Sci-Fi Storm

The Cartoon Network may not have any Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes to air any more, but that doesn’t mean there is no Star Wars – the network will air episodes of the web series LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles starting next Wednesday, May 29th at 8/7c with a 30 minute premiere, “The Phantom Clone”. Two more episodes will air later this year.

To celebrate, LEGO took over Times Square and unveiled a life-sized X-Wing constructed from LEGO bricks – over 5 million of them. It took 32 master builders 17,000 hours to construct it, and they used the actual X-Wing kit blueprint to do it! The X-Wing will spend a couple days in Times Square, and then it will be relocated to LEGOLAND in California.

Star Wars Weekends have started at Disney’s Hollywood Studios – and this year, not only is the “Carbon-Freeze Me” back, but they’ve added a new one, and this one looks even better – you can have your head scanned and be made into a Stormtrooper figurine!

Inside The Magic’s Ricky Brigante is planning on doing it again this year…can’t wait to see the results! And follow us on Twitter as we’ll be there in a few weeks, and we’ll be taking lots of pictures, and perhaps see a few friends as well!

Update: Watch as Ricky gets his face scanned! Alas, production and delivery will take until July, so we’ll follow up with the results – but they look quite detailed.
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[Borrowed from WDW Untangled, our sister site]

It’s been known to be coming, but it was never official, until today: Universal Studios Orlando have finally announced the expansion of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, to be built over at the Universal Studios Florida park, with a connection to the existing section via the Hogwarts Express!

Being dubbed “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley” (with the existing section being redubbed “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade”, the new section will recreate the Diagon Alley and from the movies, as well as part of London, which would likely serve as the gateway. The big attraction will be a ride based on Gringott’s Bank, likely some form of coaster reminiscent of the travel system to the vaults as seen in the final movie.

How they’ll resolve that some elements of Diagon Alley – notably Ollivander’s Wand Shop, were transposed to Hogsmeade for the park, remains to be seen – but they could easily do with expanding it, and perhaps put in something else in the original location. No details on how the Hogwarts Express will handle the transportation backstage between the parks, although some sort of virtual component is expected. Also remaining to be seen is how they handle park tickets, since visiting both parks in one day requires their equivalent of a Park Hopper ticket.

Here is the full release:
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This commercial for the 2013 Audi S7 is “fascinating”, and could have been the king of the Super Bowl ads – if it played during the Super Bowl…

Here we get the “old” Spock in Leonard Nimoy, competing against “new” Spock Zachary Quinto, with the younger trying to beat the older at something. So he challenges Nimoy – last person to the country club buys lunch.

Plenty of chuckles along the way…but listen for the infamous little ditty that Nimoy sings as he drives…

[Video was removed by source]

Do you need a little extra help on your path as a Jedi – at least in how to handle a lightsaber? We’ll, you can just take a class.

In San Francisco some Star Wars fans got together and started offering a course in fighting with a lightsaber as the Golden Knights, led by Alain Bloch as the “Jedi Master”, who is actually has a background in martial arts and stage combat (and looks a bit like later-prequel Obi-Wan Kenobi…)

Although it sounds a bit silly, and some treat it as such at the start, many in the class come over to the Light Side. “At first they giggle because they think it’s a little silly. Then they’re like, actually that’s kind of cool,” said Julio Reyes, a student. “Then they start asking more questions.”

Although apparently there are a few Sith out there as well.

This isn’t the first class offered in fighting with a lightsaber – young Padawans have been taught the ways of the elegant weapon and fend of Darth Vader daily at Walt Disney World since 2007.

It seems the Internet has made it so easy to start a petition that the White House must respond to…regardless of the insanity of the petition itself, it seems you can find enough crazy people on the Internet to elicit an official response now.

Recently, one of the more interesting petitions received the necessary 35,000 signatures to require a response – “Secure resources and funding, and begin construction of a Death Star by 2016.” And let’s just say, the official response was perfect.

I like it when otherwise serious folk are allowed to show off some humor on such things.

I’m just wondering…a Death Star would only cost $850 quadrillion? Can we mint enough Platinum Coins for that?

Here are some of the big and our favorite stories we covered in 2012…

In January, rapidly rising British actor Benedict Cumberbatch joined Star Trek: Into Darkness, while CW’s Arrow dropped “Green” from the name and named Stephen Amell the lead actor.

We lost actor Ian Abercrombie and the voice of the Robot from Lost In Space Dick Tufeld.
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Disney’s Bob Iger confirmed during a conference call that Disney, with it’s acquisition of Lucasfilm today, have already for treatments for three new Star Wars films, with the first planned for a 2015 release (a little aggressive I think) and the next two at two- to three-year intervals – and possibly more beyond that. But Iger also says they plan to make use of the franchise in other areas, including their theme parks (Disney/SW fans have been wanting a Star Wars “land” expansion for years), games, and other initiatives. Speculation is that some television will be involved as well, although it still seems unlikely that that live action series that everyone was all a-Twitter about thinking they had already filmed it will be made, unless Disney has figured out something…

He didn’t elaborate on the treatments for the movies, but everyone seems to think this is the fabled “sequel trilogy”. A bit of history – back after the original Star Wars became a blockbuster hit, and the second run was modified to include “Episode IV” in the opening crawl, Lucas explained that he had plans for nine (to as many as twelve!) stories, and since the original was actually the fourth story he titled it as such. He then said that after making episodes V and VI, then visit the first three, and after that he would see.

Over time, however, Lucas began to disavow that he ever had plans beyond Episode VI, and that anything after that would be “made up”. However, his desire to not revisit the idea seemed like him being tired of the process of planning and filming a whole trilogy, which he said takes about 9 years of his life, as well as the poor feedback he got from doing the prequels. And he insisted no one else would make them either. It could be that since he won’t be directly involved now (he’d be credited at least as a “creative consultant”, but that could be an honorary credit) he handed over his treatments for them to develop more.

Now the BIG question – who will take the reins? The first word that came to my mind? Whedon. Joss is already at Disney playing in the Marvel universe…

Following yesterday’s announcement that the Silent Hill franchise would feature at Universal Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights in both Hollywood and Florida, an even bigger announcement – the hugely successful The Walking Dead franchise will also be part of HHN this year!

From the press release:

AMC’S “THE WALKING DEAD” BECOMES FIRST TELEVISION SERIES FEATURED AT
BOTH UNIVERSAL ORLANDO RESORT AND UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD’S
HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS EXPERIENCES

Guests Experience The Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Horror
of AMC’s “The Walking Dead” At Nation’s Best Halloween Events

ORLANDO, Fla., UNIVERSAL CITY, Ca. (July 18, 2012) — Caught in the middle of a high-intensity struggle for survival, you fight off hordes of flesh-hungry, growling “walkers,” or zombies. No place is safe as you make your way through a post-apocalyptic wasteland with horror at every turn. Will you survive?

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Popular horror game and movie series Silent Hill will get a little more real this fall, when both Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal Studios Florida adds a maze themed on the property to their Halloween Horror Nights events for 2012 – just before the latest movie installment, Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, is released nationwide on October 26th.

From the press release:
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