A short-film adaption of Terry Bisson’s short story “They’re Made Out of Meat” won grand prize at the Science Fiction Museum’s First Annual Short Film Festival. Watch the film, or read the original story. (via Boing Boing)
Checking in with the Fan Club race
Things were getting a little nasty for a while there, but hopefully the race to be Star Wars Fan Club President is back on track now.
According to the leaderboard, Tom ‘Uscwannabe’ Costabile is still in the lead with 162 recruited, and Dustin Roberts has 135. I don’t see anyone coming up from behind with those numbers – the third-placer, mkDCSWCC, still only has nine recruitments.
It’s possible that Dustin could still take it, with ten days left. His numbers aren’t too puzzling – he’s been pimping on two of the biggest fansites for weeks now. But Uscwannabe’s lead is still a bit of a mystery. Who is this guy, and where is he getting all those votes? I have no idea, and neither I nor Club Jade as a whole are endorsing any candidates.
However, this is good news for folks that want to have a say but have their accounts set to auto-renew: If your Hyperspace account has auto-renewed during the race, you can still have a vote.
But does he shot first?
Hasbro is making an action figure of George Lucas in Stormtrooper disguise. Hopefully the news of the rereleased OOT will keep fanboys from using it as a voodoo doll.
Oh, the puns
It’s May 4th, aka May the Fourth be With You, aka National Star Wars Day, apparently. (Thanks Bonnie!)
Who’s bringing the chips?
Star Lords: Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, together at last. With disco!
Cue the fanboy implosion
Lucasfilm is releasing the unaltered Original Trilogy on DVD this September. They’ll only be available for a limited time, but they will be available. StarWarsShop even has Han shot first t-shirts for the occasion.
I’m in shock. How about you?
Media coverage: USAToday / MTV / Zap2it / E!Online / Mercury News / MSNBC.
ROTS gets two Saturn Awards
Revenge of the Sith did well at the Saturn Awards – Best Science Fiction Film and Best Music. Battlefront II won the Best Science Fiction Video Game Release.
Batman Begins won Best Fantasy Film, and Lost and Battlestar Galactica both won for Best TV series in their respective catagories. Christian Bale, Matthew Fox, James Callis, Katee Sackhoff and Serenity’s Summer Glau all took home actor awards.
Thank you, Rick!
Rick McCallum speaks about the upcoming Star Wars television shows at the Saturn Awards, and busts open my least favorite rumor:
McCallum also denied rumors that the new series would focus on members of the Skywalker family, but repeated that the show will take place in the timeframe between Episode III and IV. “All-new characters,” he added. “That missing 20-year period when Luke is growing up. … Think bounty hunter. That’s all I can tell you. There’s nobody else that you’ll know [in it]. At the moment. You know, it’s still [in] really really early stages. He hasn’t really sat down to think about which direction [he’s going].”
He also said that the live-action show is about 18 months off, and the animated shorts maybe a year.
Who said fandom never got you anywhere?
Remember Ryan vs. Dorkman? Well, Ryan has a site with a bunch of great tutorials for fan videomakers. He’s also worked for Lucasarts and is now with a L.A. visual effects company. Pretty impressive!
At least we have our priorities straight
Pablo does some impromtu Wikipedia research and comes up with some interesting facts: A He-Man villian has a longer entry than King Constantine I of Greece.
I did some word count checking of my own, and found that the entry for Emperor Palpatine outwords that of Julius Caesar by more than 10,000 words. Meanwhile, Palpatine’s Wookieepedia entry is almost three times the size as the one on Wikipedia.
Freaky.