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We Break for Nobody

SFX magazine conducted a poll to find the greatest ever special effect, and Star Wars comes out on top for the opening scene of A New Hope.

Only four of the effects in the top ten were created digitally. Other pre-CGI honorees include the climax of 1933’s King Kong (#2), the skeleton warriors from 1963’s Jason and the Argonauts (#4) and the chest buster from 1979’s Alien (#9.)

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Tales of the scroll

Now Playing magazine has an interview with Genndy Tartakovsky about the upcoming episodes of Clone Wars:

“After the first batch we were all exhausted, and we were starting to move on to do other things,” explains the animator. “And then all of a sudden we were contacted that they wanted to do another batch. And I wasn’t really interested in doing another one because I thought, ‘Well, it’s really hard.’ And I thought more Clone Wars is not going to be as interesting. But then I met with George and he told me he wanted to do a story where it ties in exactly to the beginning of Episode III, and that got me excited because it seemed like it’s really part of the mythology, and it’s coming from George himself — that he respected [Clone Wars] so much that he wanted us to tell the story of the scroll from Episode III.”

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The Shire near Brum?

A nature reserve near Birmingham, which was one of JRR Tolkien’s favourite childhood haunts, will be renamed “The Shire Country Park” in honour of the author.

According to the local authority’s cabinet member for leisure, sport and culture:

“The Shire Country Park will help raise the awareness of Tolkien’s close ties with the city and attract visitors from far and wide, keen to discover the places that were such an important influence on the writer.”

What kind of dork would travel there for something like that? Certainly not me. ;)

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More Star Wars Actors in the News

Not that any news could possibly be more cool than yesterday’s announcement of the Vanity Fair cover of colliding Star Wars generations, but there were a couple of other tidbits from Star Wars actors in the news.

Natalie Portman is apparently in final negotiations for the lead female role in V for Vendetta.

And Harrison Ford remains popular with the American public. He was named, yet again, to the Favorite Movie Star list pulled together by the Harris Poll.

And please don’t forget that Ewan McGregor is asking his fans to support UNICEF in the wake of the tsunami disaster.

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Universes collide on cover of “Vanity Fair”

The cover of the next “Vanity Fair” will feature Uncle George amidst the casts of all six movies. It hits newsstands on January 11th.

You can see the whole picture here (with some character spoilers). Um… wow!

There’s an article here with spoilers ahoy!

Thanks to Ewan News and ComingSoon for the great information.

ETA: Starwars.com has posted another look at the cover image, and an interview with Vanity Fair contributing editor Jim Windolf about talking to Lucas. Possible spoilers!