“Their phenomenal popularity with movie fans revolutionized the toy industry,” the Hall of Fame states. “For more than three decades, kids have used Star Wars action figures—plus accessories, vehicles, and play sets—to tell stories of heroes and villains, of empire and rebellion, and of good triumphing over evil. Adults, too, play when they collect Star Wars action figures.”
Dominos were the other inductees this year; they join past honorees as varied as Barbie, marbles, and the cardboard box.
Awards. The Hugo Award winners were announced at Worldcon this past weekend. Taking Best Novel was Jo Walton’s Among Others, beating out George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and works by China Miéville, James S. A. Corey and Mira Grant. (Walton also won the Nebula for the book.) Other writing prizes went to Kij Johnson, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu and more.
The dramatic presentation awards went to Game of Thrones S1 and Neil Gaiman for his Doctor Who episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife.’ (Gaiman took the opportunity to announce he’s writing another episode for the show.) Also noteworthy to us, SF Signal winning for Best Fanzine!
Tolkien. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit adaption now being three films, the second has been retitled The Desolation of Smaug, with There and Back Again now being the third installment. I fully expect it to contain at least an hour of various slow-motion endings. But seriously, it looks like there was a lot of hints dropped at DragonCon.
Excerpts. It’s easy to miss, but if you head over to the Random House page for X-Wing: Mercy Kill, there are 32 pages from the book available. (Click on the cover.) It includes the dramatis personae that caused such a furor when the ARCs went out as well as the first pages of 22 chapters. Weird, yes? (via)
Endnotes. I’ve run out of things to say about the things, so just let it be known that Jason Fry has posted part 14 and part 15 of his guide to everything Essential Guide to Warfare.
Per usual, the Academy Award had little accolades for genre, though Industrial Light & Magic Rango took advantage of the Pixar-free spread to take the Oscar for Animated Feature.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo – one of the few lead nominees that had any (tentative) connection to genre – swept the technical awards, with Oscars for Cinematography, Art Direction (beating Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallow Part 2,) Sound editing (over Potter and Transformers 3,) Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects (over Potter, Transformers, Real Steel and Rise of the Planet of the Apes.)
Harry Potter also lost out in Makeup, to The Iron Lady. One bright spot: The Muppets took Original Song.
As for the show itself…. It seemed like they just gave up on the younger demographic entirely. The whole show had a tone of ‘Remember how great movies used to be? Before blockbusters and computers? When we, the voting members of the Academy, were young?’ (Nothing, perhaps, says this better than The Artist wins: Old stuff and Hollywood self-absorption.) Billy Crystal may be ‘classic’ but about halfway through his painful song melody I was checked out of his performance and wishing for someone new. (Tom Hanks? Everyone loves Tom Hanks. And he doesn’t sing!) Or just bring back Jon Stewart, who made the montages actually fun. (Also, blackface? How far we’ve come, America.) Hell, let the Muppets host the whole damn thing. Last year may have been a disaster but is the answer really to pretend that anyone who’s clocked less than half a century cares? The Oscars have never been known for being populist, but this year the gap was especially glaring.
I’m glad the Oscars haven’t gone the Grammy route of rewarding their industry’s biggest moneymakers (no offense to Adele, but that path would lead to Oscar nominations for Twilight) but just… Mix it up a little, will ya?
There was no love – or at least, no awards – for The Clone Wars at Saturday’s Annie Awards. However, ILM’s Rango did take home several prizes, including best animated feature, while composer John Williams won for his Tintin score. ILM’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon took best animated effects.
The Clone Wars had 5 total nominations, including Best General Audience Animated TV Production (The Simpsons won) and editing. The individual achievement categories singled out Joel Aron for animated effects and voice actors Dee Bradley Baker and Nika Futterman.
Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, a steampunk-tinged story of early film based on Brian Selznick’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret, is one of the 9 nominees for best picture, along with Woody Allen’s time-travel comedy Midnight in Paris. (Allen’s Annie Hall beat out Star Wars for the same prize in 1977.) Hugo scored 11 nods, including best director, making it the most-nominated film.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 got a nod for Visual Effects, where it will compete against Hugo, Real Steel, Rise Of The Planet of The Apes and ILM’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon.
ILM can also celebrate an Animated Feature nomination for Rango, which is up against Shrek spin-off Puss and Boots, Kung Fu Panda 2, A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita.
The International Animated Film Society released its list of nominations for the 2011 Annie Awards, and both Star Wars: The Clone Wars and the new Star Tours theme park attraction made the list. The Clone Wars earned a nomination for Best General Audience TV Production, competing against such shows as Archer, The Green Lantern: Animated Series, MAD, and The Simpsons. Two voice actors picked up nominations: Dee Bradley Baker, who plays Rex and all the other clones (although the Annie nomination list credits him as Obi-wan Kenobi!) and Nika Futterman, who earned her second nomination two years in a row for voicing Asajj Ventress.
Behind the scenes, Joel Aron of Lucasfilm Animation got nominated for an individual achievement in an animated production for his work on The Clone Wars, while ILM staff picked up individual nominations for their work on Rango, and swept the individual achievement nominations for animated effects in live action productions: Cowboys & Aliens, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, and Transformers: Dark of the Moon. For his work editing a television production, Jason W. A. Tucker picked up a nomination for The Clone Wars.
Star Tours picked up a nomination for best animated special production, running against Adventure Time: Thank You, Batman: Year One, and Ice Age: A Mammoth Christmas, among others.
The 39th annual Annie awards will be announced on February 4, 2012.
As first reported the other day, Spike gave Darth Vader the honor of being named ‘Ultimate Villian’ at the Scream Awards, with George Lucas on hand. The show aired last night, so here’s the clip.
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.
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.
With the 501st and Rebel Legion in attendance, Star Wars action figures were named as one of the latest inductees into the National Toy Hall of Fame today. 
Awards. The 
Excerpts. It’s easy to miss, but if you head over to 
Surprise! George Lucas made an appearance on stage at last night’s Scream Awards, as the Spike show 