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In the continuing saga of the Star Wars Galaxies shutdown that we spoke of yesterday, it seems that some players have turned to the Supreme Council, known in some circles as the US legal system, to file a class action suit against Sony Online Entertainment to block the closing. The suit mentions the tactics that the company has taken in response to the petition that was being circulated in an effort to keep the service from shutting down. They have blocked access to forums, singled out a ring leader who they threatened to sue as well as ban permanently and other practices that while designed to silence the opposition to their plan, is doing them more harm than good. The suit is not very likely to succeed due to the fine print in the EULA, which gives Sony the right to basically run their service as they see fit, but you can’t blame them for trying. Best case is that it shows the lengths that Sony is willing to go to shut up their members. The bad PR alone...

Today we are looking at some cool new Star Wars R2-D2 toys that will be coming out this fall.

Our first item is an old favorite that has been converted to the world of George Lucas. Yes, it’s Operation. You remember that game as a kid. You took a pair of tweezers and tried to remove things like the funny bone and heart from the patient without touching the sides. Otherwise his nose lit up and a sharp annoying buzzing sound would indicate to you that the patient had suffered. I always thought after ten of those he would have been flatlined, but that might have been too much for kids. Well now instead of Cavity Sam (which apparently was the unfortunately unhealthy man’s name), Star Wars Operation features R2-D2 under the tweezers, or in this case, perhaps spanners. But it’s still the same game, only you will be taking out R2-D2’s electronic parts and if you don’t do it correctly, he will beep at you and flash an evil red light. The game is to be released...

A little baby, whose parents named her after the princess in Star Wars because they were such fans of the films, has had quite a struggle in her first four months on this earth, but fans of the Lucas empire are coming to her aid in a big way.

A month after she was born, after a vaccination, she began to have seizures and involuntary body and eye movements. This got worse and she was admitted into the hospital, but doctors are baffled as to what could be the cause of this medical problem. They’ve given her spinal taps, drug regiments, biopsies, just about everything they can think of, and still they are up in the air about how to help her. Too bad Dr. House isn’t a real guy.

But as you can imagine, for a young couple, the flood of medical bills from all these procedures is much, much higher than they can handle on their own. And they are being buried by the avalanche that has resulted, to the point where it they may be forced into an impossible decision on...

We’ve mentioned before the technology that has become reality from the ideas in Star Wars. There are medical enhancements like prosthetic limbs, which Luke got when his hand was cut off by Vader and even portable iron lungs like the Dark Lord uses to breathe. There are things like pseudo light sabers (which are actually lasers that can actually cut metal and other things). But one of the things that we haven’t seen until now is a usable Star Wars hover bike, and perhaps we still haven’t.

While its creator, Australian inventor Chris Mallow calls it a hover bike and it rides like one, it looks more like Luke’s Landspeeder that he used to get around his home world of Tatooine while he was looking for R2-D2. The bike basically floats above the ground with no wheels at all at high altitudes. But that is because it is basically powered by helicopter engines that are capable of spinning the fans fast enough to float the bike and the rider at as much as 10,000...

At the largest game industry convention, E3, where all the entertainment companies are showing off their latest, Microsoft used part of their press conference this morning, to show off Kinect Star Wars. It was presented with a wide range of other games for Kinect and not for Kinect, but all for the Xbox 360. I know that it would have interrupted the proceedings, but part of the fan in me, really wanted to see at least one Star Wars character hit the stage during this portion. Oh well.

What did we find out? Not much that we didn’t know already. What they did show is one actual working scene which has a Jedi Knight fighting his way through the Cloud City from Empire Strikes Back. One thing that Star Wars fans will really like is the amount of realism in the scenery and characters. They looked just like in the movies, including the Carbonite freezing room where Leia admits that she loves him. We’ve seen a lot of scenery in various Lucas games, but these...

Hornby PLC, which is a leading provider of model kits for builders, just scored a major contract as big as the empire itself. When the movies are rereleased in 3D, they will have the exclusive rights to make the models that will go along with the film. We assume this means things like the Death Star, Millennium Falcon, X-Wing and Tie Fighters, etc. In the past Hornby has had major problems with their suppliers in China and severe weather at their London manufacturing plant had caused a demand issue, which frightened their stockholders. But upon hearing the news of the acquisition of the worldwide rights to the Scaletrix Star Wars models, their stock has climbed back up. They also received the rights to Cars 2 and the London Olympics. It probably will be a bit before we actually see these on the shelf, no doubt they will wait until the first film is out in theatres which is in 2012...

When you are in high school and you are graduating, you may be looking for something exciting to end the year on a high note. Of course, the ceremony is supposed to do that, but that’s more for the parents than the students. And if you are these two guys from Westfield High School, their idea was a tribute to their favorite film, Star Wars.

And to do so, they made up a whole battle routine with light sabers to be performed in the school cafeteria in an unannounced impromptu show for their fellow students. The setup was simple. They would walk in, challenge the other, ignite their sabers and go at it for a bit. Sounds innocent enough, right? Especially with toy sabers that even if someone got hit, would only sting a little, not beat them silly. And they did just as they had practiced a few days before the end of the year.

You would think that school officials would recognize this bit of jovial theater for what it was and smile along with the rest of the...

George Lucas, who appeared on G4 as part of the promotion of the Star Tours II ride, talked about the live action Star Wars TV Show and it’s not good news for the fans.

The Star Wars creator says that they have 50 hours of script written for the show, but the pages play out just like a regular feature film. And this means that in order to create the effects and stage the production of such a show, it would require a huge budget, and it’s not something television networks can afford at this point. The only way, Lucas reckons, is to figure out a way to make movies cheaper and thus bring the cost level down to something practical. He says that once that process is figured out, that it will change how movies are made and then it will be time for the TV show to get a second look.

Hopefully now with Star Tours out of the way and the process finalized for 3D conversion of the films that Industrial Light and Magic can get to the task of where to cut enough corners...

While all of the attention was on Star Tours II, it seems that it is not the only attraction being considered at Disney, although it unclear what park the ride patent is for or if it was just a blue sky endeavor, but given the recent date, this could be something coming to one of the foreign parks, which will hopefully trickle back here in the US.

While not much is known about this new park if there is such a thing, one thing that was very specific in the patent was some drawings that were posted at a Disney site that are thought to be real patent requests for a roller coaster based on the Death Star battle. In this case, X-Wings would be against Tie Fighters on opposite tracks, going toward each other at various points. Now the interesting thing about that is that the schematic of the ride vehicle specifies a gun that can be fired by the rider apparently at the enemy, which would make for a very unique ride mechanic for a coaster. Our guess is that you get a...

Wow is the only word that comes to mind after flying down to Orlando over the weekend to see the new attraction and I have to say I was impressed. Having rode the original Star Tours many times, this just gives so much new life to the attraction, while keeping the spirit of the old.

The show starts out in the redesigned queue line where what used to look more like a Star Speeder garage is now a very busy spaceport with a large screen that tells of the many different destinations available throughout the galaxy with R2D2 and C3PO in charge, with their usual banter. As you progress through the line, you come to another room that has various droids doing different tasks in order to get the flights ready like customs and such. We also see various characters on screens going by as they try to manage their luggage, but only in silhouettes which makes it fun to figure out which ones they are while you are waiting. But perhaps the funniest gag of all is the parody...

Just thought we would do an update on the Star Wars Weekends at Disney Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Florida since tomorrow (May 20th) is the start. There are a lot of cool events going on.

Star Tours II: The Adventures Continue will be making it’s official debut with a galactic sized opening ceremony including as we’ve said Anthony Daniels (C3PO) and if rumor is true, George Lucas. There will no doubt also be dignitaries and executives from both Disney and LucasArts on hand, as well as costumed characters that will bring out the pageantry. The spectacle will be broadcast live over Disney Park’s YouTube Channel and the official Facebook page at 10am ET on May 20th.

Other events that will be each day of the weekends are not being simulcasted, but will no doubt wind up on YouTube. These include the Hyperspace Hoopla, a dance competition for Star Wars characters like Darth Vader, Princess Leia and others old and new, the Padawan Mind Challenge and...

If you have seen recent pictures of Carrie Fisher, who played the strong willed princess of legend in the original Star Wars saga, you have seen where she gained a lot of weight to the point where people on the internet started talking about her as if she was closer to Jabba than Leia. That criticism may have been unfair, but in the end it was helpful, because it pushed Fisher to realize that her weight gain was getting out of control and she needed to set her mind to taking it back off.

In just 18 weeks on the Jenny Craig diet and with exercise, she was able to lose 30 pounds, which really has come off well, returning her to being quite recognizable as the woman that we all fell in love with back in the movies. And although she has aged a bit, she is looking very good in her newest pictures. Of course with Jenny Craig, they have meal plans that complement the exercise routine that has helped so many, including Dancing with the Stars Kirstie Alley, Valerie...