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The Star Wars prequels: The Force is Stronger than Popular Belief Suggests

Back in the spring of 1999, which by now feels like a ‘Long time ago,…’, Star Wars fans the world over could not contain their excitement regarding the soon to be released Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. They demonstrated greater energy in their anticipation than a Sith can demonstrate power through anger. Nothing in the …

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‘American Graffiti’contains the blueprint for the themes and characters that would pervade Star Wars

George Lucas is a master at building worlds. The one that comes to mind is far, far away but four years before Tatooine, Lucas built a planet of a different sort. It was full of deadly moving vehicles, sweeping music, and young men struggling to find their way. If that sounds like Star Wars, that’s …

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Remembering a Boy Named Anakin in Darth Vader #7

For any Star Wars fan, it’s a familiar sight: a boy named Skywalker staring off into the distance under Tatooine’s twin suns. His past is a series of choices that were out of his hands to make and his future is as yet unwritten. He’s a kid from a backwater planet who will one day hold the destiny of a galaxy in his hands. You probably know the picture or recognize the description but in Darth Vader #7, Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca turn the image upside down. Instead of an idealistic and young Luke Skywalker looking towards the future, Gillen and Larroca show us Vader in that very similar pose on the Lars desert homestead, where Tatooine is a past that he cannot escape.

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THX 1138 – Asian Dub Foundation Soundtrack 2015 UK Tour

Asian Dub Foundation: THX 1138 Nationwide tour to 10 UK cities Musical innovators Asian Dub Foundation will perform their latest live soundtrack to George Lucas’ 1971 visionary cult sci-fi classic THX 1138 at ten venues nationwide in October 2015, following its UK premiere at the Barbican on 19th June. Retaining much of Lalo Schiffrin’s distinctive score …

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Indiegogo looks to fund fantasy feature from 1980s with ‘LOTR’ star attached

Another Star Wars spin-off? Not so fast. While Disney plans to push the sci-fi franchise down our throats for the rest of our lives, it seems like an Indiegogo campaign will bring back a short that was attached to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in the 1980s. Titled Black Angel, the project is looking to get funded …

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‘The Phantom Menace’ and the goodness of Star Wars nostalgia

A long time ago…in 1999, the pop culture zeitgeist was caught in a Star Wars maelstrom. Writer-director George Lucas and his crack creative team had gone back to the well that made space opera cinema what it is known and appreciated as today by producing the first Star Wars movie in 16 years. Yes, it was difficult to fathom, but the legion of Star Wars fans the world over had waited over a decade for a new film.

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The Definitive Best Picture Losers

#10. Chinatown (1974) Lost to: The Godfather Part II Well, no one will argue that it should have won, but still. Roman Polanski’s film made a true leading man out of Jack Nicholson. It grabbed eleven nominations, only taking home one. That being said, that one was for Original Screenplay, written by Robert Towne, which may …

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George Lucas returns to features with ‘Strange Magic’

While he is done with with Star Wars, that doesn’t mean we won’t be getting some work done by George Lucas in 2015. Disney and LucasFilms released the first trailer for the animated feature, Strange Magic, which was written by Lucas. The film is inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Tale and features the …

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A “New” New Hope: Film Preservation and the Problem with ‘Star Wars’

In an episode of The Big Bang Theory (a sitcom lampooning modern “geek” culture with varying degrees of success), physicist Dr. Sheldon Cooper refuses to watch the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series before the Clone Wars movie. He explains, “I prefer to let George Lucas disappoint me in the order he intended.” Though likely …

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Chicago wins bid for new George Lucas Museum

George Lucas has been shopping for a home for the Lucas Cultural Arts Museum, and after beating out both Los Angeles and San Francisco, Lucas’ museum will drop roots in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. The museum will feature Star Wars and Lucasfilm memorabilia, paintings from the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries, including a …

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How to fix Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

There is a sense in watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull play out that Spielberg’s lack of enthusiasm carried on into pre-production and then filming itself. One final, brutal visit to the editing suite before the film’s release would have fixed much of the damage and created a final product that, while hardly a classic, would not have infuriated to such a degree.

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“The Lost Missions” of Star Wars: The Clone Wars Begin

When Disney purchased Lucasfilm and announced a new future for the Star Wars franchise, part of that future included shifting the animation wing of the company to the Disney XD channel. That meant, rather than moving the popular Clone Wars series from The Cartoon Network to XD, Disney would create a new series, Rebels, which is …

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Great Premise Wasted; 5 Great Stories That Deserved Better Movies

Such is the current culture in the filmmaking world that the very notion of suggesting ‘remake’ is considered sacrilege, but the problem isn’t in the concept, it’s in the choices. The worst thing you can do in the writing room, and on the set, is mishandle a great story. It is these motion pictures, not the Verhoven classics or yesteryear horror flicks, that require a second attempt.

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The Micronauts by Mantlo and Golden: It Was Never As Good As Those First 12 Issues

As Akira Kurosawa is to Star Wars, George Lucas is to The Micronauts: Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden’s 1979 comic series that was based on a toy line. The story goes that Mantlo saw the toys in a store and somehow convinced Marvel’s Jim Shooter to pursue the license for them. The toys, whose gimmick was …

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Videogames: A Matter of Life and Death

Last week I read an article where George Lucas and Steven Spielberg gave their predictions of where videogames will be within the next five years, give or take. Spielberg believes videogames will not be completely immersive until they are a three-dimensional experience. Microsoft is allegedly working on that. Lucas thinks videogames will soon be revolutionised …

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Forecasting the Force Part One: The New ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy

A not so long ways away in a galaxy, well, in our own galaxy actually, a corporation adorned with mouse ears and a big blue castle are about to release the first of a barrage of new Star Wars films. This story begins in 2015, summer most likely, possibly late December, and starts with the …

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Extended Thoughts on ‘Return to Oz’

Return to Oz Directed by Walter Murch Written by Walter Murch and Gil Dennis Starring Fairuza Balk, Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie The concept of a “Disney movie” will always be accompanied by a unique set of preconceived notions, and yet we can’t ever totally agree on what it means for a film to …

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