Author: jawajames

San Diego-based Jawa.
Posted on

UChicago’s Indiana Jones package mystery solved!

Last week, I reported on a mysterious package that ended up at the University of Chicago for Indiana Jones – it turns out that the mystery of the Lost Ark’s journal has been solved! UChicago’s Admissions Tumblr reports that the package was indeed a replica prop from eBay being sent from Guam to Italy, when it fell out of its packaging in Hawaii – and since the interior “package” appeared to be legitimate with an address, it made its way to the university.

The University has been allowed to keep the replica prop, while the journal’s maker will create a replacement for the original intended recipient. Most likely, the postal service opened up the package because it was leaving a red line around the globe as it traveled.

Posted on

UChicago gets package for Indiana Jones

The University of Chicago received an unusual package recently, addressed to Indiana Jones. Some pranksters sent a package containing a replica of Abner Ravenwood’s diary, some replica money, postcards, and pictures of Marion and had it slipped into the incoming mail at the admissions office, which is housed in the building that formerly held their geography and geology departments.

As mentioned in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones was the protégé of Professor Ravenwood at the University of Chicago, before their falling out over Abner’s daughter, Marion. The admissions office is trying to sort out who sent the package and why… but it seems pretty obvious to me that Abner needs to keep his documentation away from the Nazis, and sent it to someone who could use it. The bigger mystery: if Professor Ravenwood died in Nepal, who mailed it from Egypt? (Also, the addressor appears to have misspelled “Illinois” and added a ZIP code, which didn’t exist yet in the 1930’s, when Raiders takes place.)

“Doctor Jones! I’m so glad you’re back! Your mail is on your desk.” — Irene, Indy’s secretary at the college

In the meantime, the University has set up an email to accept information about the package: indianajonesjournal@uchicago.edu. Is it from a prospective student? Is it just an elaborate hoax? Is it some sort of guerilla PR work to ramp up for some new Indiana Jones announcement – some sort of new story focusing on the legacy of Abner Ravenwood? It’s not the first time Abner’s death had been exaggerated.

Posted on

Crystal Skull lawsuit: It belongs in OUR museum! (As do some of the Indiana Jones profits)

Indiana Jones was called a grave robber and “obtainer of rare antiquities” in his career, but at least in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the skull ended up in its rightful place. Not so much with another crystal skull, which was referenced in the 2008 film: the Mitchell-Hedges skull, found in British Honduras (now Belize) in the 1920s.

Now, the Institute of Archaeology of Belize is using the Illinois courts to get the Mitchell-Hedges skull back from its discoverer’s family, and are even claiming that the skull’s likeness was used as the basis for the fictional skull in the Indiana Jones film without Belize’s authorization and thus the country deserves a chunk of the profit from Lucasfilm and Paramount (and now Disney). Or could it be that the crystal skull prop (and the Mitchell-Hedges skull) are based on the design of human skulls (albeit for the movie, some proportions were extended to alien dimensions).

The lawsuit alleges that there are only four known major crystal skulls in the world, including the one in the British Museum. Wait, the British Museum rock crystal skull was determined not to be Mayan or Aztec, but made later, from material not in the pre-Columbian Mexico trade network. Not a good start for this case.

Whether the Mitchell-Hedges skull is stolen property that needs to be repatriated to Belize is one case, but then dragging Lucasfilm into the case for claiming stolen profits is going to be a much tougher case. Or was the goal to just get some PR for this lawsuit?

Posted on

Dark Horse announces Brian Wood Star Wars story as part of Free Comic Book Day 2013

Dark Horse Comics announced their stories for their two Free Comic Book Day releases. The publisher will continue their tradition of having flip covers, but will have three different stories in each comic book.

In their all-ages book, the Star Wars story by Brian Wood and stars both Darth Vader and Boba Fett. Also in that book will be a story about Mai from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and a peek into the upcoming series, Captain Midnight, about the search for a superhero gone missing.

In the other comic, we get a trio of stories: R.I.P.D. (by Jeremy Barlow), Mass Effect and a preview of the police-state world of The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. The best part? They’re free! The worst part? Having to wait until Free Comic Book Day 2013, which is Saturday, May 4.

Posted on

Several Annie nominations for The Clone Wars, ILM, LEGO Star Wars team

The nominations for the 40th annual Annie Awards, showcasing the best in animation, were announced today, with a few nominations headed towards Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

Joel Aron got a nomination for individual achievement for Animated Effects in an Animated Production (for the second year in a row).

Sam Witwer was nominated for voice acting for his role as Darth Maul in the season four finale ‘Revenge,’ while Keith Kellogg was a nominee for Character Animation in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production. The season five premiere, ‘Revival,’ was granted a nomination for Jason Tucker for Editorial in an Animated Television Production. The judges do love Maul.

Threshold Animation Studios earned an nomination for Best Animated Television Production For Children with their LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out, that aired back in September. See… more love for Maul! (Don’t forget our interview with writer Michael Price!)

LegoSW_Annie_Nom

Meanwhile, two teams from ILM got nominations for Animated Effects in a Live Action Production: The crews that worked on The Avengers and Battleship. Another ILM team was a nominee for Thor’s abs and Hawkeye’s butt Character Animation in a Live Action Production for The Avengers.

Overall, Disney and Pixar picked up a handful of nominations across the board, including 3 Best Picture noms for Brave, Wreck-It Ralph, and Frankenweenie. On the TV side, DreamWorks’ Dragons: The Riders of Berk snagged a slew of nominations for its crew.

“I am very excited about this year’s slate of nominees!” ASIFA-Hollywood president, Frank Gladstone, said in a statement. “We had more submissions to choose from this year than for any prior year in Annie Award history, running the gamut from big studio features to indie films, television series to internet shows, games, shorts and, for the first time, student films, all showcasing the huge variety of venues, creativity, technical innovation, and story-telling that our art form has to offer.”

The 40th Annual Annie Awards will take place on February 2, 2013 at UCLA and are selected and presented by the International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

Posted on

Interview: Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on The Last Jedi and Shadow Games

Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, co-author of Shadow Games and Coruscant Nights III: Patterns of Force, was a featured guest at Conjecture/ConChord in San Diego this past weekend for her work on writing filk songs, but she had time to give me the scoop on her upcoming Star Wars novel with Michael Reaves, The Last Jedi, as well as shares about writing Dash Rendar in Shadow Games, and characterizing droids like I-Five and Leebo. She also discusses how the short story “And Leebo Makes Three…” came about, and her other upcoming works.

I was a little disappointed that the programming staff for the joint convention (ConChord is a Southern California filking con, for which Bohnhoff and her husband were toastmasters, while Conjecture is a San Diego sci-fi/fantasy lit con) didn’t get their ducks in a row to have Bohnhoff on any Star Wars panels, such as readings for Star Wars Reads Day, or joining the discussion with Patricia Wrede, David Brin, and myself. Still it was a treat to have a chance to sit down with Bohnhoff about the writing process and baseball. Smaller cons are great places to actually meet and talk to the featured guests.

The Last Jedi, by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, comes out on February 26, 2013 in paperback.

Posted on

Star Wars Reads Day in San Diego: Interview with Patricia C. Wrede

Patricia C. Wrede was the guest of honor at Conjecture, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in San Diego, this past weekend. While known more for her young adult fantasy work (including The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Frontier Magic series), Wrede is also the author of the middle school novelizations of the three prequel movies (from Scholastic). As part of Star Wars Reads Day, she and voice actor Mark Biagi performed a reading of different scenes from her junior novelizations. I got a chance to chat with Wrede about getting into the heads of Amidala and other prequel characters as well as other aspects of writing the novel adaptations for movies that weren’t complete at the time she was writing. She also discusses her most recent Frontier Magic novel, The Far West, the conclusion of a tale of magic in frontier America.

As a panelist at Conjecture, I got to moderate a panel entitled “What Didn’t George Lucas Steal?”, with Patricia Wrede, David Brin (of Star Wars On Trial), and Donna Keeley. While we started on topic about original concepts in the Star Wars films (and whether original ideas in storytelling even matters), we soon moved into the usual dissection of the saga, with Brin serving up his usual gripes against the moral lessons of Star Wars and George Lucas. Wrede had some good counters when examining the parallels between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, and Keeley broke down how haters of “Do or do not. There is no try.” are missing the context.

Learn more about Patricia C. Wrede on her official website.

Posted on

Get ready for The Clone Wars S5 to start Saturday morning!

Counting down for the first episode of The Clone Wars season five, ‘Revival’ coming out Saturday morning on Cartoon Network (9:30 am on PT/ET, 8:30 am Central). The official site has a preview of Darth Maul exerting his alpha dog status over his brother Savage Opress. But Savage isn’t happy about being relegated to apprentice again. After last week’s fan screening of the first two episodes at Lucasfilm, a Q&A with Dave Filoni, Joel Aron, and Ashley Eckstein focused on Ahsoka’s journey and the return of Darth Maul.

The Daily.com has an exclusive preview clip for the entire season, with Dave Filoni describing how this season is a great place to jump in and get caught up with the Star Wars adventure, and how far they’ve come since they started the show.

Here’s more to get you psyched for ‘Revival’ and the kickoff of the fifth season:

Posted on

Interview: Michael Price on LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out

With LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out premiering this Wednesday night on Cartoon Network, I checked in with the show’s writer, Michael Price, who also wrote last year’s LEGO Star Wars special, The Padawan Menace. That first animated show (reviewed last year), which had Yoda, C-3PO and a young Han Solo, ranks up as the best Star Wars based comedy I had seen in years, and one of my top Star Wars on screen for 2011. In this interview, Michael talks about the comedy of The Empire Strikes Out, and the challenges of solo writing Luke and Vader. Continue reading “Interview: Michael Price on LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out“

Posted on

Dave Filoni teases The Clone Wars S5 to USA Today

USA Today interviews Dave Filoni about the upcoming season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and he describes that season five is going to be bringing a lot of the war’s consequences. My favorite line:

“Black market, drug trafficking, these are all areas that Maul or someone like him can flourish,” Filoni says.

Darth Maul – half man, all drug lord. Yup. You heard it straight from Dave Filoni… from a certain point of view. And for those wanting to see more cameos from the original trilogy, there’s not a chance that Han Solo will appear (unless George comes up with the idea) but the article does mention the return of Tarkin and an appearance of blue Snaggletooth. More seriously, Filoni points out that we are going to see more of the impact of how the Jedi’s role in the war is being perceived. I’m pretty sure that if the Jedi were asked about their media strategy in the war, the Holonet News sound bite would go like this:

“We’re keepers of the peace, not spin doctors.” said Mace Windu, summing up the Jedi Order’s main media strategy as “one giant Jedi mind trick”. The briefing ended abruptly when General Kenobi appeared, waving his hands, saying “This isn’t the interview you’re looking for.”