News

We start this week with Seth Rogen, who plays the Green Hornet, claims that during a meeting he had with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, that Lucas believes that the world will indeed end in 2012. Being the futuristic visionary that he is, it seemed unlikely that the revelation was nothing more than humor, but after making his case, Rogen and Spielberg had no doubt that Lucas does in fact believe that the end of the world is at hand in 2012. Scary.

If you’ve often sat in your x-wing fighter wondering how to get to Dagobah to see Yoda or to complain about the Trade Federation and their taking over of your planet on Coruscant, you need a map. Fortunately, the guys at EW have felt your pain and created a super high resolution image that shows all the routes and how to get from place to place in the Star Wars universe. You can get the map by clicking here. No longer...

The big news, of course, this weekend is the announcement at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show that George Lucas has finally given the go ahead to release Star Wars on Blu-Ray. The bad news is that you’ll have to wait until September 2011 for the set.

In keeping fans up to date on the new MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, the official website now features more bios of the characters that will appear in the game. In the latest installment, we are introduced to Jewl’a Nightbringer, the bounty hunter, a new republic supreme chancellor named Janarus, and Darth Jadus, an imperial officer. The game itself has been in development for quite sometime and is scheduled for release in 2011, although no specific date has yet been announced.

You can also watch the E3 2010 trailer for the game here.

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In a bit of fan fiction, an editor imagined what would have happened if...

In our games of 2011, we mentioned the relationship that Star Wars has had in the Lego Universe. There are lots of different building sets based on the work of George Lucas, not to mention the numerous video games. The connection has been noted in Legoland California with themed days and costumed characters like stormtroopers and Obi-Wan. But up until now, the park has focused on real world objects, people and locations, all in exquisite detail and all made of the little plastic blocks and speciality pieces. That is all about to change on March 31. The 128 acre park, which is already in the midst of a large expansion that includes a water park, and several rides and exhibits, will unveil the Star Wars area in it’s Miniland section. Working closely with LucasFilms, the scenes will surely showcase the films with much precision and care.

Sharing the area of the park with the incredible reproductions of New York and Las Vegas, the tribute to the work of Lucas...

It was quite a roller coaster this week for the Star Wars universe with a few ups and downs, but that can be said for any iconic universe I suppose. Here are the highlights.

First up, Grant McCune, Oscar winning special effects and master model builder, died this week at age of 69 with pancreatic cancer.

The visionary brought us not only such characters as R2D2 for the first Star Wars, but had built models for at least 100 films including Rambo, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Speed, and Ghostbusters 2 in a career that spanned over 30 years. You can even catch a glimpse of him in A New Hope as a Death Star Gunner, although he was uncreditted.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed II was released, but it hasn’t been going too well with players and critics alike. They seem to find the game a bit monotonous from level to level, despite having a strong story and Star Killer (Darth Vader’s apprentice) possessing some great powers, but that was all put to waste in what is...

The film Empire Strikes Back in the Star Wars series is one of the most endearing films of the trilogy and a lot of that has to go to the vision of Irvin Kershner. He directed Episode V and really sealed the role Star Wars had in culture. It is rare that one can take a middle of sequence film which had no beginning and no end and turn it into one that is fondly remembered as the best.

George Lucas knew that in order for Episode V to work, it would have to rely more on emotions than action and special effects. After all, this is where Luke would learn of his true nature and what it meant to help his friends. The story just oozed character interaction and George wanted someone who knew what he was doing, but wasn’t tainted by Hollywood’s push for special effects at the expense of its actors.

That is when the name Irvin Kershner came up. Kershner had a reputation for being very passionate about character development and human interaction. This is what George...

Star Wars Celebration V is the Lucas Film approved event that brings together Starwars fans from all walks of life to discuss, celebrate and network with other Starwars fans. The events include celebrities, live music, collectibles, fans, and contests. This event experienced its fifth celebration this year, and the developer of its iPhone app has released Celebration V version
It's hard to imagine that back in 1971 when the idea of Star Wars, a sort of spaghetti western in space, was pitched to Universal, that such a film almost didn’t see the light of day. Even though it had been greenlighted along with American Graffiti as a two film deal, the initial scripts were rejected. George Lucas had to fight for its very creation with rewrite after rewrite and wondered even after it was complete whether it was worth it to continue.

So how did this worrisome experiment turn into a multi-billion dollar empire and cult classic still thrilling people? Well like Walt...