A new extra? On a weekend? Alrighty then.
Star Wars Blu-ray report: Cropping, sound, extras and… The Holiday Special?
The HDRoom’s Dan Bradley was another tech-oriented journalist invited to Lucasfilm’s Blu-ray junket. The first part of his report covers a few basics we’ve heard about from the other sites and Lucasfilm themselves. Part two focuses on Matthew Wood and sound mixing. And part 3 takes on, of course, the deleted scenes, special features and Dennis Muren.
Here’s one interesting bit:
In response to my question, Kayleen answered “You’ll have to wait and see! The Holiday Special is a challenge, but look for some Easter Eggs. What’s a Star Wars release without a couple of Easter Eggs?” I read into that as something pertaining to, if not the entire Holiday Special is hidden on these discs. These Easter Eggs are also what LucasFilm is referring to when stating the leaked bonus features are “incomplete.”
An additional Blu-ray inner sleeve depicts a scene from Droids, the animated cartoon revolving around the further adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO. Does that mean an episode of Droids or maybe something from the Ewoks television show is hidden as an Easter Egg? We’ll have to wait and find out on September 16, 2011.
I’ve always thought that the Holiday Special – or the less tedious bits of it, anyway – would make an excellent Easter Egg.
Star Wars Blu-ray extra: Death Star II
This new behind-the-scenes video went up today.
The fandom minute: Dispatches from the forests of Endor
Eric Walker, who played Mace Towani in the made-for TV Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, is raising money to release Growing Up on Skywalker Ranch, a book documenting his “adventures in the Star Wars universe” and other behind-the-scenes tidbits. Interested? You can pledge funds at the link.
- The logo on the Celebration 6 teaser site is now gold. What does it mean? Sorry, but fool me once…
- On Etsy: Han and Leia wedding bands.
- Threepio, Chewbacca, Vader and a stormtrooper carved crayons.
- Death Star garbage masher cake and more from the blog Kitchen Fun With My Three Sons.
- The U.S. Army’s “walking truck” concept from the 60’s: a real-life AT-AT?
- On Tumblr? You’ll want to check out Lit and Star Wars and Texts from the Millennium Falcon.
Sunday reader: George stole Chewbacca?!?
Michael Heilemann takes to the books to explore the origins of our favorite Wookiee.
The Empire Strikes Back turns 30, officially
We’ve already covered a bunch of Empire Strikes Back anniversary stuff, but today is the actual day. Here’s more stuff to check out:
The sequel begins. Leigh Brackett’s first draft of the film surfaced on the internet last week, giving us an intriguing glimpse into the could-have-beens, including a “tender love scene” between Luke and Leia, Lando being a clone, and Darth Vader’s pet gargoyles. (If you just want the highlights, Geeks of Doom has a nice rundown.)
Visuals. Lucasfilm gave Maxim magazine some rare photos, and to save us classy broads from buying Maxim (err, sorry guys) they’re also on StarWars.com.
Disturbance. They also have a look back at the Emperor’s first appearance – including some seriously whacked-out concept art. Baron Harkonnen is totally jealous.
In other news…
- Sci Fi Wire’s Periodic Table of The Empire Strikes Back.
- The Beat calls Empire “the movie that made being a nerd cool.”
- Ars Technica’s Ben Kuchera: ESB is “one of the best science fiction films ever made.”
- LA Weekly was also on hand at Wednesday’s Empire screening, chatting up stars on the red carpet; KABC-TV nabbed video of Harrison Ford and Ewan McGregor, while the Los Angeles Times has Ford.
- It’s “Empire Strikes Back Night” at tonight’s Dodgers game.
- io9’s Marc Bernardin pegs ESB as the film that “introduced an entire generation of moviegoers to the notion of tragedy.”
- Empire is (shocker!) Underwire’s choice as the finest in the trilogy. They’re also giving away one of those new Hasbro At-ATs and counting down 30 reasons Empire still rules.
- There’s another iPhone app coming for me to suck at. ‘The Battle for Hoth’ should show up in the App Store soon – it isn’t there as I type this, but I did find a Christian heavy metal song. (If you’re dying for details, TFN published the press release.)
- Hoth is coming to The Old Republic.
See any more unique tributes to ESB today? Post them in the comments or tell me on Twitter (@clubjade) and I’ll get them in.
Restoring Star Wars for the Special Editions
An in-depth look by The Secret History of Star Wars’ Michael Kaminski of the processes undergone to restore the films for their 1997 re-releases. (via)
TGIF: The wrath of gigantic George
Watch out, Jabba! (This, and many more behind-the-scenes shots from the original trilogy, can be found at the Star Wars Rare Vintage Photos group on Facebook.)
And the book news just won’t stop coming tonight…
Now we have our first official straight-on look at the cover for The Making of The Empire Strikes Back, due out next year.
Video: Behind the scenes at ILM
A look back at the early days of Industrial Light and Magic from A New Hope crew member David Berry. (via)