Sci-Fi Storm

Some Bothan spies attending Celebration V down in Orlando (along with the “Last Tour To Endor” event at Disney’s Hollywood Studios to celebrate the upcoming Star Tours refurbishment) have transmitted a tidbit – that a Blu-ray release of all 6 movies will hit the streets sometime in the Fall of 2011. Here’s the kicker – at least for the foreseeable future, it will only be a single box set of all 6 movies, and it will be only the remastered version. But there will be new goodies – including some deleted scenes that haven’t been released before. They previewed one scene, from the beginning of Return of the Jedi, where Luke is seen completing his new lightsaber (and someone captured it and put it on YouTube, below). I wonder if it will include the infamous scenes where Luke meets with his friends on Tatooine…

(Video redacted due to copyright claim)

Update 8/16: Interesting…word is also getting out that at Comic-Con in 2009 Mark Hamill was asked about the rumored missing scene, and said he never filmed such a seen – although he did point out that there were some scenes done post-production without him actually being their, like the reconstructed hand closeup. But this begs the question – was this actually filmed, or is this another “update” that didn’t make the actual update?

Update 8/22: Or did he? Someone who was in attendance at the convention commented on Blastr that Mark Hamill was asked about the scene again, and he said he had recently seen it and now remembers it being shot.

Well, it sounded like things were going well last year when casting supposedly had begun, but apparently it didn’t go very far. George Lucas told attendees at a special reception back in May that the show is on hold – they have the scripts, but they “don’t know how to do ’em.” According to Lucas, Star Wars series HAS to be expensive because of what it is, but a series needs to be done at “a tenth [of] the cost.” Apparently even today’s environment of virtual actors and green screen sets isn’t cheap enough…yet.

The following guest article was sent in by Mark Edlitz, director/producer of [asin=B003NVN0UK]Jedi Junkies[/asin]:

My friends and I made a movie about extreme Star Wars fans called JEDI JUNKIES. The film is 75 minutes long and took 4 years to make. Doing a little simple math (and using an online calculator) that means that it took an average of 19.4 days for each minute of screen time. Given that glacially slow work pace people ask me, “Why did you make JEDI JUNKIES?” That’s an easy answer: It was a labor of love.
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For what is apparently the last Star Wars spoof that Family Guy will apparently tackle, the Return Of The Jedi spoof Family Guy: It’s A Trap! will be available on [asin=B003X4KHQM]Blu-ray[/asin] and [asin=B003X4KHRG]DVD[/asin] on December 21st, just in time for some last minute shopping – although I hope you’ll order now through those links! Fans at Comic-Con got a short preview of it, but we can expect Carrie Fisher (or at least her voice) to make a cameo, along with Michael Dorn and Patrick Stewart in their Star Trek personae, and even Rush Limbaugh as the Rancor!

Some more tidbits: Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane said that they will not do another Star Wars spoof after the upcoming Return Of The Jedi spoof (of which a preview was shown). “This last one almost killed us,”, MacFarlane said, saying that doing them was “too expensive”. However, Indy might get the treatment in the future…

This is neat – Improv Everywhere is a NYC performance arts group that does improv around NYC, often filming it. Sometimes they recreate film scenes, and this time it’s the scene between Leia and Vader from Star Wars – on the NYC subway. Love the book, too…could use one of those.

It seems that David Prowse may have stepped on George Lucas’ toes, and Lucas ain’t happy. It isn’t clear exactly what precipitated this, but the British actor who portrayed the figure of Darth Vader in the original films says on his official web site that he is not only not invited to appear at Celebration V in Orlando, but also isn’t welcome at future Lucasfilm-involved functions. Prowse has been known to have disputes with Lucas in the past, often stating that he assumed he would be providing the voice of Vader in addition to the form, and also about a leak regarding the character’s death and thus did not appear as Anakin in Return Of The Jedi, but there has been no official reason given other than Prowse having “‘burnt too many bridges.” I saw him last year, and he seemed reasonable personable, although I know others have different opinions.

From the prequels to the sequels, the Star Wars films have revealed to their audience the history and creation of Darth Vader. But what they were too ashamed to tell you is that Darth Vader does, indeed, have a brother. Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager follows the everyday struggles of Darth Vader’s less talented younger brother, Chad, as he rules the Empire…market. This hit comedy web series, by producers and directors Aaron Yonda and Matt Sloan, has received over eighty million views and is now releasing exclusive content on Babelgum Comedy starting June 24 at www.babelgum.com/chadvader. Read more for the full press release. TheThunderChild sent this in as well…
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In honor of today apparently being “Star Wars Day” (May The 4th Be With You) and this year being the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, you can now star in your own personal version of the movie, thanks to JibJab.

Just a humorous look at what it might be like if the characters from Star Wars conversed with each other on Facebook…