The fandom minute: Parenting with Admiral Ackbar

Young Archer here is well on his way to complete Star Wars indoctrination. (via)

Cute attack: Star Wars at Build-A-Bear Workshop

Shouldn't the more reddish bear get Obi-Wan's outfit? NOT CANON!

Even putting the Ewoks aside, fanmade Star Wars and other sci-fi themed teddy bears are nothing new, as a quick search on Flickr (and CJ’s own Lissy) will tell you.

But now we have something from the official realm to make it easier to please kids and collectors: Star Wars costumes from Build-a-bear Workshop. Currently they only have Clone Wars-inspired Anakin, Jedi (totally Obi-Wan,) and Rex, plus a Darth Vader and a themed pajama set. Will we see more movie-inspired styles? I suspect the Christmas sales rates will tell us… Dressed bears cost $40-$35, and the costumes alone go for $15-12. The Vader outfit is currently one of their top 20 products! (via)

The fandom minute: Plo cake will eat your brain at 30 Rockefeller Plaza for guitar-playing wounded soldiers

plo cakeHis biggest fan. Of course there was a Plo Koon cake, and of course it was eventually served to none other than Dave Filoni. (And Jeremy Bulloch. And Ashley Eckstein.)

Brains. StarWars.com celebrates the release of Death Troopers with Zombie Week. I wish I had the words to tell you how much I’m feeling Zombie Week, but I’m exhausted.

Obession corner. TFN’s Mike Barrick has collected Star Wars references on NBC’s 30 Rock, while GalacticBinder counts down the top 12 Star Wars guitar crossovers.

Charity. The Pennsylvania Star Wars Collecting Society is selling Obi-Wan medallions to help raise money for seriously injured service members.

New look for The Clone Wars with Gambit: Stealth

Gambit: Stealh cover teaseGranted, the cover for Karen Miller’s Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth isn’t going to blow anyone’s socks off, but it’s a vast improvement over the previous Clone Wars book covers. (Interesting that the title, design and artwork all seem to be downplaying the cartoon connection.) Lest I forget, this also gives us our first official blurb for the book:

Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker are on a secret mission to one of the many worlds caught in the middle of the struggle between the Republic and the Separatists. A pastoral planet, Lanteeb wants only to be left alone to survive — but it is the source of what could be one of the most devastatingly destructive weapons ever. If this potential weapon were to fall into the hands of the Separatists, uncounted worlds would fall. But should the Republic succeed in destroying it first, one world that needs it to survive will be annihilated. A frightening dilemma that Obi-Wan and Anakin will have to untangle, if they can get in and out of the occupied planet alive…

Hallmark’s Star Wars ornaments for 2009

It’s May, so of course the Dream Book is out, because nothing says spring like planning out your Christmas tree. This year’s Star Wars selections are include The Phantom Menace duel (above,) Han in Stormtrooper gear, Luke’s landspeeder, and a Clone Wars twofer of Anakin and Ahsoka.

Also of interest: Indiana Jones, Star Trek, Harry Potter, Ghostbusters and my personal grinchy favorite, the Wicked Witch of the West.

(Thanks, Rach!)

The catchup: Links from Twitter

atat-anatomyHere are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the last week or so.

Clothing: Behold the Anatomy of the AT-AT t-shirt!

Guardians of peace and justice? Eight Scottish officers with the Strathclyde Police and two of their civilian co-workers have listed their religion as “Jedi.”

Crazy Twilight fan theater. Lady Sybilla’s industrial-sized victim complex trucks on! She’s now claiming that “Characters don’t belong to authors. Authors don’t create characters. They merely channel them.”

Lulz. io9’s Charlie Jane Anders pegs Obi-Wan Kenobi as one of the Great Unsung Slash Fiction Heroes. I know it’s pretty ironic that the most code-abiding Jedi in the saga is the fandom bicycle of Star Wars fanfic, but these things just tend to happen when Ewan MacGregor is involved.

Video fun! We Didn’t Start the Flame War! (NSFW, mostly for language.)

The fandom minute: Ima Trooping; Scalzi ponders Star Wars 3-D; BOW cake; Yoda’s travels

  • Photo fun Adventures in Stormtrooping with a little help from The Simpsons, Cobra Commander, Hellboy and a very naughty Wall-E.
  • The blogside: John Scalzi theorizes that George wants to release Star Wars in 3-D to beat Gone With the Wind in the all-timers. Seems a bit of a reach to me: If that was the case, why all this waiting? Has George seen Coraline?
  • Cake: Bearded Obi-Wan is full of… Strawberry jam? I’m sure there’s a Spaceballs joke in there somewhere.
  • Travels: Yoda sees the world.

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.