Youtuber Lindsay Ellis explores the ideology of the sequel trilogy’s First Order… And yes, she even namechecks Bloodline.
The fandom minute: Space cowboys, art, alignments, cakes, devalued collectibles and Gonk
Yippee-ki-yay. Star Wars is SpaceWestern.com’s #1 most influential space western. Please spare us all the argument about how it’s totally not a space western; It’s an amalgam, silly. (Also, while I don’t think anyone can deny Firefly, isn’t it a bit early to rank it quite so high on a list that’s supposed to be about influence? Far as I can tell, the only thing that it’s inspired so far is a funny clip of Castle and Fox renewing Dollhouse.)
Art or something like it. io9 collects the greatest velvet paintings of science fiction. (As Wookieepedia is to Cracked, Google Image Search is to io9.) Giant Samurai Vader was a big hit on Twitter, and the official site gives us another peek at Visions featuring some of Club Jade’s favorite things (non-alcoholic division.) Dude, we get it: It’s a Star Wars fine art book, right? Enough teasing already.
Contain your shock. Darth Vader is Lawful Evil. No!
Baked-good corner. Two extremely well-made Star Wars cakes – Jabba and Darth Maul – from L.A.’s Rosebud Cakes. For the 30-year-old child party moll in all of us. As for something we can all achieve, take a cue from the sarlacc bundt cake.
Collecting. The ten most embarrassingly collectible Star Wars toys of the 90’s. Why didn’t I sell my Special Edition Luke when it was actually worth something? WHY?
At random. Power Droid gots to get his money.
Mapping the influence of Star Wars
The interactive map ‘How Star Wars Changed the World’ was published by Wired during the Revenge of the Sith madness back in 2005, but it’s new to me! I think.
UPDATE: Kottke has the chart as single GIF, much easier to read.
Today’s Star Wars history lesson
Plenty of fans are pretty hip to this already, but Greg Davies’s post on the cinematic influences behind Star Wars is a nice overview – and comes complete with Youtube clips for comparison.