Sci-Fi Storm

Disney just announced plans to construct a new land as part of it’s existing Animal Kingdom theme park at Walt Disney World themed to James Cameron’s Avatar franchise. Cameron, producing partner Jon Landau and Lightstorm Entertainment will work closely with Walt Disney Imagineering to develop the plans, and expect construction to start in 2013.

Disneyphiles familiar with the creation of Animal Kingdom park are aware that when it was built, a planned section of the park was never built due to budget cuts, called “Beastly Kingdomme”, an area to be filled with creatures both magical and mystical. In fact, the Dueling Dragons rollercoaster at Universal’s Islands of Adventure park (now called Dragon Challenge as part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter) was originally designed for Beastly Kingdomme but scrapped with the area. By the sounds of it, this new Avatar land would likely take the still-undeveloped location, and perhaps even incorporate some of the area’s original designs, with new theming.

I’ll definitely provide updates as they come in over the next couple years.

The first sequel to Avatar is scheduled to hit screens on Christmas 2014.

With the [sfs=1098]Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray[/sfs] out on Friday, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 4 beginning on the same day, how about some Star Wars awesomeness? Check out this LEGO monstrosity, weighing in at 180 pounds, 43,000 pieces, and 8 feet long – it’s the Venator-class Star Destroyer.

In honor of the 45th anniversary of Star Trek (it was yesterday, but I was pretty busy), here is a neat infographic that puts the franchise into a timeline with a few other events…
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This past weekend was not only the opening of Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, but also the grand re-opening of the Star Tours attraction, which now takes guests to 6 different planets and offers 54 variations of the ride. So there were all sort of extra things going on, including a dedication ceremony featuring the Master Jedi himself, George Lucas along with Anthony Daniels.

If you want to check out photos, videos, etc. of the event, I recommend heading over to Inside the Magic’s Star Tours coverage page, which has excellent videos and even an exclusive interview with Anthony Daniels, and then check out the video of this year’s Hyperspace Hoopla (unless you are going to an upcoming weekend, which in that case I don’t want to spoil the surprises…)

Ashley Eckstein (the voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars) is at Disney’s Hollywood Studios gearing up for Star Wars Weekends starting tomorrow, and has made a couple of videos previewing the brand-new version of the Star Tours attraction. You can view one video below, and then an exclusive tour of the new attraction queue is available over at Entertainment Weekly…the new attraction boasts incredible 3D projection, a new variable experience (54 possible variations) and all sorts of new details.

In the meantime, Eckstein’s company, Her Universe, which makes science fiction merchandise targeted at women, in partnership with Syfy (a partnership we reported on in October), will finally unveil a Syfy Gear merchandise line for women at San Diego Comic-Con, which runs July 20th-24th as well as available via Syfy.com and heruniverseshop.com (except for a Comic-Con “exclusive”). Both sides are still tight-lipped about what the merchandise might be…
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Someone just told me about this – remember that awesome Volkswagen advertisement during the Super Bowl called “The Force”? It has been spoofed before…but this one is an actual advertisement for the upcoming Thor movie…

If you’ve been to Disneyland or Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in the past few years, you may have seen the Jedi Training Academy – your younglings may have even taken part in it (both of mine have – alas, no adults are allowed), where they get to dress up and be trained by a Jedi Master, and ultimately have a quick fight with Darth Vader while a couple of Stormtroopers look on. It’s a lot of fun for the kids, especially if the love Star Wars, and it can be fun to watch too.

Well, in Disneyland a youngling by the name of Sariah Gallego managed to surprise the Jedi Master, Darth Vader, and the Stormtroopers, as she pledged allegiance to Vader and joined the Sith…

I’m sure her parents had something to do with it…the Jedi Master did recover pretty quickly though…

OK, so this was a joke…but please Sir Richard, can we make this happen? Can I stop explaining to my kids how “When I was a kid there were NINE planets…”

What would you do with a girlfriend who played video games, role playing, etc. but didn’t like Firefly? It might be like this video:

Did you like that Super Bowl ad from Volkswagen, featuring the luckless young Darth Vader attempting to use his force powers around the house? Then you might like this spoof of that ad, featuring a more successful Vader – and his rebellious parents…