There has actually been a bit of Star Wars news this week. Lego is releasing a new set, Rick McCallum talks about live action TV show and the future of the 3D conversions, among other fun stuff. Let’s get to it.
Lego has recreated many of the Star Wars ships in various sets. There is the Millenium Falcon, the Death Star, The Imperial Shuttle and Palpatine’s personal shuttle, among others. But if you wanted a Super Star Destroyer, you had to try to build your own out of previously created parts or hope that they would come out with a set. And now the wait for a Lego set is over. They are bringing Darth Vader’s Executor ship to life with 3100 bricks, including specialty pieces. The model will be 50 inches long and will be a fairly accurate recreation of the memorable vessel. It will even has a removable area where you can place various Lego characters in like the Dark Lord himself and perhaps a Storm Trooper or two. You can buy the model starting in September for $400, which is quite a bit actually, but the Death Star is $300, so…
3D movies are getting to be more of a phase than a point to base a future on and a lot of films are losing ground in the 3D arena, partly because of audiences are growing weary of them and because of the price tag involved over seeing the movie in 2D isn’t worth it, especially in this economy. And thus, this recent failing has given Star Wars producer Rick McCallum reason to doubt that all six films will be converted to 3D as Lucas had originally said. The deciding point will be how well Phantom Menace does in the theaters when it’s rereleased in 3D next year. If it does well, they will continue to the next one, producing one a year, but if not, then they may scrap the project. Our thought is that perhaps Phantom Menace, a movie that was already not on Star Wars fan’s hot list, isn’t a real good indicator. Do we really want to see Jar Jar Binks swipe the fruit with his tongue in 3D? I didn’t think so. Still I do think the curiosity factor though will drive a lot of people to see it, and may give a false promise to the team that it was a success. Whether they continue to be a success after that is the real test.
Rick McCallum also talked about the live action TV series that George Lucas had mentioned, where Lucas said he had 50 hours done. People misunderstood that to mean that he’d shot what would amount to two seasons, but hadn’t. McCallum believes that it will take 3-4 years for the technology to be available to shoot the show on a budget that TV stations can afford, something that they think is possible. Not only would it revolutionize the cost versus quality of the TV industry, but would help movie companies also cut their expenses for high end digital effects as well. We are just glad that they aren’t scrapping the show altogether.
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And finally, you’ve probably seen Jib Jab’s videos that mock the political process, but they also have movies where you can put yourself into the action. You upload the picture and arrange it on the screen and the movie maker includes your face into the film. The Star Wars one has a lot of different characters so you can use you and your friends in the show. Above is an example that they had on YouTube where they got a family to include themselves into all three of the movies. And if you want to do it yourself, click here to go to Jib Jab’s Star Wars Sendable site.
And that’s all the news from the galaxy this week…
