Star Wars Articles

During the closing of a cricket club in the UK, two men intending to rob the place thought they could remain anonymous by donning Darth Maul masks. The ploy seems to have worked because all that they had for the police as a description was their height and estimates of their weight. The pair arrived at closing time and when confronted by two male employees, they attacked the club’s workers with metal bars. Both men defending the club suffered injuries to their arm and face with severe bruising, but there was nothing life threatening. The guys are still at large. This isn’t the first time a Sith Lord has resorted to robbery to fund his evil empire. Back in June 2010, a man dressed in a full Darth Vader getup including mask and...

Wondercon, for those of you unaware, is one of the largest Comic Book conventions of the year. It’s held this year from April 1st-April 3rd at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA. And while it is mostly for comic books, the years have introduced it to a lot of pop culture as well, much like its brethren Comic-Con. And there is nothing more pop culture than Star Wars, and so Lucas and companies fit right in. There are many educational and exciting panel and entertainment venues to go to while you are there. Here are the Star Wars related events: Now in its 10th year is the Star Wars Last Fan Movie Standing. Budding moviemakers get to show their stuff not only to the audience of fans, but to George Lucas himself, who has the...

A few days ago we talked about how Star Wars: The Old Republic is signing up beta testers for the soft opening of their massive multiplayer world based on the Star Wars of 1000 years ago. The game is already got 1.5 million interested. But anytime there is huge demand and limited space, the scammers see an opportunity, one that Emperor Palpatine would no doubt approve of. People always try to make money by selling some intangible object that is not real and is filled with false promises. In this case, a typical ad will try to sell a beta tester invite (or beta key) to an unsuspecting, but eager game player. But like the magic beans, these “tickets” aren’t real. But once you purchase them, you have nothing, but they have your...

If you haven’t seen Chad Vader, who is supposedly Darth Vader’s brother, on YouTube or his website, you are missing quite a bit. What started out as a web series about what if a Darth Vader like character (legal stuff, you know) was a day manager at a grocery store has turned into an internet phenomenon. He now has DVD’s of Seasons 1 and 2 (which will also be on YouTube in HD) and has come up with a whole bunch of skits beyond the series. He was even one of the funny commentators on the Rifftrax send up of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back. In his latest video, he takes on another internet sensation, Rebecca Black’s Friday. You may have seen the video, millions did, or heard the story about this girl. She is a teenager who’s parents...

In 1996 three high school students were on a mission to bring the movie Star Wars to life on the stage as a musical. They took music from such Broadway hits as Grease and Les Miserables, rewrote the lyrics and presented the concoction as a 40 member rock opera, much in the same vein as Jesus Christ: Superstar and Godspell. The show was a huge hit, but only was seen for three nights before it was shut down by George Lucas with a court order. Mainly because the show was making money and even these days, Lucas doesn’t like that, even though he’s been more tolerant of fan based movies and creations based on the Star Wars universe. The two videos that have been made available from the show are The Millenium Falcon (a send up of...

For those of you who like THQ’s Star Wars games for the iPhone, you may want to consider picking up whatever you still want very quickly. A developer for THQ has spilled the beans that the iTunes store for games will be dropping all Star Wars related products very soon. The reason is that the licensing agreement that THQ has with Lucas is nearing its end. Because they are wireless games, the contracts work differently than in regular games where the development is what is included in the license, not the sales thereafter. Instead in wireless apps, the licenses have to keep being renewed and apparently THQ has decided not to do so if this person is correct. So get them quick if you want them. PS: Games purchased now will still run...

George Lucas has selected Prime Focus, a VFX company that is responsible for the 3D implementation in Disney’s Tron Legacy, to do the honors of converting Star Wars Episode I: Phantom Menace to 3D. A movie series like Star Wars, no matter what people think of the first three episodes, is a legacy that can’t really afford to be a disappointment to the fans and Prime Focus is very aware of that. They said in their press release that they were honored to become a trusted partner in this endeavor and that making sure there is a quality conversion is of utmost importance. They certainly have the experience and technology for it. Their View-D system allows filmmakers to actually not use a dual camera for filming a 3D movie, but it still...

A while back we talked about how Legoland California had joined in with George Lucas to create a new mini land for their park. You can find our preview article here. But Thursday marked the grand opening of the new 1400 square foot area and Star Wars fans are thrilled. While oddly placed within an area that is more known for its reality, than its fantasy, it sort of shows the series in a new light as if it is the future that could be. The entire project sets out to chronicle the most memorable locations, scenes and characters from the six movies and the Clone Wars animated series. Guests will start on one side of the timeline and travel through the history of the series, enjoying some of their favorite memories, such as R2D2 and...

The Daily Mail in the UK made quite a comment about Mark Hamill no longer looking like the boy that we grew up with in Star Wars, but after 30+ years, did we expect him too? I mean really. He’s 59 now and still working, mostly doing voice work for animated features and video games. He recently was spotted at a wrap party for an independent film called Sushi Girl and he looked significantly older than we are used to seeing him. The article mentioned that he looked paler and more rotund than he was when he played Luke decades before. So what? They are actually shocked enough to berate the man for aging and not spending a fortune and going through all sorts of plastic surgery to maintain that look, a look that he was horrifically...

It wasn’t long ago that 20th Century Fox, the studio that produces Star Wars, sued Battlestar Galactica over copyright infringement. But the love for BSG, both old and new, could not be snuffed out and the Clone Wars writers and supervising director Dave Filoni have managed to sneak some references in there without too much of an uproar. For instance, in the original Battlestar, the red glow eyed metal soldiers would answer every order with “By your command” in a very robotic voice, a phrase you may have heard a Separatist tactical droid reply in the animated series. Since both of them sound very metallic, it seemed only natural to have them acknowledge their orders in a similar manner as a tribute. But the connection between the...

You wouldn’t think of George Lucas as having a daughter that would be into something like Freestyle Cage Fighting, but she is and she’s quite good at it. In fact, she holds a record in 1-1 professional MMA fighting and beat her last opponent in a three round unanimous decision. Amanda Lucas, who is the filmmaker’s adopted oldest daughter, will be returning to the ring this Saturday in Shawnee, OH where she takes on Heather Martin. For those of you wondering what this has to do with Star Wars, beyond being Lucas’ daughter is that Amanda was part of all three movies. In Phantom Menace, she played the voice of Tey How (a communications officer for the trade federation ship) and Diva Funquita (a dancer and assistant working for Gardulla...

We are sure you’ve seen the ads on TV that Windows 7 was everyone’s idea. The commercials start out by telling what their idea was and then how it was included in the operating system. It’s a cool ad to try to shake the all encompassing Microsoft reputation and put the OS in the hands of the people. Which I guess means that if your system crashes, you can blame your neighbor? That doesn’t seem fair to put the blame on him. He’s an elderly man that uses his laptop for getting email from his grandchildren. Just what is being implied here? Like Microsoft, the other evil empire would also like to let other people take credit for their work. After all, the Death Star wasn’t built by people that were bent on world destruction. Well...

It didn’t look like an x-wing trying to pick off a tie fighter with short laser cannon bursts, but it was a laser weapon, bringing us closer to the Star Wars realm. In this version, it’s more of an unseen steady beam that when targeted at enemies can cause extreme burning, and perhaps even explosions if aimed at the right location (such as gas motors, etc). The US Navy is currently testing such a weapon on the USS Paul Foster. Normally, water serves to hamper such a beam, but this one is able to withstand the issues and work as directed. While gun mounts are not yet being placed on every ship, the military is hopeful after positive results that this could be a new tool in their arsenal, especially against sea pirates. In the video...

Can a real AT-AT be built life size and fully functional? A man in Oklahoma wants to find out. Michael Koehler, a Star Wars fanatic is working up plans to build the monstrosity as a way to unite Sci-Fi fans and generally create a rallying cry from a national project. For those of you not as Star Wars literate, the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) are also known as Imperial Walkers. They were the big dog like robots that towered above the rebels on Hoth in the Empire Strikes Back. They could crush anything with their massive feet, while shooting lasers out of their “noses.” A pilot would sit in the head portion and drive the tank with legs over the rebellion forces. Heavily armored, Luke and company found the only way to...

Five years ago, LucasFilms opened an animation studio in Singapore that has been instrumental in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars animation tasks, including animation, visual effects, and video game production. But the production facility has always been housed in various places, rather than in a central location. LucasFilms is planning on rectifying that by building a whole new studio that will be able to accommodate all of the divisions of the production house, making room for 1000 or more employees. But this would not really be big news if it weren’t for the design. Buildings are built every day, but not like this. If you remember back to Star Wars Episode I: A New Hope with the scene with the Jawas, they travelled in a rather...

For those of you who had never been to Disneyland’s Star Wars events, they have this thing for the kids called the Jedi Academy. The idea is for the little kid go up and pretend they are a Jedi knight that has to fight Darth Vader or Darth Maul to graduate. Usually the guy playing Mace Windu is there to tell the kids to activate their lightsaber and go for a few hits against Vader’s saber. But not this little girl. After Vader says to Windu “If you won’t turn to the Dark Side, perhaps she will.” Mace replies “I don’t think so.” The girl then says that she wants to join the Dark Side and kneels before Vader in the same way Darth knelt before the Emperor, much to the surprise of both of them and the crowd. The guy playing Windu...

In an announcement that I’m sure will make many lonely players happy, having suffered on a particular server away from their friends who are on the new server, their prayers and letters have been answered. Starting April 26th after 4am PDT (7am EDT), they will be able to transfer their characters to the server of their choice for free, the only limitation being that the Starsider characters can be transferred out, but not into the Starsider server. Once you have completed the transfer for free, you must leave that character on that server for at least 90 days before trying another one. And there are some simple limitations, but we doubt that these will affect very many who currently play. For one, the account has to be in good...

We reported on a man in Oklahoma who is on a mission to give America a common goal, which is to create a full size fully function Imperial Walker (AT-AT) from Empire Strikes Back. Mike Koehler is a father of three who after hearing about the Robocop statue in Detroit, decided to start a similar grassroots effort to create the massive vehicle. And he started raising money for it through a website called Kickstarter that exists to help inventors and ideas people get the funding they need to create a project. He has already raised over $400 from people who would like to see this work, even though he admits he has no idea how much such a beast would cost. And that is where LucasFilms has a problem. They contacted Mike after the news of...

LucasArts will go into a long term contract with Epic Games, who makes the Unreal Engine 3.0, which is a high tech gaming developer’s platform that will allow their games to be created for the mobile, PC and the consoles. The gaming engine, named after Epic’s wildly popular game Unreal, is licensed to various companies for their developers to write games without having to worry about the nuts and bolts of interfacing with the various components, but rather focusing on the game itself. There is no word on what LucasArts will develop with the award winning foundation software, but we are sure it will be pretty cool. The Unreal Engine is one of the best out there. First it was Han Solo in carbonite from Empire Strikes Back, then it was...

Yesterday, in our news from the galaxy, we talked about a new iPhone cover that would certainly be of interest to Apple and Star Wars fans. Instead of George Lucas or Harrison Ford preserved in Carbonite, it was Steve Jobs. The very realistic looking piece was very cool and it went for around $35. Society6, who sells lots of different covers from Star Wars to Sesame Street to other fun and unique designs was selling the item on their website, but it was pulled and speculation began that there was some one out there that objected. Since they are still carrying the items from George Lucas, it seems to be that it was Apple or perhaps Steve Jobs himself that complained, once the news went viral. We’d mentioned about getting it fast...