That’s the blogosphere for you

A student taking a course in cyberspace law learns how Lucasfilm bought out one domain…

The Wookiee costume is a bit much – is a lame domain like PhantomMenaceNews.com worth a Wookiee costume? I don’t think so.

Also, the domain in question seems to be not owned by Lucasfilm at the moment. (Going to the actual site will get you ads and popups. Nothing NSFW, just annoying.) And this list of websites from Echo Station (not updated since August 1999, as good a time capsule as I could find) lists that the site had no DNS (translation: not pointing anywhere) at the time. The Wayback Machine is more of the same.

The law firm does exist. But the story as a whole I’m giving a hearty ‘maybe.’

It’s nice to be rich

The Lucas Foundation has give a record-breaking $175 million to George’s alma mater, the University of Southern California. $75 million goes to build a state-of-the-art facility for their cinema school. Lucas says:

“I discovered my passion for film and making movies when I was a student at USC in the 1960s, and my experiences there shaped the rest of my career. I’m also an ardent advocate for education at all levels and encouraging young people to pursue their ambitions by learning. I’m very fortunate to be in a position to combine my two passions and to be able to help USC continue molding the futures of the moviemakers of tomorrow.”

Doesn’t that make you feel at least a little better about buying the Star Wars DVDs for a second time?

‘A New Way to Use the Force’

There’s an article in today’s Wall Street Journal about Lucasfilm and Star Wars merchandising. Alas, articles on the WSJ web site require a subscription (grr) to read, but here’s what the front-page blurb has to say:

The release of a new Star Wars videogame is getting the kind of push usually reserved for one of the saga’s new films, as part of an effort to keep the movies’ merchandising empire rolling.

If you have access to a print copy, the article is a lead on the paper’s second section. I believe the bigger bookstores (and occasionally Starbucks) will carry it.

ETA: Thanks to Hollywdliz, we find that the article is actually a free feature today!

News of the Day

Okay, I lied. Here are a few interesting Star Wars items on the net today:

The Lucas Effect, a great piece from Popular Mechanics on George Lucas and his effects on moviemaking.

Lucasfilm Consolidates IT for Animation, Movies, Video Games, an article from TechWeb about Lucasfilm’s IT.

And finally, from the starwars.com boards, a survey for Star Wars fans from John Tenuto, a sociology instructor at College of Lake County. I took the survey, but I must admit I found the questions asked rather limiting. I’d like to see him asking more asked about fan attitudes and perceptions of the different aspects of the fandom…