Sci-Fi Storm

If you remember last year’s Super Bowl ads, it featured this one from Volkswagen, called “The Force”. Well, Volkswagen will return this year with another Star Wars-themed commercial – but first, they are sending out a teaser for the commercial! This isn’t part of the commercial itself, but may be setting us up for it…

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Not a lot of this is new compared to last June, but Rick McCallum, promoting the upcoming Red Tails movie, spoke with Scott Callura about the (legendary?) live-action Star Wars series that might be the most advanced pre-production ever for an unsold series. Some new things are the working title – Star Wars: Underworld, and the theme. Set between Episodes 3 and 4, while the Empire is taking over the Republic, rather than focus on the big picture it will be focusing on what is happening underneath – the world of criminals and gangs, “that are running…Wall Street…basically running the Unites States,” he joked. We think. Anyways, it has a more adult theme, which could put it in an interesting position where the franchise is currently popular among a younger set thanks to Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

They have 50 “unbelievable” scripts (apparently no additional scripts have been written), with each one-hour script being ‘bigger than any of the prequels were”. I dunno Rick, I’m not sure if that is setting us up for disappointment – or is more telling about the quality of the prequels…

Things are still on hold over the costs of each episode to produce. They are aiming for a $5 million/episode mark as the maximum, but they can’t do it for that now.
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When Lucasfilm obtained the domain name “StarWarsIdentities.com” (along with preemptively grabbing the typo’d StarWarsIdentites.com and sw-id.com), speculation ran rampant about the new mystery project, ranging from a new game or expansion to Star Wars: Galaxies, a new series of movies or a TV show, etc. My own thoughts would have been something less grand but marketable – actual ID cards to show your citizenship in the Republic (or Empire, or Rebel membership…). But it seems we were all wrong.

It is a museum exhibit.

This one is a bit different though. Instead of being just a traveling exhibit of props, etc. like has been done in the past, this is more about the characters, and what what defines them. It explores three aspects of an identity: “the origins of the characters, the influences that shape them, and the choices they make during their life.” It also includes an “interactive quest”, allowing a guest to create their own Star Wars identity incorporating fictional elements with their own, creating their own unique character (so wait, I wasn’t entirely wrong… 🙂 )

The exhibit will be at the Montreal Science Centre from April 19 through September 16, 2012, with tickets already on sale via StarWarsIdentities.com.

Although hardcore fans called for a boycott of the release, it seems that it didn’t stem the tide of fans purchasing [sfs=1098]Star Wars: The Complete Saga[/sfs] on Blu-ray. In the first week, 1 million copies were sold worldwide, setting a new record for a Blu-ray release. And that doesn’t include the individual trilogy releases (which didn’t include the extras).

Not bad for a nearly 35 year old franchise, but when you start marketing 13 months ahead of time, you get results.

It isn’t just humans waiting for the Blu-ray release of [sfs=1098]Star Wars: The Complete Saga[/sfs] – it seems some rather lost Jawas and a Stormtrooper found themselves in New York City, and did a little exploring…

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.

Some belated Sci-Fi TV Store updates:

• Fringe: The Complete Third Season was released on [sfs=1154]Blu-Ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1153]DVD[/sfs] last week
• Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season is out today on [sfs=1151]Blu-Ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1152]DVD[/sfs], and also gets its own section
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars also gets its own section, with The Complete Season Three out on [sfs=1159]Blu-Ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1160]DVD[/sfs] on October 18th – and Season 4 starts on Cartoon Network Friday!
• The second half of the sixth series of Doctor Who, currently airing, will be released on [sfs=1145]Blu-Ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1146]DVD[/sfs] on November 8th, followed by the complete sixth series on [sfs=1147]Blu-Ray[/sfs] and [sfs=1148]DVD[/sfs] on November 22nd.

And the following classic episodes of Doctor Who are scheduled:

• [sfs=334]The Talons of Weng-Chiang[/sfs] – October 11th
• [sfs=1144]Colony in Space[/sfs] – November 8th
• [sfs=1149]Invasion of the Dinosaurs[/sfs] – January 10th
• [sfs=1150]The Android Invasion[/sfs] – January 10th

Don’t forget – use the links above and anything you purchase from Amazon for a time gets credited to us and helps pay for the server!

Available as a 9 disc set on Blu-ray September 16th
Bring home the adventure and share Star Wars™ with your whole family – when [sfs=1098]STAR WARS: THE COMPLETE SAGA[/sfs] comes to Blu-ray Disc from Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment! To be released beginning on September 12 internationally and on September 16th in North America, the nine-disc collection brings the wonder of the entire Saga direct to your living room, where you can revisit all of your favorite Star Wars moments – in gorgeous high definition and with pristine, 6.1 DTS Surround Sound. Dive deeper into the universe with an unprecedented 40+ hours of special features, highlighted by never-before-seen content sourced from the Lucasfilm archives.

Why Star Wars Stands the Test of Time

It’s been in our lives for nearly 35 years, and yet Star Wars is as great now as it was in 1977, and with the new prequels to boot, still popular with audiences everywhere! This feature looks as why Lucas’ space saga is still on the “most loved” list.

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It may not be surprising that there is some backlash to the changes being made to the upcoming [sfs=1098]upcoming Blu-ray release[/sfs] of the Star Wars saga. But some hardcore fans are calling for a boycott.

As we discussed before, some of the changes seem to be for he better, and we do Lucas has always detested when he had to settle for OK because technology didn’t allow for what he wanted. But are the changes to drive up sales as claimed? I’m not so sure. They don’t seem to be complaining about the inclusion of extras that easily could have been included in past releases – if anything that is going to be the driving factor on getting money from people who have already purchased it before. It is also a technology refresh – Blu-ray is still gaining steam to replace DVD, and with HD televisions also gaining, the higher resolution does make a difference. I really don’t think anyone is going to buy set set just to see an Ewok blink.
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First, there was the Special Editions. Then there were the DVD versions. And now, with the [sfs=1098]upcoming Blu-ray release on September 16th[/sfs], we’ve got another version.

One change we can understand – in The Phantom Menace Yoda was a puppet (much like his previous two appearances), but compared to Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith where he was CGI he just looks wrong. So now he’s been redone as CGI and looks TONS better. Take a look:
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