Club Jade

Last week’s best tweets bled over into Monday, because I’m sure you don’t want to wait a whole week for the Rebels stuff, right? Also: We saw Star Trek Into Darkness, the first week of Star Wars Weekends is a thing that happened, and Artoos invaded Lucasfilm. All that and more under the cut.

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This is from last week, but it’s not like anyone actually watches Leno. Mark’s episode of Criminal Minds, the two-parter season finale, airs tonight.

Director Kyle Newman gathers famous fans to talk about Return of the Jedi.

A pair of bleached Levis worn by Mark Hamill in the original Star Wars are at auction today. They’re currently going for $36,000 with just over an hour to go.

I’ll let you make your own jokes.

HuffPo’s Mike Ryan has the first look at the book trailer for The Making of Return of the Jedi as well as an interview with author J.W. Rinzler. It starts off with Ewok sex, of course.

In other bookish news, there’s a chat with Dawn of the Jedi and Legacy writer John Ostrander on the Star Wars Books Facebook page this afternoon, while Into the Void author Tim Lebbon will do the same on Wednesday.

With all the movie and TV news coming out, it’s easy to get caught up in the future.  Because the future, as a wise man once said, is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.  But if you’ve got an even passing interest in the past, you should definitely check out Kitbashed.

Writer and designer Michael Heilemann has been on our radar for years, but with Kitbashed he’s delving deep into the origins of Star Wars – not the saga, not the franchise, but the movie.  Heilemann connects Star Wars to everything from famous documentaries to Star Trek to a baffling magazine ad.  He’s also especially good at analyzing George Lucas’ student films and early works.

Even when his observations are relatively familiar, Heilemann presents them in a novel way.  For example, don’t miss his spellbinding video on the war movies which influenced the Death Star trench run.  Citations are included for further reading, and the site itself is gloriously easy on the eyes, clean and straightforward and uncluttered.  Kitbashed is an absolute joy.

Out right now – I missed it last week – is Star Wars Storyboards: The Prequel Trilogy by J.W. Rinzler.

Meanwhile, Wednesday brings the conclusion of Dawn of the Jedi‘s second arc in Prisoner of Bogan #5 as well as Legacy #3.

Our forthcoming slate includes Aaron Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill in paperback (June 25,) William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher (July 2) and Troy Denning’s Crucible (July 9.)

Well, here’s your new animated series: Star Wars: Rebels, set between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope just as heavily speculated. It’s helmed by Dave Filoni, Greg Weisman and Simon Kinberg and will be coming in Fall 2014.

The action-filled series is set between the events of Episode III and IV — an era spanning almost two decades never-before explored on-screen. Star Wars Rebels takes place in a time where the Empire is securing its grip on the galaxy and hunting down the last of the Jedi Knights as a fledgling rebellion against the Empire is taking shape. Details about the show are a closely guarded secret at this point.

The show will debut with an hour-long special on the Disney Channel before moving to Disney XD for the duration.

Fans will get a first look at the show at Celebration Europe.

With the first episode of LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles debuting later this month, I was able to chat with the show’s writer, Michael Price, about the upcoming episode ‘The Phantom Clone’ and see what sorts of fun adventures await us and Master Yoda. In addition to writing the previous two standalone LEGO Star Wars specials, Michael Price has been a long time writer and executive producer on The Simpsons, having won several Emmys for his work on the show.

‘The Phantom Clone’ is the first of three specials that comprise The Yoda Chronicles, and will premiere on Cartoon Network on May 29th at 8 PM (ET/PT). Price takes us behind the scenes of the show in this exclusive interview:
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Latino Review’s El Mayimbe says that sources are telling him that Jonathan Rhys Meyers of The Tudors fame is in talks for a role in Episode VII.

Meyers is best known for playing Henry VIII in the Showtime series, but if you’re a big Ewan McGregor fan you’ll no doubt recall his turn in Velvet Goldmine. Perhaps more tellingly: He was in the J.J. Abrams-directed Mission Impossible: III. His next major role is as the title character in NBC’s Dracula.

I think it says something that my first thought upon seeing ‘Tudors star’ in the headline was less Meyers and more Natalie Dormer, who’s been knocking it out of the park lately on Game of Thrones and Elementary. (And would thus probably be past being billed as just a ‘Tudors’ star, but hey: Gut feeling. Her Anne Boelyn was the best part of the series.)

I can’t help but hope this one ends up being only a rumor, but Meyers would make a decent villain, I suppose. With all that shouty petulance in his wheelhouse, I can certainly see him playing a failbot Sith/Darksider ala the late Jacen Solo.