The Clone Wars: ‘Duel of the Droids’ postmortem

Reaction to ‘Duel of the Droids’ was a bit less frazzled than its predecessor, though not everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid. (I, for one, have ceased even trying.) Still, there’s plenty to bask in for fans of the series, including the obligatory video commentary. (Screencap above is from .)

The real question? Is all the goodwill that Clone has built up going to be blown with this Friday’s Jar-Jar episode? Yousa can tell meesa on Saturday.

And finally, in more general TCW ware, the ForceCast sits down with Skywalker Sound’s David Acord (Rotta the Huttlet) and Matthew Wood (General Grievous.)

Five blogs you should be reading (and their friends)

So Livejournal is going down today for a few hours, leaving many fandomers bereft of one of their main sources of information. My Livejournal friendslist is one of the first things I read every morning and perhaps my main pipeline of internet goings-on (Which I then filter for you here! And here!) And by the time I wake up, it will be down for the duration.

But luckily, I also have about a bagillion bookmarks. So here, for you, are five blogs that are of vital importance to the cause, worth checking out while LJ is incommunicado. (And that you might not already know – for the obvious, just see the blogroll.)

Whatever
The Whatever is the blogging fortress of science fiction author John Scalzi. If you only read one personal blog of a science fiction personality, you could do worse. (Plus he’s supremely snarky – we love those types around here.) See also: Tor, Neil Gaiman, Antick Musings.

TV Tattle
The blog as information disseminator in the most basic form (it doesn’t even have an RSS feed!) Generally I have at least a half-dozen blogs for any given topic, but TV Tattle is quite literally the only TV blog I check on daily basis. See also: It’s all you need, really. But if you’re obsessed with just one particular show or creator, best look for a site devoted to the topic, ala Whedonesque.

io9
When Gawker starts a blog that covers your area of interest, you pretty much have to read it, at least on my end. Even if they do sometimes post some seriously stupid shit. See also: ‘The lady Gawker,’ Jezebel, Boing Boing, Topless Robot.

SF Signal
Serious about genre? This is the place. They are strong in the art of finding everything that could possibly be of interest, and their features are top-notch stuff. Seriously, no complaints, and sometimes they link us! See also: Big Dumb Object, Underwire, Binary Bonsai.

/film
There are a lot of movie blogs out there, but /film is my favorite. They hit the major stuff without making me having to slog through a dozen pages for a single day, with a great eye for video and random ‘cool stuff.’ And yes, this is fanboy territory. Be strong. See also: Cinematical, The Movie Blog, MTV Movies.

Want to contribute? Link your own favorites in the comments! (Yes, basic HTML works, though if you have a lot of URLs your comment may be held for approval.)

The Phantom Menace teaser and Holiday Special both celebrate anniversaries today

Yes, there’s the Star Wars Holiday Special‘s 30th, but more importantly, it was November 17th, 1998 that The Phantom Menace trailer debuted, ushering us into a new era for the movies and fandom. The Stooge shares his story of seeing it… What’s yours?

I think I just loaded it up on my computer (Dialup plus an overloaded early StarWars.com… Took forever) because even then I couldn’t muster enough interest in the prequels to see Meet Joe Black or that Adam Sandler flick. The more things change…