Experience the next great chapters of the Star Wars universe

Star Wars Uncut, if you haven’t heard about it, is a remake of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope in which they asked people all over the world to contribute their version of scenes in 15 second increments. The interpretations could be in any visual style or with any tools that they had to do so. Some clips are using Legos, others are using anime action figures of the Star Wars characters. There is live action, animation, and a whole lot of other techniques.

Casey Pugh, who worked for Vimeo, had the idea of crowdsourcing as he calls it. That is to take something that the world already enjoys and get volunteers to create something wonderful. And since Star Wars is one of the best known and most interactive of all the movies, it seemed like the logical place to start his Uncut series. So with the help of thousands, he and his crew took in submissions via a website for 15 second scenes, for which A New Hope was divided up. One could then take the scene and...

There is a new trailer released today from Bio-Ware for their upcoming game Star Wars: The Old Republic, a massive MMO set to premiere on New Years Eve in 2011. It provides a very quick history in typical trailer format of how the characters got to this point. The video does a fair job of showing the battle sequences in addition to the peaceful scenarios with some very stunning scenery to back it all up. There is also looks at many of the character classes that will be available too.

We haven’t really seen any humor in the game thus far until now. One of the robot fighters in the video says as “Set prejudice to maximum” before firing. This is an old military term, to destroy with extreme prejudice.

We think this is probably the best trailer out thus far in selling the game to the public. You can view it below.

As every fan knows by now and we’ve announced here that Phantom Menace will be the first of the six movies to be re-released in 3D. John Knoll, a veteran in visual effects for Industrial Light and Magic, as well as a co-creator for Adobe Photoshop, will be leading the project. He was the original Visual FX Supervisor for Episodes I, II and III and one of things he talked about in doing the conversion was that since he was in charge then, he knows what kind of depth there was in each scene. This should make it easier and more accurate, assuring that it will look correct in the final project.

But it’s pretty clear that LucasFilms recognizes the hesitation in the fan’s hearts over this. After all, everyone remembers the fiasco around the conversion of Clash of the Titans, which basically ruined the movie. Lucas released a video on YouTube that talks to John Knolls and he goes through some of the challenges of the project and how they plan to overcome them...

Guilds are a staple of the MMO world and Bio-Ware wants to make sure that they are no exception. But instead of waiting for the game release for players to get their guilds going, they’ve opened up Guild Headquarters in three phases before the 12/31/2011 release of the game. The first phase is to join an already existing guild that you think you would be compatible with, or you can begin your own guild with its own members, that you can recruit. The choice is yours. The second phase will allow guilds to align with eachother to build alliances and finally in the third phase, the guilds that have what it takes will be put into the roster area where other players can join as they enter the game. Players will be free to withdraw from a guild or join a new one at any time, but can only belong to one at a time for each character they control. This means that they can have multiple characters belonging to multiple guilds, but...

Andrew Ainsworth is perhaps not a name that you would know off hand, but he was instrumental in the Star Wars trilogy by bringing the StormTrooper uniforms to life for Episode 4 and the other films. While the helmets were not designed by Ainsworth, but by Nick Pemberton, a friend and artist that lived in the same complex in Britain, he had created the molds for the actual costumes that were worn in the 1976 film. He also created the armor as well. And after Star Wars, Ainsworth went on to work in the film and television industry as a prop maker for such shows as Space 1999 and films Aliens and Superman, for which he created a wind machine and a front screen projector.

But he never forgot his roots and in 2004 decided to sell new castings from the original 1976 molds to fans, originally just in the UK, but once Lucas found out he had sold to US people as well, the legal team of the empire swooped down like Darth Vader going after Luke in the trench. They...

Few roles have the public’s interest like that of Star Wars. Roles that once you are cast, you are forever known as that character, no matter how many other roles you’ve had or how popular they were. And the constant reminder of a role can get to be a bit daunting for the celebrity, especially years after they were done. I doubt many people would like to be reminded of a job they had ten years ago every day of their lives. And while I’m sure that most of them appreciated the job and what doors it opened for them, if any, being known for only one project can be frustrating for an actor or actresses who live for their next gig.

Natalie Portman, who had a career before Star Wars, and has just won an Academy Award for her role as the emotionally damaged ballerina in Black Swan, was quoted this week as saying that she wishes that people would forget that she was in Star Wars and concentrate on what she’s doing now. Course some will say that it’s hard to feel...

As we’ve said before, Lucas will be releasing the six episodes of Star Wars once again in glorious 3D, jumping on the bandwagon of all the other movies that will be rereleased like Titanic. The problem is that movies that are converted to 3D from 2D are not very impressive, at least not so far. Of course, if anyone is going to have the technical knowhow to do it, it would be Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic. The good news is that the theatrical release, starting on February 10, 2012 with Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace, will bring the Star Wars movies to a whole new generation. And many of the children that see the movies really liked the first three episodes, versus episodes 4,5,6 because they are more modernized, where to them, the original trilogy seems a bit out of date even with the enhancements. The only scary thing is seeing Jar Jar’s tongue coming out of the screen to grab a fruit. How rude.

Bounty Hunters have been announced for Star Wars...

It’s truly a testament to George Lucas that his legacy keeps on, despite not having any dogs in the hunt for Oscar gold. His legacy’s presence was commonplace at this year’s Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards (or in other words, Oscars). In the 83rd giving out of the golden man trophies, Lucas didn’t have a single nomination, and yet he was still a big part of the night’s festivities, perhaps even more so than those that did, like Disney.

While many of the references were not so much directly related, but had a part of the movie juggernaut at one point or another. One could make this argument on just about any connection to anything else in Hollywood. If Kevin Bacon won, would they spend time talking about Footloose or Tremors, because he was in them? Probably not, but the world of George Lucas is just so expansive that it’s hard to separate out it’s alumni without the connection coming to mind.

There were some very direct references...

As Disney gets ready to open “Star Tours II: The Adventures Continue” on May 20th, there will be collectible toys sold based on the attraction. These toys will most likely be limited to the gift shops at Disney World, especially the one at the attraction exit, but maybe available elsewhere. Most of the two playsets center around characters seen in the preshow or the main ride.

In the first, which is called the Star Tours Ambush Pack, there will be the Dark Lord himself on a moving platform, Boba Fett, who doesn’t need a moving platform because of his jet pack, and two skytroopers. While Disney hasn’t given a specific plot yet, it’s probably a good bet based on these toys that Darth Vader and Boba Fett have a plan up their sleeve to hijack the Starspeeder to destinations unknown.

The second pack is the Star Tours Travel Agency Pack. As you may know, the cover story for Star Tours is that the Starspeeder is transportation to your out-of-this world tourist...

Even as an adult, its fun to play with Legos and build things that we can imagine in our minds and of course there are plenty of Star Wars sets to create just about any scenario. And we’ve seen some truly elaborate uses. Complete ships in the Star Wars universe have been made out of Lego and whole sets from the movies and TV shows as well. Well, for one boy, who apparently has a lot of sets and time, he created what is the most elaborate, funny and to the point video we’ve seen. He compressed the entire story of all three of the original movies (Episodes IV-VI) into just over two minutes, covering most of the major scenes in great detail. We had to show this video to our readers. It’s amazing.


Also, in the world of Star Wars Legos there are some great ads that have been created that depict scenes from their imagination, that are basically dying for captions and back stories...

As season 3 winds down, we get a visit from one of our old favorites, Chewbacca, who will make an appearance in the final episode of the season and he doesn’t appear to be very thrilled with what’s going on, according to the preview video. While not reprising his role exactly, Peter Mayhew, the original actor under the fur, came back to advise the animators on all things Chewie, especially how he walked. Even back then, Mayhew had a bit of trouble walking, something he now uses a cane for, and that was part of how Chewbacca walked. Also that his mouth was open at all times, even when it was “closed”. Things like this helped the animators to create a very realistic looking Chewy. There had always been plans for the wookie to appear in Clone Wars, especially being as though he was over 200 years old in the films, so he was definitely around when all this was taking place. It’s just that the technical know how in animating fur and such was a bit beyond the...

LucasFilms has purchased the domain name and filed for a trademark for Star Wars Detours. The trademark lists a whole lot of items, but mostly interactive media covering everything from video games to music to DVDs and even leaves open the possibility for merchandise. Whatever it is, they sound like it’s going to be big. Some people are speculating that it might have to do with the Kinect video game that is due out by the end of the year, but it’s unlikely, although a real name for the title has not really surfaced as of yet. Still, the trademark is way too extensive to be just for a single console game. No, it sounds as if it will be more of a whole synergistic behemoth, judging from the scope.

What that behemoth could be is anyone’s guess. There are so many possibilities in the Star Wars universe that to even make a prediction would be difficult. The word Detours though does lead one to believe that whatever it is, it has something to do with...