Play.com has an ‘exclusive’ clip of Ewan MacGregor, from the upcoming Blu-rays, talking about his uncle Denis Lawson (Wedge) and his first time seeing Star Wars.
What is Star Wars Detours?
George Lucas was on CNN’s Connect the World yesterday. In the video, he mentions, along with The Clone Wars, a TV show called Star Wars Detours. From the transcript:
But there’s a lot of different aspects of it that have been quite amusing and fun to be a part of. Like amusement park rides, and it’s — I really enjoy it. Now, I’m working on television shows, “Clone Wars” and another show called “Star Wars Detours.”
I would lay even money on Detours being the comedy show that Lucasfilm is doing with Seth Green and Matt Senreich, which from what little we’ve heard does sound like it could be something of a detour. But I’m not expecting we’ll get much more anytime soon. OR WILL WE? Hell, it’s probably just a working title. Oh, George!
Lucas also said that after Red Tails he’ll “probably move away” from Star Wars and “do my own personal kinds of movies.” Never heard that one before….
EUbits: Fate of the Jedi tidbits, Zahn’s Insider short
Fate of the Jedi. in lieu of of a Heir to the Empire annotation yesterday, The Del Rey folks presented us with a mini-excerpt from Golden’s Ascension. It is indeed very mini. (Also, apparently we’ll be getting a look at the Apocalypse cover today.)
Short stories. Tim Zahn’s story ‘Buyer’s Market’ will appear in the next issue of the Insider. It’s about Lando “on the hunt for some rather exotic hardware” and is set between Return of the Jedi and Heir. The artwork is by Brian Rood. Also coming up in the Insider is a story by Michael Reaves and Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff.
Interviews. Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss appears on the latest Fictional Frontiers.
Previews. StarWars.com has five pages from The Old Republic: The Lost Suns.
Lists. There are several facepalm moments for me in Geeks of Doom’s ten Star Wars novels worth checking out (Splinter of the Minds’ Eye? The New Rebellion?? Vector Prime???) but to each their own, I suppose.
Allston talks Fate of the Jedi, Wraith Squadron
In an interview with Del Rey’s Suvudu blog, Aaron Allston talks about the current series, Fate of the Jedi (Have you finished Conviction yet?) and drops a few more details on his upcoming Wraith Squadron book.
Most of the action takes place in the same approximate period as Fate of the Jedi, but there are critical chapters that revisit the Wraiths in earlier years, starting just after they made the jump to become an Intelligence unit. The current-era story reunites some of the longtime Wraiths, introduces new ones, and even has second-generation Wraiths.
Head on over to Suvudu for more on the Wraiths, FOTJ, and the Jedi in general.
EUbits: Interviews with Rostoni, Shapiro and Allie
Interviews, everywhere! There’s been an absolute plague of interviews lately. EUC talks to Lucasfilm Licensing’s Sue Rostoni, Podcaster Sohaib had Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro on his show last week, and Roqoo Depot has Jedi: The Dark Side writer Scott Allie.
Blurbs. Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan novel gets a summary.
Fandom. Michael Falkner is breaking up with the ForceCast over their recent treatment of Expanded Universe fans.
Namesake corner. I’ve got two fairly minor Mara Jade bits today: io9 named her one of their 10 sexiest assassins. Naturally, it features fan art of both the badly photoshopped and naked body paint persuasions. (Sigh.) On the other hand, there’s a new namesake: A foal. She has a twin sister named after Princess Leia.
EUbits: Don’t expect a Big 3 novel from Kemp
Interview. Paul S. Kemp’s Star Wars books so far have seemed to be fairly well received, but will we ever see him step up to write Luke, Han, Leia and the rest? In an interview with the Dearborn Press and Guide, Kemp says “I don’t think so.”
“Writers bring certain things to the table as part of the craft. Some are very good at plotting, some are gifted at prose, I think where I excel naturally is developing interesting, conflicted characters. To do that, I need a lot of room. It’s hard to do that with characters with so much history already behind them. It’s difficult for me to tell the kind of story I’d like to tell and have it star Luke, Han, Lando, and Leia, and their kids.”
The rest of the article echos much of what he said in a blog entry about getting started as a writer.
The Old Republic: Revan. Drew Karpyshyn has a brief Q&A on his site about the upcoming book – which, you may be happy to know, is already in the hands of Del Rey. The book is current scheduled for an October release.
Comics. Comic Book Resources interviews John Ostrander about the upcoming series Agent of the Empire. Also at CBR, six pages of Jedi: The Dark Side #1.
Art. If you’re a fan of the Hildebrandt’s artwork for Shadows of the Empire, you’ll want to check out this gallery by Paxton Holley on Flickr, which contains some shots of the models for the some of the paintings. (via mMathab)
Opinion Chris over at EUC has some suggestions for the various publishing eras.
EUbits: Interviews with Bonnie Burton and Paul Kemp
Interviews Bonnie’s been doing the rounds for her craft book with interviews at Geekdad and TFN. The book also got favorable reviews on TFN, Geekdad, and iGeektrooper.
Meanwhile, Deceived author Paul S. Kemp has appeared on podcasts from SF Signal and (along with John Jackson Miller) the ForceCast’s Jedi Journals.
Tour. DK is sending out some of their authors and artists, along with The Clone Wars’ Ashley Eckstein, on an east coast tour throughout May. Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff, Chris Trevas, and Jason Fry will be making appearances.
This place can get a little rough. Looking for a new forum home now that the ones on StarWars.com are going away? EU Cantina has revamped their boards, and even TFN’s Lit has a welcome thread.
Rancho Obi-Wan. A look inside Steve Sansweet’s library.
Filoni: Katee Sackhoff to voice in The Clone Wars
Dave Filoni has revealed to Entertainment Weekly that Katee Sackhoff, best know for her role as Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica will be coming to Star Wars: The Clone Wars in season four.
He also talks about having multi-episode arcs, bringing Walter Murch to direct an episode, and the complete lack of Ben Quadinaros. Focusing on the season three finale, Filoni discusses pairing Ahsoka and Chewbacca, a cute The Big Lebowski reference, and having ramped up the action as well as character deaths.
EUbits: Crimson Empire III blitz blasts off
Crimson Empire III. I’m sure we all have things in fandom whose popularity mystifies us. I have many – enough for a complete post, probably – but perhaps one of the oldest is the appeal of Crimson Empire. Is it the eternal love of Dark Horse’s fanboys for bland musclebound men kicking ass? Or that, for years, the third series was dead and the story of Kir Kanos unconcluded? I don’t know. I’m not sure I really care. But for those who do, it’s on now — and mere months away. On Friday, Dark Horse revealed Dave Dorman’s cover for Crimson Empire III #1 and two interior pages from the Dark Horse Presents story. Meanwhile, Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley talk about the series with StarWars.com
Deceived. Gotta love it when the author does their own review roundup. Got questions for Kemp? He’ll be doing a chat on the Star Wars Book Facebook page on Wednesday.
Historic! Shadowlocked takes a look at 20 years of the Expanded Universe. I have a few quibbles – Shadows of the Empire didn’t have a video game based on it because it was popular, but because the whole enterprise was a marketing test run for the PT… And I’m pretty sure Traviss never claimed to have Zahn’s blessing to kill off Mara – but it’s still a fairly interesting primer.
Interview. John Jackson Miller at MidSouthCon.
And finally… You can get an Insider subscription no matter where in the world you live. Handy!
Catching up with The Clone Wars
We’re just under a week out from the Clone Wars finale on April 1. I’m sure the media blast has only just begun, but here’s what we have so far.
Lucasfilm held a screening of the season finale at the Presidio Friday evening. Jeff Ellis send the ForceCast a spoiler-free report.
There have been a number of interviews: Dave Filoni in USA Weekend, head writer Christian Taylor at Hero Complex, Peter Mayhew with the Daily Record, and Chewbacca himself at Yahoo.
And over at Big Shiny Robot, Bryan Young talks about getting rid of his cable and (mostly) the annoyance of different air dates and times. It’s certainly made a lot of folks cranky this week!
And after the finale, if you happen to be in San Francisco and/or attending WonderCon, there will be a panel there on the 2nd with Filoni, Mayhew, and Ashley Eckstein! Rumor has it they might show a peek at S4. And Pablo is hosting it.