Giant Freakin Robot

Ever since Disney acquired Lucasfilm back in October 2012, a number of Star Wars projects including Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Detours, and the 3D up-conversion and re-releases of the Star Wars Saga have all been canceled or postponed. But it seems like the people behind Star Wars: The Clone Wars are already looking at starting a new animated project for Disney and Lucasfilm.

In an interview with IGN.com, Star Wars: The Clone Wars supervising director Dave Filoni says that his team has some new and exciting stories in development for a new animated series. Filoni didn’t say whether or not the new animated series would follow the narrative and characters established in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, but it sounds interesting nevertheless. Filoni revealed:

At this point, I am involved in some early production discussions and exploration of what we’ll be doing with Star Wars animation in the future, which is really exciting for me and I have some friendly faces around me, of course, that are helping me on the project. So it’s a transition time, as I’ve said before, and I think it will lead to an exciting time and hopefully I’ll see things grow again.

We’re only one month away from the release of Star Trek Into Darkness. The sequel to J.J. Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot film is one of the most anticipated of the year. Whether you’re a fan of Star Trek or not, Star Trek Into Darkness will be a must see movie for the summer movie going season.

In an interview with SFX, J.J. Abrams talked briefly about how Star Trek Into Darkness is different from every other Star Trek film. Much like the first film, you don’t have to be a fan of Star Trek to fully enjoy the new movie. It seems like J.J. Abrams and his team constructed the movie to be just as thrilling for the non-initiated as it is for longtime fans. Abrams explained:

But I think that the important thing is this movie, at least the ambition behind it, is… if you’re a Star Trek fan, you’re going to be very happy. Because the movie acknowledges, in a big way, what has come before. If you’re not a lifelong Star Trek fan, like myself, what I think and hope is that you’ll have a great time and you’ll be gasping and shrieking and laughing and crying and all that stuff in a way you would not expect to in a Star Trek movie.

Once again, we’re back with another batch of the marvelous Star Trek: The Original Series retro prints created by the talented Juan Ortiz. If you’ve missed us raving about them for, oh, the past eight months or so, Ortiz has taken on the daunting project of creating new retro-style poster designs for every single episode of the original Star Trek series, which ran from 1966 – 1969. They are uniformly gorgeous, and I’m seriously considering wallpapering my entire house with them, just as soon as I can convince my wife or at least get her out of the house for a few days.

As in SOP for these, the new batch of prints premiered at StarTrek.com, along with a short Q&A with Ortiz explaining his thought process and approach to each design. If you’ve missed the earlier installments, you can play catch-up with our earlier stories right here. First up, here’s Ortiz discussing his design for “The Doomsday Machine,” which you can see up above.

“All right, lightsaber trumps broom handle in this situation. And every situation.”

If you’re a frequent reader of this website, then your life was probably affected by Star Wars at one point or another. And I think everyone out there will share my gratitude that the film hasn’t affected our lives to the point where lightsabers exist and are able to be wielded by children. That’s what guns are for, apparently.

The above video, titled “Darth Baby’s Lightsaber,” was created by the Gnarly Tooth media group, specifically Joel Erickson, a sound assistant on many Hollywood films, and his similarly sound-minded brother, Jared. It was filmed using iPhones and Android phones, with Adobe After Effects for all the post-production stuff. It’s strange how even in this three-minute clip, the aggravating “Why are they still holding the camera?” aspects of found-footage movies are present and hard to ignore. But I guess if I’m one of the people involved in this situation, I’d rather be someone holding a camera than the one actively trying to retrieve a lightsaber. [I'd like to point out that they're 1/3 of the way to a game of "Hoverboard Lightsaber Portal Gun Fight. - Ed.]