Stan

This week we have two big fans of Star Wars and their creations, a new beta test weekend from Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Wars: The Clone Wars returns two of our favorites.

A dedicated Star Wars fan has paid tribute to his favorite films by building an incredible reproduction of the Death Star hanger scene out of 30,000 Legos. The diorama has everything including hundreds of stormtroopers and Imperial guard and officers lined up in formation, the Emperor and Darth Vader on the carpet, the Imperial Shuttle, and the bay itself. Jay Hoff, who says he spent over $2300 in bricks and 6 months to build the 6 foot by 6 foot creation, built it for his school to celebrate the Science Discovery Day. Hoff has yet to dismantle it after it was displayed, and I’m wondering if he should. I would put it up on Ebay or something as someone would surely be glad to have it if he doesn’t want it. Legoland perhaps? He might even make a profit.

In other fan news, a...

Today we are going to look at some of the funnier videos on YouTube in relation to Star Wars from Darth Vader acting like an idiot to 34 Star Wars voices. Let’s get started.

Our first video goes behind the scenes of the Blu-Ray edition with Darth Vader, who is called in to record the famed line from Return of the Jedi. You know the one. The one we all hate where he says “Noooooo!” as he throws Palpatine off the balcony. But it seems Vader does not want to say the line and tries to sabotage the recording. So now we join Vader in the studio for an inside look at the making of the Blu-Ray edition…


This next one is a two part video that shows a very talented young man named tideyodie on YouTube. He can do 34 different voices from the Star Wars saga including all of the best known like General Grievous, Han Solo, Yoda, Obi-Wan (his Ewan McGregor impression is spot on), C3-PO and...

As you know, we’ve reported here many times that Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently conducting beta tests of their MMO in anticipation of their now assured holiday release date. And while they have been slowly inviting people, they have kept it to a minimum to insure a good ramp up. So when a strange email concerning the beta showed up in the inbox of their newsletter subscribers, confusion and anger raged supreme until Bioware realized the mistake they’d made.

It seems that an email that was meant for current beta testers, and not possible invites, was sent by EA and Bioware asking them how they were getting along in the testing and requesting any feedback that they would like to share. This created a lot of confusion as you can imagine for those receiving the letter. They thought they’d been invited, but never got the mail to tell them so. That they had been missing out all this time. Since the invitation process is ongoing, it seemed logical and...

In this week’s edition, we’ll look at a time not to use a Star Wars reference, the Blu-Ray success story, and a special shout out and happy birthday to one of our favorites. So let’s get started.

While using Star Wars references might work at your local LAN party, at football games, not so much. Especially at Florida Gator games. It seems that a reporter spoke to the head coach of the Gators Will Muschamp and asked him, innocently, if he had a padawan-master relationship with his old boss Nick Saban.The spitfire leader, known in some circles as Captain Blood, was taken back by the question stating that he didn’t know what a padawan was and thought the journalist had called him something bad. Since Star Wars really isn’t a staple in professional football, I guess we can understand his confusion, but then perhaps the reporter shouldn’t have been so bold.

Well whether or not people hate George Lucas and what’s he’s done this time around to the Blu-Ray set...

Even though it was EA that was showing hesitation at setting a date, and whose head had floated the idea of a possible delay, Bioware and LucasArts are apparently very confident of the progress made and announced in a joint conference, that it will be December 20, 2011 for the final release date of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Of course, this change of heart and official announcement does bring our speculation to an end, but it also sets a high bar for the game to reach that goal.

This does not mean that they’ve given up on beta testing after their big weekend at the start of the month. While they don’t have any official dates planned, they have said that they will be giving those that have signed up to be beta testers their due before the game starts. Also those with a pre-order will also be allowed to have early access to the game before the official opening of the MMO, but they have not said what that date will be. But the promise is in all three...

I’m not sure you can really consider a game delayed that never had a specific release date to begin with, but Eric Brown, who is CEO for EA hinted during an investment call that there is a possibility that the game could be held over until 2012 if conditions warranted. EA has always been concerned that releasing the game before it’s properly ready will have a negative impact for the players and thus doom the game before it even starts. Even when they do finally start sending copies, they plan to limit the number of players at first.

But Bioware has also put their two cents in, saying that there was never a promise at all of a date, and that their target of Holiday 2011 was always just a best case scenario, not an official announcement. It is their hope to still make that date and they are certainly working toward that goal, but it’s not a guarantee because of the many things that have to be checked by players and developers alike. That is the reason for the...

The long awaited, but perhaps ravaged revamps of the Star Wars saga hit Blu-Ray players last Friday as Lucas once again released the entire set with an even different version than any of the previous versions, which has what has angered many fans.

Let’s start with the positives and that is the upconvert to Blu-Ray. It was masterfully done, it really was, especially the original trilogy. It’s not easy to take a 30 year old piece of film with all of its 1970’s look and convert it into the crisp and vibrant imagery we see here. And the cool part about it was they were able to do so, while keeping the trilogy’s charm of being an older set of movies, which helps with the nostalgia of it all. And the new films, of course, which were filmed in HD to begin with, stand out with some tweaking of the CG to create about the best that these could look. It was obvious that those in charge of the project were adamant about getting these to feel amazing and not just a...

As you are probably aware, Hasbro makes a lot of the Star Wars toys, especially action figures, and such and so it’s no great stretch that they would take one of their most popular games Operation and make a Star Wars edition featuring our favorite robots R2D2 and C3PO.

The game of Operation has had a long past and for the longest time was just about a guy who was in pretty bad shape. He had to have lots of organs and bones removed from his body or he was going to die. The idea was that you had to be the steady handed surgeon that was able to take out all of these things without touching the sides, for if you did, you blew it and he’d keel over. Or at least a light on his nose would glow and you’d hear a buzz sound. I guess he had those surgically implanted earlier in his life.

Hasbro has a lot of different versions based on everything from Disney to comic book characters. You can save Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story 3, Mater from Cars 2, Spiderman, the Hulk, and even Homer...

Star Wars was one of the first films that really did a booming business in the merchandising department and opened up a whole new avenue of income for movie producers to tap into. But because this wasn’t a big thing when contracts were originally signed, many wound up being left out of the revenue flow. Carrie Fisher, for instance, who arguably is the most memorable actress in the original films, with her strong portrayal of Princess Leia, apparently did not get on the gravy train according to an interview she did with The Daily Beast.

It was an interesting revelation. Most would assume that the actors in Star Wars, especially the big three, would be rolling in cash since their likeness is literally on millions of things, but they aren’t. Because they didn’t sign any sort of deal that would allow them to get such royalties. Perhaps that is why Harrison Ford is so bitter. Oddly enough, though, the least likely to have merchandise, the old Obi-Wan Kenobi, Sir Alec Guiness did...

This week we look at fan protests over blu-ray changes, darth, er dick cheney on Leno, and star wars toothbrushes.

Protests are breaking out across the internet as Star Wars fans react to the changes that Lucas has made in relation to new Blu-Ray editions coming out soon. Some are calling out for a boycott of the series, while others are just standing in disgust over why Lucas has to keep messing with his work. Many wonder if he cares at all about the fans or he’s just doing this to be vane or satisfy his own insecurities over the films. The biggest crime, as we reported, is adding dialogue to Vader’s destruction of the Emperor. The “Noooooo!” seems to be the same one that Vader yelled when he was told that Padme was dead back in Revenge of the Sith. And we can certainly see why there would be such a fuss about it. It literally changes the whole meaning of the scene and in the end, makes Vader look like a whining wimp instead of the bad ass that he’s...

Hasbro, who makes a ton of licensed toys for the Star Wars brand is once again mixing two popular action series together with some new action figures that allow Darth Vader and others to transform into their related ships.

We always knew that all that extra hardware on Vader’s chest did more than just help him breathe and now this figure demonstrates the additional parts he can add on. He’s not exactly the Dark Lord as we know him. He’s been buffed up in a Mech suit that allows him to turn into a Sith Fighter, by bending his appendages and probably yelling “Owwwwwww!” Okay, he doesn’t actually make a noise, but if Lucas keeps up, he probably will. Anyway, he wouldn’t be complete without his light saber, but in this one, he actually gets two, one for each hand. The weapons look like they have to be dropped, however, for the transformation to into ship to go smoothly.

And on the Jedi side of things is a Council member who was much more active in the Clone...

Yesterday we told you that there was strong evidence that Lucas had replaced the puppet Yoda in The Phantom Menace with a CGI one, with the scene leaked out onto the net. And as of yesterday, Lucas had denied that any changes have been made and that the film was remastered only for visual purposes and not tweaked. But then other sources claimed that Lucas would be putting in some surprises.


Well today it was confirmed that the Blu-Ray edition would include the CGI Yoda that is seen in the clip, as well as some other tweaks that had been noticed by the eagle eyes of Star Wars fans who have managed to get a pre-release copy of the set. This actually makes sense to me, because it will serve as better continuity within the prequel trilogy and not be such an abrupt change, but I still think that Muppet Yoda was more realistic. There is also some cosmetic changes to the Ewoks in which...