Straight from the Star Wars Books Facebook account… The winner of the title poll for the novel formerly known as Holostar is Shadow Games. (via)
The Clone Wars review round-up: ‘Supply Lines’ and ‘Sphere of Influence’
Welcome to Star Wars geometry! Today, we’ll be looking at lines and a sphere. Or more precisely what our esteemed colleagues on the internet have to say about two recent episodes of The Clone Wars, ‘Supply Lines’ (Bail and Jar Jar convince Toydaria to sneak some relief supplies to a Ryloth under siege where Jedi Master Di has his last stand) and ‘Sphere of Influence’ (Baron Papanoida, Ahsoka, and Chuchi track down the baron’s daughters after Greedo kidnaps them).
Waiting in ‘Supply Lines’ (which I gave an A here, though it appears that this was a minority view):
- IGN gives ‘Lines’ a 7/10, with too much going on, and the middle getting bogged down in the talk of blockades and trade routes.
- Big Shiny Robot liked the action, and seeing the Republic in a defeat, and Jar Jar’s character, but was bugged by poor audio quality.
- Den of Geek calls the episode a bit of a snoozefest, but highlighted Master Di’s role as showing the true price of valor.
- Dauntless Media gives ‘Lines’ a D, with the endless talking-while-standing-around dragging it down, and only Di’s memorable ending adding value.
- SW Clone Wars Reviews gives it 2.5 out of 5 stars, calling it ho-hum with its ‘kid-friendly version of diplomacy’.
- TheForce.net enjoyed the ‘thought-provoking politics’ as well as the battle scenes, and was pleased with Jar Jar’s role as well.
It seems that with ‘Supply Lines’, it really came down to which side of the line you were on: is all the politicking a dull tangent, or an acute angle of interest?
Now to round out ‘Sphere of Influence’ (which earned a C+ here from Stooge):
- TheForce.Net has a ball with ‘Sphere’, liking its balance of talking and shooting, and takes a look at the Greedo canon issue (Greedo the Elder vs ANH Greedo).
- IGN gives another 7/10, liking Ahsoka showing off her growing but still not perfect Force powers, but was not invested in the Papanoida clan.
- Dauntless Media passes it with a B, liking the many connections to the films (trade blockade from TPM, Greedo, Baron Papanoida), and points out a few key developments, including Anakin sending his padawan off on her own without consulting the Council first.
- FilmEdge finds the episode enjoyable but not necessarily memorable.
- Den of Geek likes Ahsoka’s development, and the return to the cantina for a firefight, but finds the story to miss the mark.
- Big Shiny Robot calls ‘Sphere’ a tale of political intrigue and all-around fun, really liking the Baron’s quest.
- Mania was left disappointed in both characters and storyline, and Greedo not living up to the hype.
As ‘Sphere’ went, it seems to the reviewers to end up a little flat.
Tune in later for more Star Wars geometry, when we visit the planet of Pythagorean basic solids, aka the cityscapes of Mandalore. Not since Donald Duck went to Mathmagic land has animated geometry been so much fun!
The fandom minute: Sith Fairies and milk stormtroopers
Darth Fairy strikes back. Booturtle created this striking Darth Fairy getup for her daughter to wear to Dragon*Con and for Halloween. It was, not surprisingly, a big hit! Be sure not to miss her Death Star cake, either. (Photo by ConventionFans)
Also in crafts… Make a stormtrooper helmet out of a milk jug. Just the thing for a Star Wars Halloween party. Not that you need the Halloween excuse to throw an awesome Star Wars party.
Original trilogy. Bryan Young has some interesting thoughts on releasing the OT in HD.
Listage. Chewbacca is the #1 sidekick for Hero Complex, while Anakin Skywalker is in suitably annoying company on io9’s list of the most obnoxious superpowered teenagers.
SWTORstrategies.com offers lessons in lazy plagiarism
I realize that the internet is a wild and crazy place, populated by people who are perhaps a little unknowledgeable abut the basics of a civil society. So I was only a little surprised to run across a site that copied and pasted items directly from us and other sites – without permission. Now, this happens – someone thinks that pulling in an RSS feed entitles them to reskin it as their own. Most of the time, the audience for such sites is so small that it’s not even worth the trouble.
But there is an actual human running running swtorstrategies.com, and over the weekend I discovered 17 posts from clubjade.net – all written by me – copied and pasted on their site. To their credit, I contacted the webmaster and they removed or replaced the offending posts overnight. But there is still plenty of plagiarized content on the site.
Some of the posts did indeed link back to us, but not as a credit. A ‘via’ or ‘source’ link, as used by many blogs in these parts, does not mean this post is by [source] (Particularly when someone else – sQren – is the post’s ‘author’.) A via link means I discovered this information thanks to [source]. You take that information, write your own post, and as a courtesy link back to where you you found it.
(The only posts that contain proper credits do so because EUC and NJOE contacted the webmaster after he took their posts.)
Further study found posts pinched from TheForce.Net (original / plagiarized,) SF Signal (original / plagiarized,) and of course countless selections from StarWars.com. A few other examples I found last night and tweeted about have also vanished, so I encourage fansite folks to take a close look at the site and contact them if you find anything of yours.
At least some of the stuff on the site is semi-original – take a look at this post on gaming action figures, which sandwiches an (attributed!) ForceCast quote in-between text swiped from Kotaku. Or not… The middle part is actually swiped from Ask a Jedi.
Some of the site’s content – many of the gaming posts, of course – does look to be all-original. Which makes the decision to swipe all this other stuff just lazy. These are not the most extensive of posts they’re taking. No one really cares if you embed the same video or videos or use the same (attributed) quotes. We’re all covering much of the same news, so these things do happen. (Though, of course, a linkback is good manners.) All ‘sQren’ had to do was write their own text. Their own sentence, in many of these cases. A paragraph. Hell, they could do a bullet list instead of lifting 11 of my new release posts.
Is this a huge deal, these tiny posts? Maybe not. We all exist at the mercy of LFL, after all. But it’s not just about copying and pasting – it’s about having the decency to not take someone else’s work and pass it off as your own. And I’m not going to let that fly just ‘because it’s the internet.’ It doesn’t matter what the subject is: There’s no suitable excuse for plagiarism, particularly when it’s this pathetic.
NYCC: Robot Chicken’s third Star Wars special to be an hour long
io9 reports from the Robot Chicken panel at New York Comic Con:
After two half-hour specials, this one expands to a full hour and features a somewhat cohesive plot that runs from before The Phantom Menace to after Return of the Jedi. (Seth Green speculated that this is where the false rumors about their upcoming LucasFilm Star Wars comedy being set after Jedi came from.)
Head on over for a few more details. The special will air on December 12, with their Christmas specila following on the 19th.
Saturday morning silliness: Smell like a monster
Is it a little late to spoof the Old Spice guy? Yeah. But it’s still adorable, because Muppets make everything better.
Ladies team up in tonight’s Clone Wars
So The Clone Wars has been a bit of a guyfest lately. So the solution seems to be… Mandalore? That’s a first. In any case, Padme heads to one of the GFFA’s most controversial planets to team up with the Duchess Satine, for the children.
Cheap shots: What to do on a space date
Star Wars as the subject of a 50’s sex-ed film. (via)
Be a Jedi (or a Sith) in the privacy of your own home
In less disturbing (…depending) costume news, the Jedi bathrobe we blogged about last year has finally made it over to this side of the pond. And there’s even one for those with less… brown allegiances.
The prices are even mildly reasonable, given the novelty nature. Just in time for early holiday shopping!
Today’s awful thing: The ‘sexy’ Chewbacca costume
It’s a known fact that Halloween brings a brigade of cheap, ill thought out, hilariously ‘sexy’ character costumes for ladies. (News? Learn from Cleolinda, my friend.) Previously, we hoped that maybe it couldn’t get much worse than Sexy Optimus Prime.
We were wrong. Behold: The Sexy Chewbacca. Yandy.com calls it the ‘Sci-Fi Furry Costume,’ like that’s any better. I don’t think it’s quite enough to not get their nearly-bare butts sued… (It saddens me that I know this – thanks, Internet! – but that girl is showing far too much skin to be an actual furry.)
Also in the offering is a ‘Sci-Fi Commander’ and ‘White Soldier,’ but been there, done that.
On the other hand… At least it’s not yet another slave Leia? (via)