Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Lucasfilm’s Leland Chee, the Keeper of the Holocron, has started a new Facebook fanpage in the wake of Monday’s announcement that the StarWars.com forums are not long for this world. You can ask him questions, join a discussion, or find out how this stuff works.
Fear not: If you’re not a fan of the site, you can still bookmark and read the fan page. You will need an account to ask questions or join discussions, though.
Chee has also been on Twitter as @HolocronKeeper for some time now.
Last Thursday, Legoland California opened up their Star Wars area in Miniland with some big fanfare. The official ribbon cutting was done by Princess Leia herself, Carrie Fisher, and Carson Weiner, a young Star Wars fan representing the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Also on hand for the celebration were James Arnold Taylor and Catherine Taber of Star Wars: The Clone Wars and about 60 costumed members of the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion. Other VIPs included skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and “Wait, I was in Star Trek not Star Wars” Christian Slater and Dancing with the Stars‘ Brooke Burke.
Continue reading “Star Wars Miniland opens at Legoland California”
It’s looking pretty likely that a nice chunk of the Star Wars backlist will be coming to eBook format this summer. Given the popularity of that post – if not for April Fools, it would probably have been last week’s most-read – it seems there’s quite a bit of interest.
While I know a lot of folks who are all about their Kindles, I can’t say the format has ever held much interest for me. (And I already own most of the Star Wars backlist anyway.) I like physical books, and moreover, I like shopping for actual books in actual bookstores. Ironically, my reason for that – basically, instant gratification, because even two-day shipping takes two days – is the one reason why I can understand the lure of eBooks.
But what are your thoughts? Have you jumped on the eBook train? (Star Wars or otherwise!) Continue reading “Poll/Discussion: Your thoughts on eBooks”
And now the results from the final event in the Club Jade Craft-athlon: “Vader’s Custom Tee,” in which participants took a Star Wars apparel item and re-purposed it into a new creation. While most of our entries used a t-shirt as their base design material, our winner, Kitty Lewis, went down to the feet to turn two pairs of Darth Vader socks into “Darth Lolita Goth Arm Warmers.”
To accompany Vader’s socks, we had a squadron of tee-fighters closing in fast. Transforming the shirt off their backs into something new, we had an oversized Hoth bib from Dajuan & Doug Kinney (maybe for use when eating their Tauntaun cake?), the Sweet Dreams Sith pillow from Michelle Brzozowski, and a Lego Original Trilogy round poster from Nancy Lutz. Great work everyone!
And now with the Craft-athlon events complete, keep an eye out for our awarding of the fabulous prizes from Del Rey, live from the Massassi Throne Room on Yavin IV. Who will win the grand prize of a signed version of the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia and Bonnie Burton’s The Star Wars Craft Book? Will Chewbacca get a medal for his crafting achievements finally?
The Force Unleashed II novelization by Sean Williams is a nominee for Best Speculative Original in the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers’ Fifth Annual Scribe Awards. (Shouldn’t it be in the adapted category?)
In his blog entry on the nomination, Williams also says that he’s working on a Star Wars short story – for the Insider, perhaps?
The Scribe Awards have previously nominated one Star Wars novel, Karen Miller’s The Clone Wars: Wild Space for Best Speculative Fiction Adapted (…it wasn’t adapted) in 2009, though the prize ultimately went to the novelization of Hellboy: The Golden Army. They also named Alan Dean Foster, who ghostwrote the original Star Wars novelization, a Grandmaster in 2008. Foster also wrote two Star Wars novels under his own name, 1978’s Splinter of the Mind’s Eye and 2002’s The Approaching Storm.
Well, it’s official: The StarWars.com forums are not long for this world. They’ll go read-only at the end of the month, and disappear entirely come June.
I spent a lot of time on the forums in their early years as a moderator, but they had ceased to be a destination for me years ago, save for the VIP thread in the book forum where Sue Rostoni and others would often drop tidbits of information and answer fan questions.
Still, the forums in their day were a great community and launching (or re-launching) pad for many of us, and I am a little sad – if not particularly surprised – to see them go.
Folks, WonderCon was, as always, awesome fun this year, but it was also the most crowded I’ve ever seen it (I hear tickets sold out for both Friday and Saturday). This is my 6th non consecutive year in attendance and I was hit by so many backpacks I’ve come to loathe them. Lucky for you, I survived a near fall into a vendor’s booth to bring you this vital information. Continue reading “WonderCon report: The Clone Wars panel”
As you no doubt already figured out, we’re not actually quitting news blogging to become a recipe blog, as tempting as that may be. However, Club Jade did produce The Ewok Cookbook way back in the mists of internet past, and most of the recipes in that post were from it. Hell, if you can’t joke about eating Ewoks in Star Wars fandom, what can you joke about?
There were quite a few Star Wars pranks this year, but the one that probably got the most coverage was ThinkGeek’s Lightsaber Popsicles. Will they be their next prank to become a real product? Only time will tell! And be sure to check out all of Thinkgeek’s pranks.
StarWars.com ‘rediscovered’ an old zine that ‘predicted’ parts of the prequel trilogy. Wookieepedia went 3-D, TFN reported that The Holiday Special was coming to Blu-Ray, while RebelScum introduced the Vintage Mini Collection. Improve Everywhere’s Jar Jar got ‘accidently’ beaten up on the New York subway. Artist Grant Gould announced a new comic, Jawa Rebellion, while the StarWars.com forums killed off Artoo.
My favorite: The 501st is switching gears to become a costume club for Monty Python And The Holy Grail on their Facebook page.
There are just so many pranks out there, that from here on out I’m just going to link you to Cinema Blend’s April 1 roundup. This is in no way connected to the fact that they link us.
What were your favorites? What did we miss? Go ahead and tell us in the comments.
I’ve been hanging around fandom a long time. But now, every year brings less and less Star Wars that actually appeals to me. The Old Republic? Not a gamer. The saga in 3-D? Meh. Novels focused on brand-new characters? That’s what the rest of the SF/F section is for. The Clone Wars? No thanks.
And there are so many news blogs out there right now, run by young, fresh names and faces. You don’t need us anymore.
So what’s left that really excites us about Star Wars? Why are we still here? What is the deep dark secret of Club Jade? Continue reading “Turning over a new spit: Cooking with Club Jade”
The Club Jade Craft-athlon has finished its five craft-making events, and now the judges are scoring the last two events, and we have winners to announce for the “Star Wars Roll Model” competition. Each participant took an empty toilet paper roll and turned it into a character, and we had a tough time choosing from so many great entries.
The winner of the Roll Model event is Reynalyn Camoras for her depiction of Mother Talzin, using paint and crayon on a intricately cut and folded toilet paper roll.
Coming in on Talzin’s red heels were the entries were Blinky the Jawa, by Kitty Lewis, and Princess Leia by Jennifer Fuchikama. While Blinky sports a battery-powered tealight inside for the eyes, Leia’s spherical head was made by rotating rings sliced from the toilet paper roll. Rounding out the finalists, we had Michelle Brzozowski’s R2-Deetube and Barren Paper-rolla by Doug and Dajuan Kinney.
A newcomer jumps in to claim this event with one final event to be judged: the Vader’s Custom Tee challenge, where entrants turned old Star Wars apparel into something new. Stay tuned for the finish of the final event, and the awarding of the cool prizes from Del Rey. It seems that some of these entries should be included in the next edition of Bonnie Burton’s The Star Wars Craft Book.
