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There is quite a bit of video game news this week in the Star Wars Universe, so we thought we’d give you one update…

When the Star Wars Blu-Ray sets come out, we’ll finally find out whether or not George did any tweaking or not. According to ILM, there was no tweaks and that the films would be just as they were seen in the theaters, and not be the “special editions” that were released in 2004. However, an interesting video has come up on YouTube which calls this into question. It seems that in Phantom Menace, the closeup of Yoda in the Jedi Council when young Anakin is being interviewed to be a Jedi, was originally the puppet. But now new footage has shown that he has been replaced with a CGI version. This is just a rumor at this point, but video does look quite convincing. While the CGI does a better job at moving the facial muscles as he speaks, somehow the puppet actually looks more realistic. I think it’s in the eyes. Anyway, we’ll discover what...

We haven’t done a Star Wars stuff article in a bit, so we thought we’d look at some more weird items that have come out from the Star Wars universe, which will no doubt excite many of the fans out there.

Do you ever have moments in life where a Star Wars quote at just the right time in the voice of the original character would come in handy? Say you are trying to convince your child to do better in school. What better way to do that than by Yoda telling him he needs to do or do not, that there is no try? And you can by using this keychain to hang your keys from and have six different sound clips at your disposal to use in your every day life. For instance, what if you were in a business meeting and the boss is saying how sales are way down? A little comedy relief with C3PO saying “We’re doomed!” may lighten the mood, or your wallet when you get fired, but wasn’t it worth it? They also come with a light saber sound and the creepy breath of Darth Vader’s...

Today's news features Star Wars: The Old Republic opening with a limited run of copies, an R2-D2 Planetarium, and Star Wars meets Mexico's Day of the Dead.

Fans who are eagerly awaiting Star Wars: The Old Republic may find themselves waiting a bit longer when the game does ship, which is expected to be around Christmas of this year. The reason is that Bioware is now saying that they will only be allowing so many copies to be sold at first to ease the servers into the traffic. This is actually not a bad idea. With the demand as high as it’s been, having millions of people suddenly flooding the system may not be the best idea in a live format. So instead, they want to make sure that the launch goes as smoothly as possible, learning their lesson from other MMO’s that have started out on very shaky ground. So far, no one has said how many that will be specifically, nor how much the MMO will be after you buy the initial copy, if anything.

Remember that R2-D2...

Imagine if you took American Gladiators, Wipeout and a whole lot of dangerous materials, and put it into one arena, you may start to get the idea of the new game Huttball.

Devised by the Hutts in their twisted version of extreme sports, the idea is to take the ball and put it into your opponent’s base while avoiding the dangers of the game field. What dangers? Well there’s fire, acid, and all sorts of things that can kill you instantly, while the audience laughs and chuckles at your demise. But someone crafty could certainly avoid these pitfalls you say. After all, isn’t there a lot of games that require such avoidance?


Okay, fair enough, but it’s not just the field itself you have to worry about. Your opponent is not a robot, but live players in a team event and they are out to make sure that you don’t get to your goal. And because this is meant to be a kill or be killed type...

A new trailer is out for Season 4 of Cartoon Network’s popular show Star Wars: The Clone Wars and it looks to be a pretty exciting season indeed…

One of the big events of the new season appears to be the undersea battle for Admiral Akbar’s home Mon Calamari. Count Dooku apparently orders his army of separatists to take over the submerged city, but the Calamari are not going without a fight and get the help of the Jedi and the clones. The story, which will play out over three episodes, is a continuation from the online MMO Clone Wars Adventures that debuted earlier. The game is not only fun to play, but because of the dedication in keeping the stories consistent from one to the other, will serve as a very good introduction to the new season. Producers said it was important that the two entities play in the same universe and what happens in one will have consequences in the other.

Anakin is still being haunted by his inner demons, pushing him further away...

Unless you live on the furthest reaches of the Empire, you’ve no doubt heard that the Star Wars Saga, all 6 movies, will be released on Blu-Ray on September 16th. There is a new trailer to whet your appetite while you wait until next month to pick these up.

This new look at the set as a whole delves a bit more into the 40 hours of bonus content that will be featured, which will no doubt be of more interest to the fans than seeing the movies once again. There are scenes showing the younger Obi-Wan in front of a green screen as he strikes down the droids, Harrison Ford kissing a woman that doesn’t look like Carrie Fisher in a candid on set moment, 3D models of the ships, demonstrations on compositing scenes together such as putting the AT-AT models on the snow covered background of Hoth, and other never before seen images and clips.


You may want to keep in mind that if you are...

Billy Dee Williams has something to get off his chest 35 or so years later over something that his character had done in Empire Strikes Back. The flack he has taken for it prompted him to apologize, but you’ll never guess who he is saying sorry and explaining himself to.

But before I get into that, it’s only fair I post a spoiler warning here. Although it’s hard to believe that if you are reading this site, that you haven’t seen all of them at least once. But to be sure we don’t give anything away, you might want to stop reading here.

SPOILER

Star Wars fans know that in order to keep his operation going in the Cloud City, Lando Calrissian (played by Williams) appeared to have betrayed Han Solo and his friends, offering them up to Darth Vader. And as a result, Han was frozen in carbonite and was taken by Boba Fett back to Jabba because he owed the Hutt money. Later on though in a change of heart, it was actually Vader and the Empire that he betrayed when...

You may not have been aware of this, but Lego Star Wars also has two online games that you can play for free as a promotion for the actual game. Ace Assault pits you up against your favorite bounty hunters as you try to destroy their ship in this Asteroids like adventure. The other, the Quest for R2-D2, takes you on a quest through various missions to find the elusive droid that is calling for help while carrying the plans to a new weapon.

Ace Assault allows you to first pick and customize your pilot. You can give your guy a name, a chosen helmet, weapon, pants and shirt. There are a lot of different options. The face ones, for example, give you different expressions. Once you’ve chosen what your character looks like, you’ll be given a chance to choose a ship. Each ship has different strengths that will effect how you do against your foes. Some ships are locked until you reach certain goals, presumably getting through the three rounds of combat presented...

The Jedi Consular class has been added to the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic in their latest update. The purpose of this class is to bring a peace to the universe through calm and concise thought. Words speak louder than actions and that will be the challenge to the player supposedly, but you wouldn’t know it by the trailer. In it, as you can see below, they forego any of that nonsense, opting to instead show the character as a guy who kicks a heck of a lot butt to get to his goal.

Of course, from a player perspective just going around sharing words of wisdom would be pretty boring. After all, Qui Gon didn’t go around picking fights and chopping off arms with his light saber, but when challenged he was pretty awesome until Maul killed him. And those that advocate peace in a game like this are probably not popular in a world that is leaning toward the Sith. So we can see where having these talents can be pretty fun and necessary to survive. We would...

Garmin, a manufacturer of GPS systems for cars, announced that they will be adding the voice of Yoda and Darth Vader into their products.

I love my GPS. It has saved me a few times from being completely lost while trying to find the new restaurant my friend suggested or that far away place for which I’ve never been. It has a nice soothing female voice that lets me know where to turn and the best route. And in an environment where drivers are pretty crazy, that smoothness can help keep the stress down.

But I also love Star Wars and I was disappointed when I saw that TomTom GPS systems had C3PO, Vader, Yoda and R2-D2 (which I am not sure how he would give directions when he can’t talk). I wanted those voices. Almost enough to make me switch, but I’m not one of those that switches just for gimmicks. But when Garmin announced that there were downloadable “voice skins” for my particular GPS system, I was thrilled. And at $13, they are reasonably priced...

There have been books with blueprints in them, mostly drawn by those who wanted to extend the creativity of the Star Wars universe, but now Lucas is releasing through Epic Books a monumental collection of the real blueprints from their archives in a cloth bound limited edition box set.

The book is actually huge in scope and in size. It weighs 35 pounds and is 15” x 18” and 336 pages. The width and height were necessary, according to editor Kristin Mehus-Roe, in order to better show the details that are in each blueprint. Of course, for the price, the large size will also be very impressive to your friends. For those pages that were still too small, there are even gateway pages that fold out, 10 in all.

What is amazing about this is the thoughts and creativity that went into these blueprints, stuff that wasn’t even necessary for the film, such as the nucleonic catalyst tank. No one knows what it does these days and why it was there, but it was. And so...

On ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, they had Harrison Ford on to promote his new movie Cowboys & Aliens. But while in the dressing room, he meets with a rather old friend, or at least we thought they were old friends.

Apparently Chewbacca has been a very naughty wookie over the years, according to the Kimmel skit written by C&A director Jon Favreau. The famed fuzzball has allegedly been sleeping with Ford’s wife and she is still coughing up hairballs, which is a little disgusting. Anyway, he comes to apologize to Ford while he’s in the makeup chair getting ready for the Kimmel taping. But it’s pretty clear that the ex-Han Solo is having nothing more to do with him. In fact, he’s mad from the moment his past partner walks into the room. Props to the hairdresser who hides with his ears cowered on the couch. Ford tells Chewy that he is done with the Star Wars crap and he’s done with him. And no, this has nothing to do with Peter Mayhew, but the actual...