Tag: george lucas

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The fandom minute: Should George Lucas retire?

George Lucas in Carbonite @ Celebration Japan (Bonnie Burton / StarWars.com)Scrap the Maker? The relaunched Sci-Fi Wire (now in blog form!) has come up with nine reasons for George Lucas to retire already. Cinematical then made a poll out of it, and ‘yes, please’ is winning. Your thoughts? I honestly don’t care all that much as long as he sticks to the prequel/intertrilogy era.

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Eye Candy: Searching LIFE for Star Wars

LIFE: Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill @ ANH 10th anniversary party

A couple months ago, the LIFE photo archive went up in Google, fully searchable. Plenty has been done with them since then, but it didn’t occur to me to look for Star Wars until today. There isn’t a ton there – the bulk of images that come up are from The Phantom Menace premiere – but there are a few things of interest, like Time covers, some vintage toy pics and this shot of Carrie Fisher, Alec Guinness and Mark Hamill at a party celebrating the tenth anniversary of A New Hope. You get about the same amount of shots searching for just George Lucas, and even more for Harrison Ford, but clearly Sir Alec wins. (Wait! Was it really a party for ANH? Now I doubt.) But perhaps most amusingly: Jar-Jar and Madeline Albright? Or Peter Cushing in Hamlet?

Off the fannish track, two of the more interesting uses I’ve seen around the web have been Jezebel’s The Way We Were features and Typophile’s book cover meme.

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The fandom minute: What man wouldn’t want to smell like Lando?

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The Clone Wars: TFN talks to Filoni and Gilroy

Dave Filoni and Henry Gilroy answer fan questions on The Clone Wars over at TheForce.net. A lot of interesting tidbits on the show, its relation to the EU, George’s involvement and other food for thought, like Gilroy’s comments on the unique challenges of writing a digital show:

It wasn’t really an issue of balance. When I wrote the first episode, I wished I could have used the entire Jedi Council, but because we were just building the studio, the only characters I had available were Anakin, Obi-Wan and Yoda. Mace wasn’t originally in the movie story, because he wasn’t built yet, he was added way later. This was the incredible challenge as the head writer, I was tasked with writing Star Wars and making it feel as big as Star Wars, but only allowed to build ONE new character per episode (I started with 9 — can you name them?). So Luminara and Kit showed up at the very first chance I could put them in the show.

Oh, and there’s also something in there about George and the Wookieepedia. Yes, seriously.

In other interview news, EUC has one with The Force Unleashed’s Sam Witwer, and is taking questions for Matt Stover.

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George Lucas still talking about Indy IV

I know I’m not along in facepalming every time the man talks about Indy IV – and I swear, I was mildly entertained by Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – but he’s doing it again. Luckily, Coming Soon also asks him about Star Wars 3-D (don’t hold your breath,) Red Tails (in casting,) Samuel L. Jackson (we’ve heard it) and directing, to which:

I’m getting rid of all my development. Everything that I’ve ever developed is going to be finished in about a year, a year and a half or two, and then I’m going to go do my own films.

Oh, George. Perhaps Clark will finally get an answer on those Howard the Duck sequels.

In less winceworthy news, how about his student film? Racecars! Vroom vroom! Yeah!

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In the news: Samuel L. Jackson, bailouts, copyright, hotels and a criminal Chewbacca

People: Samuel L. Jackson received the American Cinematheque award earlier this week, along praise from George Lucas, Denzel Washington and Justin Timberlake .

Even Artoo and Threepio showed up!

  • Har har har: The Los Angeles Times has a bailout plan for Star Wars. My only question is, does George have a private jet?
  • Books: Looking for some light reading? Lawrence Lessig’s Remix: Making Art and Culture Thrive in the Hybrid Economy touches at least a little on Star Wars copyright issues, according to The Mercury News review. In any case, it looks like a must-read for anyone with copyright concerns.
  • Crime: Chewbacca Calvin Johnson of Georgia is racking up quite a criminal record. (Thanks, Paula.)
  • Travel: Wired takes a look at geek hotels, starting with the Sidi Driss and continuing with some places a little closer to home.
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Gaming news: The Old Republic, Soul Calibur IV

The Old Republic: IGN has story details and an interview with art director Jeff Dobson while Tom Nichols of LucasArts tells Eurogamer that Galaxies will continue, and the new MMO may make the jump to consoles.


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Explore the cracktastic early drafts of Star Wars

Very early poster concept by Ralph McQuarrie: Luke\'s a girl! Han\'s a Jedi! Chewbacca\'s... I don\'t know.

Try not to be totally surprised that Star Wars is #2 on Cracked’s list of seven terrible early versions of great movies. After reading the early drafts, some of the prequels less-stellar quirks make a lot more sense.

You can read early drafts of Star Wars for yourself at The Jedi Bendu Script Site, and see the (considerably less painful) Ralph McQuarrie concept art in Michael Heilemann’s Flickr collection.