A look at the DVD menus on the ANH bonus disks from the official site, while TFN reports on Walmart extras.
Star Wars in the News
R2-D2 and C-3PO will be among 150 objects that will remain on display while the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History undergoes renovation. The National Air and Space Museum, home to the Magic of Myth exhibition, will be hosting.
The Legacy comic series gets covered in the Philadelphia Daily News.
Chewie, Vader, and Wicket to visit the Florida Marlins.
Another article about the Charles Ross. He’s in the U.K. now.
Here we go again…
George Lucas talks to Empire Magazine about Indy 4. Key quote:
“We’re basically going to do The Phantom Menace”, says Lucas (stay with him here, he’s making a point). “People’s expectations are way higher than you can deliver. You could just get killed for the whole thing…We would do it for fun and just take the hit with the critics and the fans…But nobody wants to get into it unless they are really happy with it”.
Well, yes. But don’t encourage them, George. Bringing up TPM in this context – no matter how good a point you attach to it – is just going to make the fanboys start pre-frothing.
Although, a LFL crossover I’d like to see? A golden Jar-Jar.
Goodnight, SG-I
Stargate SG-1 has been cancelled. Honestly? I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has, because every year I think it’s over and it just keeps coming back anyway. Stargate Atlantis and (no doubt) many reruns will remain.
According to the article, it’s lasted longer than any “U.S.-produced sci-fi show. Ever.” Wow. Not even ST:TNG made it that far? Now I’m sad.
‘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!
Arrrrr you ready for this?
Well, of course there are pirate reenactors… (Thanks James!)
This is (not) the war that never ends…
Andrew Wheeler has some thoughts on Tempest and the Things Get Worse-ness of the Expanded Universe, to which I can only say… Yeah. I know far too many people, avid EU readers before the NJO, who now are… not. Wheeler hits on the head one reason some folks (including me) view the Bantam line as more successful, depite the mixed quality of the books themselves – storylines very rarely lasted longer than a trilogy or so. You didn’t have book after book of endless catastrophe. If one book or trilogy bored, the next could be a complete 180 in any number of ways. There was, quite simply, variety.
I have hopes for the Legacy series – I’m generally hopeful, at least in the early stages. At the very least, it doesn’t look to be shaping up to anything on the level of the NJO, where I might have welcomed a book by Kevin J. Anderson if he just made the big bad and incredibly boring Yuuzhan Vong simply go away. (Finally, an acceptable use for those excess superweapons!) LOTF, with the linchpin of a civil war where both sides are populated by ‘good’ guys, and the possibility for main baddies who are, if not totally sympathetic, actually interesting, could avoid the NJO syndrome.
Maybe.
Good advice for any convention, really
Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s advice on how to throw a large room party at a science fiction convention. . There’s also some detailed notes on tape in the comments.
Also scammed from the comments – a ConRunner wiki. Interesting…
Wrap it like Yoda
Does your baby already have one of Caitlin’s junior Jayne hats? Here’s another option – what every growing youngling needs – a Yoda sweater.
Weird things on the Wookieepedia
A frighteningly long list of food and beverages from the Galaxy Far, Far Away. This is exactly why we need wikis, folks. Why should Pablo Hidalgo or Leland Chee waste valuable time compiling silly stuff like this for the rare super-obsessive fan who’s actually going to need to know what ryshcate is?
Yeah, it’s a bit scary. But still, kind of neat. There’s even a picture of blob candy…