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EUbits: Fate of the Jedi is ending, have you heard?

Fate of the Jedi. Apocalypse is only days away, and so there is a book trailer. (Naturally.) And a mini-excerpt. And a 50-page excerpt. And Troy Denning on a podcast. And, of course, another spoiler-free review at Star Wars Report. Will it ever end? (Well, yes. Presumably, Tuesday. And then, the arguing. Yay!)

Comics. John Jackson Miller talks about Knight Errant’s next arc, ‘Escape,’ with io9’s Cyriaque Lamar.

Upcoming. DK will be releasing The Old Republic Encyclopedia this fall, Roqoo Depot discovered.

The blogside. Roqoo Depot’s Skuldren speaks out against super-powered characters in video games and the EU. In my book, that’s a very big reason why certain streams should no be crossing… Meanwhile, io9 makes a valiant effort to connect the Star Wars timeline to Earth’s timeline – pity that the comic tale they’re using as a cornerstone is kind of, a little bit, well, actually entirely Infinities, aka a non-canon AU. Which they admit. But still.

Okay, fine. If it’s an actual EU timeline you’re looking for (sorry, no Earth,) here’s an official one from Del Rey.

Review. James gives the latest Clone Wars digest, The Enemy Within, a thumbs-up for its Dirty Dozen meets L.A. Confidential in space storyline.

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The Clone Wars: O ‘Brothers’, Where Art Thou?

Savage Opress crosses the galaxy in search of his brother (or is it half-brother?), Darth Maul, in tonight’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, entitled ‘Brothers’. Can he get the Sith Lord out of his funk? First, Savage has to find him, and helping him in the search is Mother Talzin.

Tonight, director Dave Filoni will be doing the Entertainment Weekly live chat along with the broadcast. Show up around 7:40 p.m. ET/4:40 p.m. PT EDIT: Here’s the direct link to the chat with Dave Filoni, starting at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT!

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Pottermore to open for all in April

The Pottermore beta has been going on so long and the opening delayed for so long that I, for one, had almost forgot about it. But today, the site announced that the interactive Harry Potter site will be opening for everyone in “early April.”

Part of the holdup, it seems, has been a move to “an entirely different platform” that should (hopefully) hold up to the expected amounts of users. (The beta was/is notoriously slow.)

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Get taken to the Maul with The Clone Wars season finale!

Attention TK-Mart shoppers, there’s a special on Star Wars: The Clone Wars this Friday: the first part of the two-part season finale featuring the return of the warrior who’s half Sith Lord.. and half not, Darth Maul. Stock up now on the following voice actor goodies as you prepare for the end of season four:

And remember, when shopping at the Darth Mall, all prices have been slashed in half!

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Out this week: Crimson Empire III, The Enemy Within

Once again, we have a week without a book release, but Wednesday does bring a few things to your local comic shop. First up is Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost #5, as the series winds up to next month’s conclusion. Then, for the The Clone Wars fans, there’s The Enemy Within trade, which Dark Horse is describing as “Dirty Dozen in space.”

Of course, next week, we’ll finally get the last Fate of the Jedi book, Troy Denning’s Apocalypse. Which means now is the time for those of us who’ve been slacking (ahem, yours truly) to finally get around to reading finishing Ascension. For those who are hanging on every word, Lightsaber Rattling has the first review. He hints at some spoilers, but nothing major.

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First issues of Dawn of the Jedi to be reprinted

Dark Horse Comics announced yesterday that Issues #0 and #1 of the new Star Wars: Dawn of the Jedi series would be reprinted after retail outlets reported selling out and not meeting demand. Not a bad way to kick off a new series! If you missed getting the backgrounder guide of #0, or the first part of the story in #1, make sure your local comics shop sets them aside for you when both come back on March 21, which conveniently is when #2 is also going to hit stores. The series by John Ostrander and Jan Duursema goes back 25,000 years, to a time before Jedi and lightsabers. On the fence? I’ve handily reviewed the two issues over at Big Shiny Robot: Issue #0 and Issue #1.

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Eighth Lost Tribe of the Sith story is live

The final free installment of John Jackson Miller’s Lost Tribe of the Sith, Secrets is avaliable now. It also contains an excerpt from Fate of the Jedi: Apocalpse, which will be out on March 13.

A ninth Lost Tribe of the Sith tale will be avaliable in June, when the whole series is published as a paperback. For now, Miller has posed his notes to several past installments.

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The Machete Order and watching the entire saga: Does The Phantom Menace matter?

Last week, three different sources pointed me to Rod Hilton’s blog post from last fall on the Machete order for watching the films of the Star Wars saga (especially for newcomers). While his overall proposed order (start with IV – A New Hope and V – The Empire Strikes Back, then go with the prequels, then show VI – Return of the Jedi isn’t new — Last year, we covered Drew McWeendy’s Film Nerd 2.0 showings to his two sons), Machete goes a step further by cutting out The Phantom Menace. Not because Hilton feels it is a bad movie, but because he points out that it is mostly irrelevant to the saga. Either a point gets brought up again in the other prequels or it isn’t needed at all in the larger scheme of things (Darth Maul, Qui-Gon Jinn, Valorum, podracing). He points out how he thinks it makes the saga stronger, by preserving some of the big reveals, and relating whiny Anakin to whiny Luke as showing Luke on the same path to the dark side in Return of the Jedi as Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. He also points out some of the weaknesses of his ordering of the films, most notably about the Prophecy of the Chosen One, and Anakin’s return to rescue Shmi and pick up Threepio in Attack of the Clones. The Machete Order got me thinking, and also prompted a discussion among some Club Jaders, who looked at the notion of order and TPM‘s relevance from several angles.

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