More press for fanfic

Where the Wall Street Journal goes, other media follows. Well, okay – a few.

Headline award goes to the Lexington Herald-Leader for What the fic? Alas, they play up the ‘laugh at the freaks’ aspect a bit. (“…What if the cast of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace met up with the cast of the musical Cats?“)

Way to paraphrase the WSJ, Biz Report.

The Daily Athenaeum takes the personal approach. Now, can someone find them some working paragraph tags?

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?

Ready to sell out!

The New York Times profiles Seth Green and the folks of Adult Swim’s Robot Chicken. The show has produced several Star Wars skits, most notably this one, which according to the article got Green and co-producer Matthew Senreich an invite to ILM. (Green has been to the Ranch as well.)

Apparently the new season premiered this Sunday… For those of us who missed it, watch the whole thing at Adult Swim Fix. Sadly, it’s not the best episode…

Peter Jackson speaks

In an interview with AICN, Peter Jackson talks about the limbo that is The Hobbit. Guess what? He heard the latest rumors on the internet, along with everyone else. More hopeful is the first part of the interview, where he talks about the Temeraire books. He even mentions Star Wars and franchise-building:

What I love about what George Lucas has done with STAR WARS, which I think is really cool, is that you have the movies and the movies, obviously, are the flagships of the saga, of the storytelling, but you have the comic books and the novels and everything that fills out what happens inbetween the films and what happens in other places while the films are occurring. I love that expansion of the world. This is, to me, has also got the same possibilities. The movies can be the epics and there can be other forms of entertainment that can be running alongside the movies, expanding the world of the books and the story.

Meanwhile, they’re casting for Hobbits in London. Thanks to Yav for the links!