The traveling museum exhibitions for Star Wars and Indiana Jones are!

Announced on Thursday with Billy Dee Williams on hand with the mayor of San Jose (yes, San Jose!), alongside Pablo Hidalgo and members of the 501st and Rebel Legions, San Jose’s Tech Museum of Innovation will be hosting the final stop of the Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination exhibition from October to next February.

The exhibition has been traveling around the US since 2005 (see my pictures from when it was at Santa Ana’s Discovery Science Center), and is currently wrapping up its stay at the Orlando Science Center (ends April 7). Over the summer, it will be at the Indiana State Museum in Indianapolis (May 25 – Sept. 2). This exhibition brings out props and costumes from the Star Wars films and connects them to real world science and technology, such as space travel, prosthetics, maglevs, and robotics.

Meanwhile, the Star Wars Identities exhibition, which started in 2012 in Montreal, and focuses on the concepts of identity, through origins, influences, and choices, will be ending this weekend in Edmonton’s Telus World of Science to move to Ottawa’s Canada Aviation and Space Museum from May 10 to September 2.

Finally, the Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology exhibition is wrapping up its first US stay, at Santa Ana’s Discovery Science Center, closing April 21. Presented by the National Geographic Society, it highlights the real science of archaeology, and connects it to the four Indiana Jones films with both real world artifacts and movie props, costumes, and artwork. I had a chance to see the exhibition last weekend, and provided an in-depth report earlier. While I am told that this exhibition will be moving onto a new location, it hasn’t been announced yet.

Top-notch reporting! TMZ harassed George Lucas in Los Angeles yesterday to learn what (almost) every Star Wars fan already knows: There will be no more Star Wars movies. “Never,” you can barely hear Lucas say over the ‘reporter.’ Just let the guy have a visit with his daughter, jeez.

On that note… Forbes’ Roger Friedman says that Lucas lost more than $60 million on Red Tails.

Games. For those who roll their eyes at the very mention of Kyle Katarn, stop here: Gaming media are theorizing that LucasArts may revive a certain first-person shooter. Whatever.

Tours. ‘Where Science Meets Imagination’ is still out there, and its next stop will be the Indiana State Museum in our beloved Indianapolis.

Here’s an interesting tidbit from the Wall Street Journal‘s Deal Journal blog: The Las Vegas Mob Experience, a museum devoted to organized crime, filed for bankruptcy on Monday – and Star Wars seems to be one reason why. A real estate developer used money from the mob museum to fund (no joking) Order 66 Entertainment LLC, which was created to bring the Where Science meets Imagination exhibit to Vegas.

Seriously, how often do you see Revenge of the Sith cited on a non-LFL legal document?

• Travel: InformationWeek’s top vacation spots for geeks features several locations of interest to Star Wars fans, while the S.F. Travel Examiner stays close to home with One Letterman Drive.

• Art: Or, cheapest of all – io9 featured some of Big Rock Ranch’s art today. But come on, guys… Isn’t all Star Wars art inherently cheesy?
• Exhibits: Where Science Meets Imagination’s Minnesota stay has been extended through August 27th. Best go soon if you haven’t already – who know when (or if) it’ll pop up again.
• Box office: The Dark Knight continues it’s climb towards Star Wars domestic record, netting $400.04 million domestically last weekend.
• Gaming: Lego Star Wars has sold 15 million units; Soulcaliber IV is shipping two million.

The TIE fighter model in the Profiles in History auction is expected to fetch up to £100,000, the highest-priced (or, well, estimated) item in the collection. That’s about about $200,000 American. Gotta love the exchange rate… The Crusade Grail is only expected to go for about £12,500, or $25,000.

• Exhibits: The St. Paul run of ‘Where Science Meets Imagination’ draws in 100,000 visitors within 32 days.

• Gaming: The Guardian’s Greg Howson interviews The Force Unleashed project lead Haden Blackman. In other TFU news, an IGN preview.
• Science: Laser beam technology… For real.
• People: Warwick Davis in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Makeup Actor Hall of Fame.

• Exhibits: Where Science Meets Imagination opened in St. Paul this week, so naturally there’s plenty of press (featuring Anthony Daniels) from the locals, like the Star Tribune and KARE 11.

• Holidays: Sunday is Father’s Day, which means a lot of lip service for The Empire Strikes Back. Watch it with your dad!
• Random celebrities: Showbiz Ireland makes much ado about some Tatooine-esque getup of Colin Farrell’s. Hey, at least he’s not wearing a bad wig.

• Time’s Rebecca Winters Keegan considers advice to George Lucas.

• The ‘Where Science Meets Imagination’ exhibit has reached it’s final destination (so far?) in Minnesota, and it looks like tickets are going fast.
• Blame Society at work on yet more Chad Vader.
• The Clone War’s Dave Filoni talks to Tim Lammers of New Hampshire’s WMUR 9.
• Whatever happened to 5/25/77, aka the other Star Wars movie we expected to be in theaters by now? Well, it’s secured funding for a Toronto debut, says The Hollywood Reporter.

NEWS

• Yoda stamp set to be dedicated Oct. 25 at Madison Square Garden, while Artoo mailboxes move out overseas for military duty.

• Wired spotlights Robot Chicken and the New York Jedi.

ART & ARCHETYPES

• Liverpool Art and Culture Blog features Return of the Jedi artwork by Josh Kirby.

• Matt Busch corner: Behind the ‘Sith Circus’ poster; Color Pencil video.
• Mark Hamill narrates Green Arrow documentary on Smallville S6 DVDs.

FANDOM

• Stormtroopers love Weird Al.

• Dejarik: Can you play it? Yes!
• Know A Legion: Garrison Carida. 501st of West Virginia, Delaware, and Pennsylvania.
• Australian lottery winner plans to spend part of his winnings on Stormtrooper gear.

EVENTS

• Where Science Meets Imagination opens in Chicago next week.

• Geppi’s exhibit so popular, it gets an extension.
• Star Wars at the Binghamton Zoo.

EU on HYPERSPACE

• Chewbacca and the Life-Debt.

• Alderaan Destroyed by Own Superweapon.
• GFFA Leisure Activities.
• The Teachings of Joruus C’baoth.

George Lucas, architect

• Curbed LA checks in on the construction of USC’s Lucas-funded School of Cinematic Arts. Apparently Lucas did far more than just write a check – campus rumor says he nixed the university’s original architect and hired his own.

Also…

• Minnesota next stop for Where Science Meets Imagination.

• Ventura County FanForce profiled in local paper.
• Chewbacca impersonator on Judge Joe Brown.

Finally, the story of Rose Parade spare Vader Andrew Page can be revealed. And apparently there were folks from E! filming a reality show? Or perhaps E! and a reality show? Huh.

• VES and BAFTA nominations for ILM.

• Q&A: What’s up with the 3-D rerelease?
• Officialness on the Where Science Meets Imagination exhibit in Los Angeles.
• More Disney maquettes in Florida for Steph.
• New What the Story.