Pablo reports from last night’s The Empire Strikes Back screening and Harrison Ford Q&A in Los Angeles.
EUbits: Inside The Making of The Empire Strikes Back
Nonfiction StarWars.com offers up a peek at J.W. Rinzler’s The Making of The Empire Strikes Back. The book’s release was recently pushed back to October, but there’s little doubt that it will be worth the wait.
Street date shuffle. On that note, our book release schedule has been updated. The most notable change: A double shot of Fate of the Jedi paperbacks as Omen and Abyss are moved up to spring.
Podcastery. Star Wars Action News talked to Paul S. Kemp earlier in the month, while the ForceCast caught up with John Jackson Miller at C2E2.
The blogside. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff on the end game and the last period.
Morsel. Sue Rostoni says that Joe Schreiber’s Black Orchid is getting a new title because some people thought it sounded like a romance novel. Personally I think old school Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean…
Toys. Rebelscum reports that the Legacy Collection’s Expanded Universe action figures (the wave that includes Jacen and Jaina) have begun showing up at Toys “R” Us stores.
The fandom minute: ESB in Entertainment Weekly, TPM/AOTC reviewer speaks
On the newstand. The 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back (and the upcoming Making of The Empire Strikes Back) lands the cover of this week’s Entertainment Weekly. The issue will be on stands (and hopefully in subscriber mailboxes) on Friday.
Prequel madness. With the release of his Attack of the Clones review, MTV has a an two-part interview with Mr. Plinkett/Mike Stoklasa of Red Letter Media for a sitdown on the reviews, copyright, mocking, and backlash. Meanwhile, Bryan Young continues his defense of The Phantom Menance.
Chartage. It’s equal mockery under the law for Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Avatar and Lost fans in the sci-fi superfan reference manual.
Younglings. Head over to Offbeat Mama for Darth Aesop’s Death Star party. The balloon sabers are particularly brilliant.
Cake! Neatorama spotlights Star Wars cakes.
Friday afternoon news sweep: Dave Filoni, John Jackson Miller and the Squishies are starting a band
There’s been an absolute barrage of news today and I haven’t much time, so you’re getting most of it in roundup forum. Aren’t you lucky?
- TFN’s Mandy is really lobbying for that Barbara Walters job: Today her interview with Dave Filoni went up on TheForce.Net.
- Is this a confirmation? Lucasfilm told MTV they have “many projects in development. One is for a younger audience but it’s in very early development and too early for any details.” I’ve moved from annoyance to meh about this whole deal, if that’s any consolation to you.
- John Jackson Miller is doing another Knights of the Old Republic-era fiction project for Hyperspace.
- StarWars.com has revealed the cover and slipcover art for Star Wars: Year by Year — A Visual Chronicle.
The Clone Wars returns tonight with ‘Senate Murders’
The show is back tonight with a Padme-centric episode that’s likely to bore the pants off the kids and delight the adults – or at least the adults that really like Padme (and/or Agatha Christie.) And since last we checked in, StarWars.com posted an excerpt from the Insider interview with Dee Bradley Baker.
EUbits: Catching up with Karen Miller’s Gambit
Stealthiness. Our pal Mandy at TheForce.Net interviewed author Karen Miller this week, touching on the writing life, tie-ins and (naturally) subtext.
On that note, while I’d like to start doing review roundups for the books, but they can sometimes prove difficult. Witness: Even at almost a month out, I was only able to find two for Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth. NJOE’s MizzeeOH found that she enjoyed the book, but not as much as Wild Space; Hendel D’bu found it engaging, and especially praises the battle sequences. There’s always the review thread on the TFN boards if you’re dying for more.
More interview. Star Wars Books catches up with John Jackson Miller
Fanboy games. StarWars.com has a peek at Pablo’s Head to Head, pitting Chewbacca up against a wampa.
The Old Republic is starting up a new webcomic and adding Belsavis, aka the planet from Children of the Jedi. Random!
Poll. io9 asks which expanded universe is most unnecessarily. I suppose it depends on what you consider necessarily… I mean, I can’t for the life of me get excited about some nice-sized chunks of the Star Wars EU, but I could also care less about BSG or Lost outside of their primary formats. To each their own, I suppose.
Sunday reader: An interview with Roger Christian
I’m not sure how strange it is that I’ve never heard of Black Angel, a short film by Roger Christian, the art director of Star Wars, given that the short film apparently ran in from of The Empire Strikes Back and was an influence on another beloved movie, Excalibur. In any case, this interview is an interesting read on something that, apparently, been mostly forgotten. Until now, anyway! (via)
Head-to-Head with the internet’s Pablo Hidalgo
Pablo Hidalgo is interviewed by The Sci-Fi Block about his upcoming book Star Wars: Head-to-Head.
The ultimate fanboy conversation in a book, Head-to-Head intends to examine who would win various mash-ups by using various RPG and card game stats, as well as video games.
Unfortunately, he was unable to match up Threepio against another to see who could talk the other to death. No one can beat him there! (via)
Ewan on new film, nudity, Star Wars
Ewan McGregor has a film coming out, and thus he was on NPR the other day. You can listen to the segment (Or not: NPR provides a transcript,) but here’s some of what he had to say about working on the prequels:
“When I got closer and closer to being cast as Obi-Wan Kenobi, I did question whether it was the right thing for me. Up until that point, I’d been involved in mainly low-budget independent films … and I felt like being part of the [indie British filmmaking] team was my identity as an actor … I didn’t think that ‘Star Wars’ was quite who I was or what I was about. However, the closer I got, the more I wanted to do it … I’m very happy with the work I did in ‘Star Wars’ … I’ve always been quite open with the fact that they were technically quite difficult to make. There’s a lot of green screen and blue screen, and for the actor, there’s very often not another actor to act with — so you were playing to a tennis ball on a stick or a piece of tape on a green curtain, and that’s just not easy. That becomes a very technical exercise.”
EUbits: Wallace’s Jedi Path, Kemp and JJM interviews, plus a look back at Tales from Jabba’s Palace
Upcoming. Dan Wallace confirms reports that he’s working on a book called The Jedi Path for Becker+Mayer. (Not that it needed confirmation, being in a catalog, but, uhh… I missed it. Sorry.)
Interviews. DaveBrendon talks to Paul S. Kemp and John Jackson Miller about Crosscurrent, Lost Tribe of the Sith and writing Star Wars. On a related note, JJM has posted his final Knights of the Old Republic production notes.
Blogside. Deborah J. Ross (aka Deborah Wheeler) on how she came to write her story ‘Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees’ in Tales from Jabba’s Palace.