Matt Groening and folks are in talks to bring the Futurama back from the dead. Long overdue, folks – long overdue. If syndication and endless nights of Adult Swim have taught me nothing else, it’s that the already-resurrected Family Guy just doesn’t hold up for multiple viewing, while Futurama just gets better and better. Plus, their Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory riff was actually funny.
ROTS novelization (digitally) bigger than Jesus!
According to the International Digital Publishing Forum, the Revenge of the Sith script was the best-selling eBook of 2005, beating, among others, The Da Vinci Code, Michael Crichton, and the Bible.
Happy Robanukah!
Wired’s 50 Best Robots Ever takes on both real and fictional examples. R2-D2 is #19. (via SFSignal.)
George Lucas still richer than you
Revenge of the Sith was last year’s top earner, making $380.3 million. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, War of the Worlds, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Wedding Crashers (one of these things is not like others) round out the top 5. Thus, it’s not too suprising that several Episode 3 stars are among the top draws – Christoper Lee, Ewan McGregor, and Samuel Jackson. Liam Neeson is there too – if you can’t be a Jedi, I guess voicing Jesus in lion form and smacking around Batman are good substitutes.
Dramatis Personae for Betrayal
Sue Rostoni has posted the character list for Aaron Allston’s Betrayal, the first book of the Legacy series. There’s also a (very) short excerpt.
You can catch up on what else we know about Legacy and Betrayal at Suzanne’s blog.
A Club Jade Poll
I polled a number of CJers on the releases of 2005 and here are the results:
Best Movie
Revenge of the Sith came out on top with 45.5% of the vote. Serenity made a strong show for second place with 40.9%, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was third with 27.3%.
Best Fan Parody
No surprise here: it was the Star Wars Trilogy: Musical Edition that captured the majority vote with 61.9%. In second place, the comic I <3th Darth.
Best Star Wars Fiction
Matt Stover’s Revenge of the Sith novelization was the clear winner with 81.0%.
Best SW nonfiction/reference
With 66.7%, Dressing a Galaxy was our favorite non-fiction publication.
Best genre TV
I admit I slipped up here, forgetting to include at least two shows (Stargate and Stargate:Atlantis) so the majority vote was a tie between Battlestar Galactica and ‘Other’. D’oh.
This completely unscientific poll is still open for members.
Tom Hanks to help revive Trek?
That’s the rumor, anyway: Paramount is considering a script by Erik Jendresen, who worked on the mini-series Band of Brothers. If there’s even a glimmer of truth to this, Hanks would be the biggest name to join the franchise since Patrick Stewart.
Vote for your favorites
Film mag Empire has opened up their year-end awards to the voting public. Not that we’re (STAR WARS) going to tell you (EWAN) who to vote (SERENITY) for (JOSS) or anything. It’s totally up to you. And the legions of hardcore fans who are going to flood this thing. (Just sayin’!)
The year in blogs
According to Blogpulse, Revenge of the Sith was the second most blogged movie of the year. A New Hope also made it in at #24, but there are plenty of other familiar names.
Meanwhile, the Star Wars Last Supper painting we linked in May was one of the most blogged images.
Darth Vader didn’t make the ‘top people’ list, but Harry Potter did beat out President Bush, Pope John Paul II, and Britney Spears for the top spot.
Meanwhile, CJers are working on a best-of list of our own. We’ll be chat tonight (10:00pm Eastern, irc.holonet.org, #clubjade) if you’d care to join.
Sci-fi fans have issues letting go
The BBC finds that Star Trek, Buffy, The X-Files, and Stargate (isn’t that still on?) are among the ‘most-missed’ series.