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Han slaps first: Best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets for the past week

Yup, it’s back, and we’re still recovering from April Fools… More serious (okay, mostly snarky) tweets beneath the cut, including J. W. Rinzler on Making of Return of the Jedi, Paul S. Kemp on carbonite, and more on parenting, programing, and Luke’s love life. Continue reading “Han slaps first: Best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets for the past week”

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Roundup: April Fools in Star Wars fandom and elsewhere

You know the drill. APRIL FOOLS!

Has Del Rey even done a prank before? I don’t even remember. But this year, they whipped up a doozy. Beginning with ‘An Apology,’ and then the reveal of the post-Fate of the Jedi series, The Clone Wars 2, by Timothy Zahn. “A series with no end, as long as clones are available there are stories to tell.” (And yes, Zahn actually wrote the excerpt!)

Other Star Wars pranks: StarWars.com introduced the TIE Swatter; Wookieepedia is merging with the Fanon Wiki with the blessing of Dave Filoni, who unmasks himself as SuperShadow; Tom Taylor announces Zombie Fett; Mimobot introduced a limited-edition Jar Jar model; Roqoo Depot begins a ‘Grand Ewok Escapade;’ Jedi News on the sequel trilogy, and the 501st was hacked by the Rebel Legion.

The April Fools Day MVPs at Thinkgeek did it again. Their Star Wars offering is the Admiral Ackbar Singing Bass. The rest are pretty good, too. Some highlights: Keurig 5-Star Meals, Star Trek Inflatable Captain’s Chair, the Technomancer Digital Wizard Hoodie, Game of Thrones Fire and Blood perfume and a Barbie™ Digital Fashion Styling Head for iPad.

Another winner is Spielburgers, a theme restaurant based on the films of Steven Speilberg. Menu offerings include the The Bruce burger, Catch Me If You Cannelloni, Jurassic Pork Pulled Sandwich, and Raiders of the Lost Artichoke.

On the book side, Tor.com has a few gems. The biggest is a manga adaption of last year’s prank, John Scalzi’s Shadow War of the Night Dragon. (All in good fun, Scott Lynch took some expection to the news. They also found a massive Game of Thrones leak and a surprising Robert E. Howard collaboration.

We weren’t the only ones to pull in My Little Pony; MC Chris wrote a song and WeLoveFine is offering hoof-hands and, for fans of another 80’s classic, Jem and the Holographs Projecting Earrings. Synergy!

Pablo announced that he’s going to the Brony Side with the My Little Pony Vault.

Of course, there are plenty of other pranks out there! Some of the most popular are AdBlock’s Catblock, Youtube on DVD, Charlize Theron’s phone hacked, Reddit Timeline and, of course. Google Maps 8 bit (for NES!) Adfreak collects some of the best brand pranks, while April Fools on the Web collects… Well, everything.

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Other worlds: Game of Thrones returns Sunday with S2

The night is dark and full of terrors. The second season of the hit series based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire debuts tomorrow! (I’m so excited, even though I can’t actually remember where A Clash of Kings ends and A Storm of Swords begins.) Among the must-reads is this interview with showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss. There’s also been a lot of attention paid to the shows’ female characters. And is the mainstream finally paying attention to fantasy? Well, sort of.

If you want to gorge on more Thrones news, reviews, and interviews ahead of the premiere, head over to the dedicated fan blog Winter is Coming.

Authors behaving badly. Christoper Priest, author of The Prestige, is not very happy with the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist. Take it, Cleolinda.

Preach it. I haven’t been much impressed with his books, but I think Patrick Rothfuss hits things right out of the park on how fantasy needs to move past aping the Tolkien elves-and-dwarves formula.

The Hunger Games. Everyone loves it! Except the people who somehow missed that Rue was black in the book, and think that diminishes the character’s impact. (Um, spoilers.) Not enough facepalm in the world. Actress Amandla Stenberg said in a statement: “It was an amazing experience; I am proud of the film and my performance. I want to thank all of my fans and the entire Hunger Games community for their support and loyalty.”

Will The Hunger Games mark a sea change in Hollywood’s willingness to greenlight more female-lead action movies? The experts are skeptical.

And finally, here’s something not-so-serious: Capitol propaganda posters.

The Lame Files. Is 50 Shades of Grey taking fan fiction mainstream? Considering what what I got in my mailbox yesterday… Yes. Yes it is. Here’s a look back at the book’s fanfic past.

Also: Ten books every fantasy author should read – Why the Wheel of Time series is so long – Highlights in the history of space opera – Harry Potter genderswap – Stakes in fantasy novels – Why old books smell so good

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Chris Hardwick to be Celebration special guest host

The ‘Nerdist’ host will be joining us in Orlando as a “special guest host,” whatever that means. He’s known within the geek community for his podcast and being the host of G4’s Web Soup. (Hopefully he’ll be less obnoxious than the last Star Wars ‘hosting’ job G4’s Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn did at SDCC ’09.) He’s also the host of AMC’s Talking Dead.

He’ll also be hosting Course of the Force, a charity run, at San Diego Comic Con.

This is our first major news on the con since the stage hosts, though there have been announcements on standard Celebration fare like the artist lineup, a collecting track, costume pageant, autograph farm and speed dating.

UPDATE. In other shocking news, The Clone Wars’ Supervising Director Dave Filoni will be at the con.

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Ridiculous merchandise: Life-size Darth Malgus

Now, if you’ve paid any attention around here, you’d no I have little to no use for anything having to do with Star Wars gaming. So, needless to say, I am not particularly impressed with this $6000 life-sized statue of Old Republic Vader wannabee Darth Malgus. This goes beyond wacky, right into Frames territory. Though, honestly, if I had that much money to waste on absurdly expensive Star Wars merchandise, I’d rather have a set of Frames. Or two.

Malgus, for what it’s worth, was the star of a novel, Paul Kemp’s The Old Republic: Deceived.

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Star Wars in the news: TMZ stalks George Lucas, gets obvious answer to stupid question

Top-notch reporting! TMZ harassed George Lucas in Los Angeles yesterday to learn what (almost) every Star Wars fan already knows: There will be no more Star Wars movies. “Never,” you can barely hear Lucas say over the ‘reporter.’ Just let the guy have a visit with his daughter, jeez.

On that note… Forbes’ Roger Friedman says that Lucas lost more than $60 million on Red Tails.

Games. For those who roll their eyes at the very mention of Kyle Katarn, stop here: Gaming media are theorizing that LucasArts may revive a certain first-person shooter. Whatever.

Tours. ‘Where Science Meets Imagination’ is still out there, and its next stop will be the Indiana State Museum in our beloved Indianapolis.

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Is Willow cartoon just a fan’s dream? Probably.

A few days ago I threw a link to some Willow cartoon art in an an EUbits. Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo expressed some skepticism, and came back with the above tweet today. My working theory is that the ‘animation’ art was fan art, or – if io9’s theory of the art’s Nelvana origin is true – some speculative art from an Ewoks or Droids animator that never made it any further than that?

“Although to be fair, I didn’t ask EVERYONE,” Pablo told me later. “Just those who would know.”