Experience the next great chapters of the Star Wars universe

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...

With an April 3rd release date, details are coming in fast and furious, so we thought we’d look at some of the latest information from the latest video that has been released from the publisher.

The new trailer out is called “Depth” and we have to admit, that it is chuck full of the goodness that we’ve been waiting to see from the game. Well, mostly what we wanted to see. It was actually painful to watch Boba Fett reduced to a dancing fool. But then anyone who has been to Star Wars Weekends in Orlando will attest, villains certainly can bust a move. No really, just check out Darth Vader on YouTube to see what I mean. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, things we’ve been wanting to see.

Well the first scene in the trailer is an epic space battle that brings me back to the days of Tie Fighter versus X-Wing only with far more ships and stunning graphics, although I have to admit, I felt a bit tired after just watching those kids playing. Other scenes include theatrical...

For those of you who have yet to take the plunge into the world of Star Wars: The Old Republic, have they got a deal for you. Bioware is offering a free weekend to get your feet wet and hopefully bring more members into the dark side (and the light side too). But supplies are limited and it’s only for people who never played the game before at all.

The trial begins on Thursday afternoon March 15 at 12:01 CT and will require the player to sign up and download the game client, which I’ll be honest, is pretty huge. While the Star Wars official site says several hours, those with faster connections probably won’t take that long, but it’s still kinda brutal a wait. Then you’ll have until Monday March 19 at 2:00am CT to play for free, with some restrictions, but certainly enough to get an idea if you want to continue. All servers are available including Player Versus Environment, Player Vs. Player and Role Playing.

During the trial, you will not be able to push your...

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...

Star Wars fans really love to get into the immersive environment of George Lucas’ world and now Kinect Star Wars gives them a chance. In this new gameplay video, we actually get to see this first hand, and it’s actually kind of cool, despite what I’ve said in the past.

The first thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the game seems to have to do with Jabba directly or indirectly. Course we all know the Hutts have their grubby little hands in just about everything in the Empire, so this isn’t a big surprise. There are the pod races on Tatooine where you get to use your body to control Anakin’s podracer against opponents like Sebulba and others. This is just like you did in the game Star Wars Pod Racer, if you ever played that, only with more action. In this one, you get to nudge your opponents and throw things at them in an attempt to disable their pods to win the race. Revenge for slamming you is always fun.

Speaking of revenge, or perhaps why Jabba had...

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...

If you are a collector of all things related to the Force, you may certainly be interested in this high end set of gaming peripherals for the new MMO from LucasArts, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

The set, which Razer actually doesn’t market as a package, but as individual items, is sure to excite your senses and your friends with these cool gadgets. You won’t even need any Jedi mind tricks to get them to see the wow factor in the mouse with the metallic lines reminiscent of the Death Star, the Sith/Jedi insignia on the headset or the cool mouse mat that lets you choose which faction (dark or light side) that you fight in.

The mouse is based on the Razer Naga, which is power packed with buttons galore. 17 in all to be exact. There are 12 buttons on a 3x4 thumbpad grid on the left side and 5 other buttons on the top (including of course left, right and middle). Using the software that comes with it, you can configure these to just about anything you would want...

This edition features Phantom Menace 3D at the box office, Glenn Beck’s rant about George Lucas and the new Kinect Star Wars Trailer, which is actually pretty funny this time out…

Love is in the air, but not so much for the latest 3D Star Wars. It finished #4 at the Box Office this weekend, earning around $23 million.

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...