Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Director Bobby Razak, who’s well known in the world of action sports, is turning his focus to Amanda Lucas and her MAA career with an upcoming documentary
Featuring interviews with both Amanda and her father, the doc will “cover several years of Amanda’s life with a major focus on her entry into the women’s MMA circuit.”
Untruths! An article about Jake Lloyd has been floating around in which claims he called his post-Star War childhood a “living hell.” Lloyd took to Facebook on Sunday to deny it: “The quotes in the article do not accurately reflect my feelings for the time I spent on Star Wars or the time I spent in high school.” The article says the quotes came from “a magazine” and also attributes comments from his mother to a (defunct) domain similar to Sci Fi Channel Australia, which did do an interview with Lloyd (though not his mother) in 2009.
Culture. In The New York Times, Matt Richtel takes a look at how Star Wars is still captivating kids. (Did no one tell him about The Clone Wars, which doesn’t get a single mention?) Last week in the NYT: The New York Jedi. Pity about the headline fail. (Jedi is the plural. Tell your copy editors.)
Interview. George Lucas chatted with Sen. Bill Bradley on his “American Voices” radio program last week. Topics included filmmaking technology,Red Tails, good and evil in Star Wars and education.’
Randomly… Actor Topher Grace (That 70’s Show) edited all three prequels into one 85-minute film. The cut was shown only to “a private gathering of Topher’s industry friends.” There are no plans to show or release it publicly – Grace refuses to do so without permission, which seems unlikely.
Also: Play The Old Republic for free this weekend | Amanda Lucas on ESPN | What Star Wars teaches us about creativity.
Rumor! Pocket Lint report that sources at the Panasonic conference in Hamburg are saying that The Phantom Menace 3D will be coming to Blu-ray in the spring.
Being Ackbar. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub catches up with Erik Bauersfeld, the radio dramatist who provided the voice of Admiral Ackbar and Bib Fortuna.
Sports. Sports Illustrated features Amanda Lucas. She claimed an open-weight women’s championship Saturday in Japan.
Honors. George Lucas accepted a Vanguard Award from Samuel L. Jackson at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards. In his presentation, Jackson talking about lobbying for a role in the prequels: “I’ll be a Storm Trooper and just run across the screen. Nobody even has to know I’m in it.”
Surprise! George Lucas made an appearance on stage at last night’s Scream Awards, as the Spike show honored Darth Vader as the ‘Ultimate Villian’.
The awards, which also gave the ‘Ultimate Scream’ prize to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and ‘Best Fantasy Actress’ to Natalie Portman for Black Swan, will air on Spike Tuesday, October 18.
NYCC. Mark Hamill and his evil laugh has his own panel at New York Comic-Con on Friday, and Tor.com has the report. Lucas’ new film, Red Tails, also got a panel, and has a new comic-style poster by Joe Kubert as well.
Amanda Lucas. We’re all familiar with her MMA fighting career, and in a new interview she addresses the constant and inevitable Star Wars references. “I hope to do my best on my own and prove I’m not just George’s daughter. I work just as hard as my training partners and I don’t want any special treatment. (But “Star Wars” is) going to get mentioned – it’s nothing I can hide,” she said on The MMA Hour.
Fandom. The 501st Legion’s Canadian Garrison is profiled by The Sudbury Star.
Billy Dee Williams shared his insight with El Paso’s What’s Up Weekly about Lucas’ modifications to the original trilogy, and his relationship with the character of Lando Calrissian, and with Colt 45 commercials. On parodying Lando in Robot Chicken:
“I make fun of myself, so why shouldn’t I make fun of Lando? It worked, and the fact that I can make fun of it means it worked. And people enjoy it. When I do Seth Green’s Robot Chicken, I enjoy doing that stuff. It’s a lot of fun for me, and it keeps the character alive.”
Meanwhile, Carrie Fisher has mentioned that maybe she’ll don Princess Leia’s metal bikini once again, with one condition:
“I will do it if a whole bunch of women over 40 come to Yankee Stadium. We’ll put everyone in metal bikinis, and we will sit around and laugh and talk about the old days when we ate a lot.”
Harrison Ford revealed that he no longer sees people as fans, but as customers, and that “I don’t see myself as a sex symbol these days.”
Star Wars in sports: We know that one of George Lucas’ daughters, Katie, has followed her father’s footsteps in writing for The Clone Wars, but what of Amanda Lucas? She’s a MMA cage fighter, and gets the win in a recent bout in Japan (complete with Yoda-speak headline).
Star Wars in politics: Part of a headline from Talking Points Memo: Rick Perry’s Star Wars Problem: Apparently, it’s Al Gore. Meanwhile, on The Colbert Report, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice compares September in the United Nations to the Mos Eisley Cantina – do they both have a pesky no-droids-allowed policy?
We’ve got the entertainment, sports, and politics covered. Stay tuned for Star Wars in weather and traffic.
Dear media: Over the last few weeks I have seen about a million references to the Sex and the City movie as ‘Star Wars for women.’ I’ve rolled my eyes pretty much every time. Please stop, or I’ll be forced to commit further crimes of photoshoppery.
