Movies

Despite all the similarities, there are many differences between Star Trek and Star Wars. The most prominent difference between the two is that Star Trek focuses on space travel, while Star Wars emphasizes the use of spacecraft. Other differences include the differences in asymmetrical threats, Warp speed, and women.

Asymmetrical threats​

Whether you are playing a Star Wars or Star Trek game, you will need to understand the difference between asymmetrical and conventional threats. Asymmetrical threats are those that strike with greater lethality and a greater amount of technology. These can include traditional military forces, mercenaries, criminal organizations, paramilitary forces, and terrorism.

Asymmetrical threats are not a new concept in warfare. They are simply the use of different tactics and equipment by conventional and unconventional actors to strike at their opponents. This is often done through the use of technology, such as...

Whether you're new to the Star Wars franchise or you've watched them all before, you might be wondering what order the movies go in. The answer isn't hard to find, but you might not be sure where to begin.

Episode IV: A New Hope​

Originally titled Star Wars, the movie was released in 1977. It was followed by The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. All three were digitally remastered for the 20th anniversary of their release.

The climax of A New Hope features the assault on the Death Star. During this attack, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) sees two ships engaged in combat beyond the atmosphere. He runs down a trench toward the Death Star exhaust port. The resulting blaster fire from the stormtroopers forces Luke and his friends to flee on the Millennium Falcon.

The film also features R2-D2 and C-3PO. These two droids were inspired by Lucas's Alaskan malamute dog Indiana. He also drew inspiration from Akira Kurosawa's 1958 film The...

This edition we have the premier of Kinect Star Wars (finally), the celebrity hosts at Star Wars Weekends and some Celebration VII news.

Well the day finally arrived this week when Kinect Star Wars was finally released to the public after a year or so of speculation and ridicule, along with the much awaited Xbox 360 Kinect Star Wars Bundle, which includes the R2-D2 like console and the C-3PO controller, a must for any collector. As to the game itself, well it suffers from what we had heard and experienced in the preview, which is a sort of unresponsive light saber that only seems to know two moves, up and down and left and right. It is not as fluent as you would think the saber would be. I guess that was to keep it sort of “on the rails” as it were and make it easier for kids to play. The rest of it seemed alright controller wise, and oddly enough, the dancing seemed to be the most responsive. That is probably because the Kinect is so good at that sort of motion...

George Lucas, as everyone knows, has said he is formally retiring from making blockbuster movies and preferred to dabble in other things. So when his answer of when there would be 7th, 8th or 9th installment of Star Wars was “Never, I’m retired.” it shouldn’t come as any great shock. But the sensationalist headline is certainly buzzing through the internet like wildfire, even though Lucas never said any such thing according to their video. But never let facts get in the way of a juicy story.

First of all, it’s very hard to go get a straight answer from anybody when you ambush them outside of a restaurant when they are just trying to get to their car. The anger at being interrupted is enough to make someone snap back, but we do believe that Lucas’ reply is a valid one. The only thing is that people often say “never” and wind up changing their mind later on. I think at this point, he thinks more in terms of himself, rather than an outsourced project. But I can...

This edition we have an ad that wasn’t meant to be viral, but wound up being that, a video that the ad agency hopes will be viral, and a sneak peek at a new book from Timothy Zahn which tells the story of Han’s darker side. So let’s get into it.

A fan placed an ad for a TIE Fighter replica on Craigslist Seattle. He didn’t expect to get a lot for it, offering at it $150 or best offer. But the unique 1/3 scale model, though not incredibly detailed, became an overnight sensation when popular blogs started picking it up and it went viral. When it did, the man said that he got a ton of inquiries, both email and calls, on buying it, and while he wouldn’t say what he sold it for, it’s a pretty sure bet it was probably more than the $150. The TIE Fighter, which features a cockpit that a person can actually get in (up to 300 pounds), was originally created to help his son raise money for the church, but the fan also used it as an opportunity for a bit of a math lesson...

This edition of quick news includes the death of concept artist Ralph McQuarrie, the success of Star Wars: The Republic according to EA and the Jake Lloyd has some whine with his fame...

Sad news this week for Star Wars fans. Ralph McQuarrie, who designed much of the look of the Star Wars original trilogy, has died at the age of 82. McQuarrie, originally a tech artist for Boeing and other space oriented projects, was the perfect concept artist for George Lucas, who was looking to flesh out what his characters and his world would actually look like. The two would meet about every few weeks and George would give him a rough description of what he wanted and McQuarrie would draw him up something and they would hash out the details in what the artist described as a very good relationship. Lucas got so comfortable with him, that whenever he couldn’t put his thoughts into words, he’d show McQuarrie’s artwork and tell them to do that. The concept designer was...

Is it just me or do you think that Han Solo probably would have rocked out to an electric guitar in his spare time? If so, he probably would have liked one that was based on the ship he held so dear, the Millennium Falcon. The smuggler no doubt would have really liked the one by BFisk89, a songwriter and singer. It may not have been the first, but it certainly is the most elaborate, with all the sorts of features that Star Wars fans would drool over. And actually it’s for sale if you want to buy the one and only creation.

No one ever said that guitars had to be a specific shape and that they couldn’t be round, which made the Millennium Falcon the perfect choice. Add a board of frets to it and a headstock and you have a guitar. Of course, it’s far more complicated than that. It takes a lot of musical knowledge and craft ability to do this sort of thing. He had to basically gut one of the larger toy models and custom cut the pieces for the bridge posts and pickups...

You know, one thing that I always felt was missing from Empire Strikes Back were snowboarding Jedi on Hoth. Imagine Luke skidding across the new snow taking out approaching Empirical enemies with his light saber. That would have been so darn cool, don’t you think? Well I’m not George Lucas, so I can’t add that into the film, but I’m happy to report that there is a place where your kids can learn to snowboard Star Wars style.

Sierra-at-Tahoe in Northern California has officially opened Yoda’s Riglet Park in cooperation with Burton Snowboards and LucasFilms. The new portion will introduce 3-6 year olds to the wonders of the sport in an environment that they will definitely love. Their adventure begins at what they called the Padawan Center. This is where they get some informal training through a series of pods hosted by everyone’s favorite instructor Yoda. Once they’ve graduated from those, they are then able to get right into it and tackle the gentle mountain...

Well Jar Jar is officially back on the big screen as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace returned to theaters last night in 3D, but how was the conversion that we’ve all heard so much about? Not that awesome. If you are expecting big scenes like in Avatar, you are going to be sorely disappointed.

I went to see the movie at the local AMC at the mall, put on my 3D glasses and sat down amongst what was a pretty big crowd actually. I have to give Lucas credit, even if the audience had so much venom for the flat version of the movie released more than 10 years ago, they still bought their tickets. So whether they booed or cheered, the money will still come rolling in.

So what was it like? Not a whole lot different than the original release. The problem with the process of converting 2D movies is that you get sort of a pseudo 3D effect, just like colorization of black and white movies that only colored some of the elements and not others. The 3D effects are...

When Disney released Lion King in 3D, people heralded it as one of the greatest acts of movie magic in a long while, but for George Lucas and company redoing Phantom Menace in 3D, not so much. The fan base has really been down on this from the start. Perhaps it is because the movie that tells the tale of the very young Anakin Skywalker is not that well liked amongst them. And thus, they have decided to revolt by making their voices heard on YouTube, such as the video below.

Now there are those that may say that some of the criticism comes across as a bit harsh. After all, James Cameron is re-releasing Titanic in 3D? What’s the difference? Well the difference is that Lucas has been milking the same six films over and over, tweaking them as he goes along with elements that people just don’t like. He doesn’t just add in or enhance the video from format to format, but puts in things like “Nooooooooooooooooo!” to try to make them different enough for people to...

This edition we feature what happened when a guy wielded his lightsaber in a retail store, a new kid featurette advertising Phantom Menace 3D and a new Star Wars Volkswagen Super Bowl Ad.

You may remember last December the case of a Portland Oregon man who went into a Toys-R-Us and started attacking people with the plastic toy lightsabers they have on sale there. He hit at least one, but since they are pretty light, he didn’t really do any bodily harm.

Last year, you may remember that we talked about “Star Wars Uncut”, a fan based project in which potential film makers would send in 15 second clips from any scene they chose from A New Hope. In these clips, creative people could basically do anything from making tie fighters out of cardboard and R2D2 out of a garbage can. Once all the scenes were represented, the producers edited the movie together into one glorious film.