News

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...

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...

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...

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...

Awhile back we told you the story of Andrew Ainsworth, the UK prop designer. Ainsworth was responsible for designing and creating the stormtrooper helmets that were in the original 1977 film. Since then, he has taken those rare molds and tools he’d used and made replica helmets for collectors and cosplayers in the UK and abroad. But the question was whether or not the replicas constituted infringement on Lucas’ intellectual property or not. Lucas had filed a lawsuit, when he alleged that they discovered that the company was selling to the US market. But Ainsworth has denied doing so.

The case went all the way to the British high court and they ruled in favor of Ainsworth stating that replicas are not works of art and therefore are not covered by copyright in the UK. This means that the company is free to continue to make and sell the helmets, as well as other Star Wars replicas, just not to those in the US. This is fine for the prop designer. He says...

Well as we mentioned in earlier articles, there were several panels surrounding Star Wars and the revelations were interesting to say the least about the Lucas empire. We’ll touch on a few of them right here.

Of course, the big news for gaming fans was Kinect Star Wars, which was finally given a release timeframe of Christmas 2011 although there was no specific date. They showed off a new portion of the game that included pod racing where gamers could race as any of the characters and over 20 pods on a variety of courses. In this one, you’ll even be able to play the Sebulba trick of actually throwing things at your opponent to wreck their racer. You can do all of this, as well as yielding a light saber, driving a flying car, and more with the Kinect motion tracking system that is only on the Xbox 360. The Star Wars Bundle, announced at the show, will include a R2D2 modded Xbox 360, a C3PO modded controller and a white cased Kinect to match, as well as two...

As you all know, Lucas is releasing all six Star Wars movies on Blu-Ray in various packs on September 16th, but one thing that they have in common is around 40 hours of extra bonus features such as the making of, etc. But for those who can’t wait and have an iPad or iPad 2, you can now download a free app from the iTunes app store that will let you get a sneak peek at the bonus footage that will be included. iPod Touch and iPhone users will have to wait a bit longer for the peek as the app won’t be ready until next month. But that is still long before the release date.

So what is in the app? Basically a very spiffy well intentioned interface that is touch driven, giving access to each of the films and their related content. That content includes a ton of concept art and rare never before seen photos with notes on what it all meant, a QuicktimeVR like viewer with props, costumes and maquettes (which are mockup statues) that you can view from all angles, and...

Today we look at Saturday and Sunday at Comic-Con in panels and events that relate to Star Wars. There is not as much on these days as they were for Thursday and Friday.

Saturday, June 23rd

3:00pm - 4:00pm The Write Stuff III: Writing for Genre Television and Beyond
In this non-universe specific panel, the top TV writers will discuss the nature of writing for the medium and particularly genres and how potential talents can get into the business. On the panel will be Steve Melching, who is the writer for Star Wars: The Clone Wars

4:00pm – 5:00pm Dark Horse and Bioware: A Comic and Video Game Partnership
Dark Horse has been instrumental in providing Bioware with an outlet to extend its games into the comic book media with two series based on Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. Now as Star Wars: The Old Republic draws near, they will also be creating a comic for that as well. This panel will discuss all of their current and past joint efforts.

8:30pm – 9:30pm...