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Ahmed Best talks cut Jar Jar scene in Revenge of the Sith

With The Phantom Menace 3D out this weekend, Entertainment Weekly checked in with the man behind Jar Jar Binks, Ahmed Best, who gave his thoughts on the Gungan’s diminished role in Episode III. Best also mentioned a scene cut filmed but cut from the finished version of Revenge of the Sith where Supreme Chancellor Palpatine takes a walk with Representative Binks:

“And Palpatine kind of thanks Jar Jar for putting him in power. It’s a really interesting scene, and it shows the evolution of Jar Jar from this fun-loving kid’s character into this manipulated politician. And it was an interesting arc for the character that I thought could have been explored, because the scene is really dark. But it just didn’t fit in the movie, which I understand. But yeah, George’s take on it is Jar Jar is now just a politician.”

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Roundup: It’s Phantom Menace 3D day

The Phantom Menace is loose! Run for your lives! Or, chill out as we round up some of the press floating around about the movie. (And don’t forget that the new Her Universe stuff is now on sale!) Onward!

Reviews are in! MTV rounds up a couple from the pros. Our pal Bryan Young liked it. On the 3D, he says, “There was never a moment where I thought it was too overwhelming or too underwhelming.” Brian at Roqoo Depot is also favorable, calling it, “the single greatest post-processed 3D film that has graced the silver screen.”

Over at Entertainment Weekly, George Lucas talks about the 3D conversions came out of his efforts to get movie theaters to switch to digital, and why the format is beneficial to movies.

They also have some neat remembrances on Star Wars from Jeff Jensen, Marc Snetiker, Anthony Breznican and Stephan Lee. (Apparently EW has no lady staffers with SW memories.)

There’s also a photo gallery on their best and worst moments of the saga.

In today’s article, Keith Staskiewicz takes a look at how Episode I influenced special effects. Would we have Gollum if not for Jar Jar?

If you’re intrigued by some of the details Lucas mentioned in the EW video, learn more about The Phantom Menace’s 3D conversion from movieScope.

I’ve been looking at a lot of Phantom Menace stuff this week, and my favorite thing so far? Next Movie’s Eight biopics recast with Jar Jar. Yes, it’s total clickbait, but you certainly know by now that I love me some funny.

If you’re looking for something (sort of) serious, they also have an item about why Millennials (you know, those kids people us GenXers and GenCatalanos yell at to ‘get off our lawns’) don’t hate the prequels. But it’s in the form of a one-act play, so it’s not that serious.

CNN has a more straight-faced look at Star Wars, fandom and the reaction to Episode I.  You know it’s serious because they enlisted Henry Jenkins.

The Dearborn Press and Guide highlights Steve Mitchell, a Michigan 501ster. The Great Lakes Garrison will appear at a Detroit Pistons game tonight and several Phantom Menace showings throughout the state tomorrow.

What’s TPM going up against at the box office? I don’t think it has much to worry about from The Vow, a romantic drama starring Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum… But the kid-friendly Journey 2: The Mysterious Island may also be a draw for the action-adventure crowd, not to mention the 3D big bucks.

Coming Soon is projecting The Vow to take the top spot, but has Episode I beating Journey by several million. Entertainment Weekly projects the same, but with a few more million between TPM and Journey.

And finally, for the bitterest kittens, here’s a little piece from my hometown paper: 10 reasons why not to see The Phantom Menace. (I’m rather partial to escaping to a more civilized age.) Or, swing over to see MTV’s Josh Horowitz argue TPM with Simon Pegg. Prequel-lovers, for you I have 10 reasons to love Jar Jar and MTV’s list of six underrated TPM characters.

We’ll be adding links to this post throughout the day, so check back!

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‘Crisis on Naboo’ wraps up the undercover Obi-Wan arc tonight on The Clone Wars

Tonight’s episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars is ‘Crisis on Naboo’, finishing the four part story arc involving Obi-Wan Kenobi’s infiltration of the criminal underworld. The Jedi posing as a bounty hunter Rako Hardeen will be teaming up with Cad Bane and the rest of the Box-surviving team to kidnap the Chancellor during a summit on Naboo. Watch the show and talk with the man behind Obi-Wan, James Arnold Taylor, who will be hosting a live chat (8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific) during the broadcast on Entertainment Weekly‘s website Also, Catherine Taber talks about working with Matt Lanter and the late Ian Abercrombie.

And for a neck-snappingly refreshing good time, check out this second clip of the bounty hunter team in action:

Continue reading “‘Crisis on Naboo’ wraps up the undercover Obi-Wan arc tonight on The Clone Wars“

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Star Wars raked in $3B in 2011 and Han never shot first: George Lucas in The Hollywood Reporter

The Phantom Menace is coming upon us yet again, and the press has been piling up. We’ll have more of a roundup tomorrow, but for this afternoon let’s start off with The Hollywood Reporter’s feature on Star Wars George Lucas. In it, we learn the franchise raked in $3 billion in licensing revenue last year. (That’s a lot of lightsabers – in the accompanying photo gallery, they say the franchise has raked in $20B in licensed goods alone.) Overall though, the feature doesn’t hold much for informed fans – merchandising rights, The Clone Wars, etc. So what’s really making waves among the geeky internet is a Q&A sidebar, where Lucas talks reaction to his Star Wars tweaks (“…when I make the slightest change, everybody thinks it’s the end of the world.”) and Han not shooting first:

Well, it’s not a religious event. I hate to tell people that. It’s a movie, just a movie. The controversy over who shot first, Greedo or Han Solo, in Episode IV, what I did was try to clean up the confusion, but obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo [who seemed to be the one who shot first in the original] to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t. It had been done in all close-ups and it was confusing about who did what to whom. I put a little wider shot in there that made it clear that Greedo is the one who shot first, but everyone wanted to think that Han shot first, because they wanted to think that he actually just gunned him down.

He also talks about CGI Yoda, Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and SOPA, but you know what’s getting passed around the internet for the rest of the evening…

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The Craft Side: 80’s Retro Star Wars comic shoes

Craftster member BenaeQuee made these supremely nerdy decoupage shoes using some “well-loved” 80’s Star Wars comic books. She writes:

I used 10 comic books and poured over the endless panels cutting out various images that appealed to me. Chewie, R2D2, and the Millennium Falcon were ones that I cut out a lot. I found a great piece of Vader dueling shirtless, buff, Luke *hehe* that is the statement on the outside of the left shoe.

The left shoe is the battle between the Rebellion and the Empire. The right shoe is strictly the Rebellion forces. The sole edges are painted in a glittery black paint that reminds me of the night sky (visible in the original picture size linked below) and the upper edges are finished in a black cloth tape and a pin stripe of chrome paint. The heel tip is also finished with the chrome paint.

Later in the comments, she says she used “Liquitex Gloss Medium and Varnish” to seal them, but hopes to use a sealant spray as well. (Can you be too careful?) Seems like a fun project to emulate!

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Video: Star Wars Begins filmumentarian finishes Raiding the Lost Ark

Jamie Benning, who created the Star Wars Begins, Building Empire, and Returning to Jedi “filmumentaries,” has posted the finished version of his latest fan documentary, Raiding the Lost Ark on Vimeo. (He’s not so big on YouTube these days.)

Compiling lots of making-of information with original interviews with several cast and crew members (and even an interview with Blade Runner‘s Sean Young, who had auditioned for the role of Marion Ravenwood,) it’s essentially an super vocal commentary of the first Indiana Jones film. Benning guest-blogged on Empire Online about the making of Raiding the Lost Ark, while PBS dives into Benning’s history of filmumentaries, and GeekDad has a Raiding image gallery

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Poll: Will you go see The Phantom Menace in 3D this weekend?

So Friday sees the release of The Phantom Menace 3D. Drew McWeeny praises the conversion, and his kid loved it (and he has a funny story about being banned from Skywalker Ranch.) Coming Soon’s Chris and Benjamin Mason were “blown away” by the conversion, though Richard Gray of The Reel Bits is less impressed, calling it “disappointing” and “murky.” But it’s The Phantom Menace, so of course the reviews are mixed.

In any case, our pal Bryan Young really wants you to see it. Others… Not so much. (I’m debating, but… Well.) Of course.

But the real question…

Continue reading “Poll: Will you go see The Phantom Menace in 3D this weekend?”