Giant Freakin Robot

Star Wars Rebels debuts on Disney Channel this weekend, or possibly you’ve already seen it via other avenues (we saw it and it is totally fun and feels very much like actual Star Wars), and as such, that’s where the bulk of the Star Wars news has been coming lately. But don’t, for one second, think that we’ve forgotten about Star Wars: Episode VII, because we know that you haven’t. And to be honest, as much as we enjoyed Rebels, it’s the movies that we’re really excited for, and there are some interesting tidbits floating around on that front.

As usual, the SPOILER rule is in effect. What waits beyond this point could ruin certain things from the film, or they could turn out to be complete and utter bullshit. So read on at your own risk, and take these reports with a grain of salt.

It’s that time. We finally have our first addition to the Star Wars canon in the Disney-owned Lucasfilm era, with the animated series Star Wars Rebels. The premiere episode, “Spark of Rebellion,” recently debuted, and it’s a damn good time, setting the stage for a series that looks to be a ton of fun. Definitely aimed at kids, but never in the cheap, cloying way that George Lucas’ prequels were, kids are absolutely going to flip their wigs over this, but at the same time there’s more than enough here to keep you interested and watching right along with them. It isn’t the movies we’ve been waiting for, but it just might tide you over until Episode VII drops next December.

Rebels is far more in line with the original trilogy than the much maligned Episodes I, II, and III, thankfully. More than anything else, this has the look and feel that you love so much about Star Wars in the first place. There’s that sense of the swashbuckling action that Lucas originally lifted from the movie serials of his youth, and high adventure is definitely the order of the day. It’s hard not to grin like an idiot as the characters battle with dimwitted stormtroopers and dodge Imperial forces. There are TIE Fighters, Star Destroyers, lightsabers, and the fact that they use John Williams’ trademark score only drives home the fact that you’re watching NEW FREAKIN’ STAR WARS.

Producer Gary Kurtz was there for the earliest foundations of Star Wars, so it stands to reason he’s got some insights on the whats and the wherefores and the how-comes. With Star Wars undergoing a new beginning of sorts in the wake of the Disney buyout, it’s the perfect time to look back at how George Lucas‘ epic franchise first came together, and new interview with Kurtz reveals several fascinating tidbits about the earliest origins of Star Wars, and just how much influence that other iconic space series had on Lucas’ creation.

Writer Chris Taylor interviewed Kurtz for his new book How Star Wars Conquered the Universe, but he also shared some very intriguing insights via Mashable. It’s more or less common knowledge that Star Wars owes much of its existence to the classic sci-fi serials that Lucas grew up loving. In fact, the original plan for what became Star Wars was to make an actual new Flash Gordon movie. But Flash rights owners King Features insisted on “draconian” restrictions, and so Lucas and Kurtz instead began discussing making an original space opera movie in the same vein as those staples of Golden Age sci-fi. Kurtz said:

One of our favorite things we’ve shared with you guys in recent weeks was these rather amazing designs for “Three Flavours Cornetto” action figures. The twisted minds over at Evil Corp put on their thinking caps to imagine what toys for Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and The World’s End might look like, all filtered through Evil Corp’s delightfully cartoonish filter. Well, they didn’t stop when they ran out of Cornetto, people! They’ve turned their attentions to a certain galaxy far, far away, and the result are, I’m just going to say it, fantabulous.

One of the many consequences of Disney’s purchase of Lucasfilm was an across-the-board consolidation of the various multimedia elements of the Star Wars franchise. LucasArts got shut down. The Clone Wars was canceled to make way for Rebels. And the Disney-owned Marvel snatched the Star Wars comics license away from Dark Horse, who had been publishing Star Wars comics for over two decades at that point. Marvel announced details about the first three new Star Wars comics this past July: a core series called simply Star Wars, another ongoing focused on Darth Vader, and a five-issue Princess Leia mini-series. All three of those are set during the events of the original trilogy, leaving many fans wondering how long it would be before the relaunched Star Wars comics universe ventured beyond the days of Luke, Leia, and Han. Well, Marvel will definitely be telling stories of other eras in the Star Wars timeline…just not yet.

If you were in San Francisco last week and sensed a great disturbance in the Force, don’t worry — it was probably just the Lucasfilm Sidewalk Art Festival. The event is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: an excuse for employees of Lucasfilm and ILM to deface the walkways of San Francisco’s Letterman Digital Arts Center, but in an awesome way. After all, how could you not love a competition that results in the above piece, ““Calvin and Hoth,” by the “Let’s Chalk About It” team? Apparently we aren’t the only ones who love it, as “Calvin and Hoth” won first prize in the competition.