Star Wars News Thread - Page 7

The sun is shining in Florida and the streets are overrun by stormtroopers, Jedi and the power of the Force -- it can only mean that the annual tradition of Star Wars Weekends has begun! It's your chance to celebrate the entire Star Wars saga through four consecutive weekends at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida.

Starting today and running each weekend through June 11, fans of all ages and Star Wars characters of all varieties will converge to celebrate the heroes, villains, droids and magic of the saga. In addition to costumed characters, fun activities and the Star Tours theme park ride, celebrity guests will be in attendance for meet-and-greet sessions, star conversations, and classic Hollywood-style motorcades. Each Star Wars Weekend features actor and fan-favorite Warwick Davis as your celebrity host.

Click here to enter our 2006 Star Wars Weekend picture viewer to see some of the action. The viewer will be updated each week, so be sure to check back often. All photos are by Mark Ashman, courtesy Disney.

For several years now, fans have known to check out starwars.com for a taste of the Star Wars Weekends excitement, but this year brings something new and special. Disney's David Brady is providing Star Wars listeners with audio interviews with the celebrity guests, so you can hear as well as see what the excitement is all about.

This first weekend brings Star Wars producer Rick McCallum and the man who played Chewbacca, Peter Mayhew, to Disney-MGM Studios. Enjoy hearing their interviews below, along with host Warwick Davis. Also on hand was actor and singer Joey Fatone, who is a die-hard Star Wars fan. Click on the audiofiles below to play and check back soon for downloadable versions you can play on your favorite mp3 player.

... and the thread is brought up to date. I hope you guys see something that interests you. Remember to check the sources... they bring with them tons of pictures that I don't link, and come and comment all you want.

While next-generation gaming has been in full swing since the Xbox 360 dropped last fall, one publisher that has been eerily quiet as of late is LucasArts. They have had plenty to undertake, like moving the entire Lucas empire under one roof, but aside from LEGO Star Wars II the video game division has been dark for some time.

Right before E3 2006, LucasArts announced partnerships with Pixelux Entertainment and Natural Motion to develop and implement new technologies in all their next-generation games. Pixelux's Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) tech, which simulates material reaction to real-world physics, was on display in the Indiana Jones demo, but behind closed doors an even greater representation was shown – thanks to the Star Wars universe.


Recent reports have suggested that LucasArts is currently working on a Darth Vader-related next-generation title. Our closed door session was merely a tech demo showcasing the vision and technology being used for the upcoming video game. Although not yet willing to spill the beans on the specifics on the game, LucasArts reps did hint that the concept art hanging on the walls was a good indicator. One image in particular looked like the final confrontation between Luke and Vader in Return of the Jedi as the Emperor watches on. We'll have to wait and see, but the early indications do seem to confirm that Vader will be part of the game.

One area where LucasArts did draw our attention was their "reinvention" of the Force. In order to take advantage of the next-gen tech and advance the gameplay, their vision is to expand the Force in new ways, new interactions – thus creating an over-the-top feeling of being a superhero in the Star Wars universe.

Before getting a signoff to start work on the game, the LucasArts team had to run it by the big man himself. Creating a Pre-Vis trailer that focused on this concept of "The Force Unleashed", everyone from LucasArts engineers to ILM artists, to George Lucas instantly got excited at the new concept.

This trailer showed various methods where Jedi can use their abilities to thwart foes, like Stormtroopers. Whether it's using a Force Push to throw an enemy across the room, or shocking power of Force Lightning, the demo went well beyond any previous showing of the Force. We particularly enjoyed when a Jedi threw a Stormtrooper and a number of metal scraps at a Tie Fighter, eliminating everything in the process.

After the trailer, the demo moved into what was designated as a Star Wars Natural History Museum. Being only a tech demo, this setting was perfect to exhibit the new technology in an interactive form.

Running on Xbox 360 hardware, the first part of the museum was used to demonstrate Pixelux's DMM technology. DMM is used to simulate the way real world materials and substances behave, based on real world physics. Essentially, wood will break like wood, glass will shatter like glass, etc.

Most games of the current-generation use multiple versions of objects to display damage – one clean version, one cracked version, one broken version, and so on. DMM is a simulated technology, meaning that whatever object it is applied to will react accordingly, in real time, without the need of doing an art swap. By throwing an R2 unit at a sheet of plywood using DMM technology, you could easily see how the object would flex, stress, and eventually break. Even characteristics- like breaking across the wood grain- take place all based on real time data. Each time the result of the break was different, taking into account speed and the angle of the thrown object.

Similarly, a glass pane shattered into individual pieces when hit by the R2 unit. One time, a portion of the pane was left standing for a few seconds before collapsing – again, showing the variety of which objects react based on physics.

A statue consisting of a crystal base and a granite top demonstrated how different compounds react with each other. Throwing an R2 at the granite caused it to chip, but left the base intact. When the crystal base was destroyed, the weight of the granite caused it to fall – also chipping when crashing to the ground.

The next stop was the humorous display of Jar Jar Binks frozen in the fictional compound of carbonite. Being that we don't really know carbonite's properties, the LucasArts team took creative liberty by making it a soft metal. Throwing multiple R2 units at Jar Jar, caused his frozen body to be distorted and dented as you'd expect from a soft metal. The revolutionary aspect of DMM is that it can be applied to any asset in real time; no need to build multiple objects.

The Jar Jar ice sculpture displayed a new found synergy between LucasArts and ILM. With both groups under one room, graphics engineers from both teams now collaborate on projects for both movies and entertainment products. The ice shader applied to this object displayed semi-translucent and reflective properties at the same time. Amazingly, when the ice was shattered the individual pieces slid around the environment with proper friction characteristics applied.

The final Jar Jar object was a jelly-like substance to demonstrate the soft body properties achievable with DMM. These same characteristics can be used for objects like cloth, say Darth Vader's robe – all simulation driven, with no hand animations necessary.

Moving on to a larger room, a giant Rancor skeleton towered over a Stormtrooper to help illustrate that DMM can be applied to any object, regardless of scale. With a bone characteristic applied, the Rancor skeleton toppled over appropriately when hit with force. Similarly, the wood beams in the ceiling overhead splintered and, when finally broken, caused added support stress to the outlying beams

To demonstrate the Dynamic Motion Synthesis (DMS) technology developed by Natural Motion, the R2 unit was changed to a Stormtrooper. DMS uses artificial intelligence to simulate the human nervous system, resulting in true biomechanical AI. When throwing a Stormtrooper at one of the ceiling beams, instead of bouncing off in a ragdoll-like presentation or executing a scripted event, the character would instead attempt to grab on, or even protect themselves. In one instance, one trooper grabbed onto his hanging comrade; causing them both to fall to the floor below. With DMS coupled with DMM, you have the ability to accurately recreate real world settings to a staggering level of detail – even if it is in a fictional universe.

The final stop was the fungus world of Falucia. Showed briefly in Episode III, Falucia consists of giant, colorful mushrooms. With DMM applied, the plants sway and undulate appropriately, but a pollen particle effect showcased another way LucasArts and ILM are working together. Using an algorithm originally developed by ILM, the pollens move in a random swirling pattern that never repeats. This just shows how much work is going into even the smallest detail.

Also, to hopefully eliminate the texture pop-in that plagues current gen games, LucasArts will use a proprietary smoothing technology in their next-gen titles. Even though the objects are modeled with hard edges, this technology will procedurally smooth objects- on the fly- as the player gets closer. Again, this means only one art asset needs created and the technology updates in real time.


The Outlook

From purely a tech demo point of view, LucasArts may have had the best showing of next-generation technology at this year's show. The combination of DMM and DMS could be for gameplay what the Unreal Engine 3 is for visuals. The only bad thing is we'll have to wait until 2007 to see it in action with Indiana Jones and the yet unnamed Star Wars title.

I suppose my subhead is a little over the top, but it should catch some attention. I was thoroughly underwhelmed by Star Wars Episode III. If you're one of the millions who have already seen this dud, I offer my condolences, apologize for posting such a tardy review, and encourage you to compare your opinions with mine.

If you're one of the few who have not yet seen it, perhaps this review will save you from wasting $5 and two hours of your life.

Put succinctly, this movie sucks. The acting was wooden, the continuity was nonexistent, the story was unmoving, and the plot had holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through. Story-wise, Episode III is to Star Wars as Nemesis is to Star Trek.

In no particular order, here are some of the aspects of this movie that bugged me:

The Chosen One? This has bugged my since Episode I. There are countless Jedi and only two Sith. The Promised One is supposed to bring balance to the force. That sounds like a recipe for a Jedi slaughter to me. Why didn't Yoda see that coming?

General Grievous was a pointless character. He's like Darth Maul in that sense. His raison d'etre is to be killed by a Jedi in a gratuitous light saber duel. Yay. What is he? Where did he come from? What were his motivations? What does he suck at wielding four light sabers simultaneously? We'll never know. Just think of the actually plot development that could have been done in the time needed to chase his sorry ass down and kill him.

Anakin is a whiney brat. That's not scary. It's pathetic. The second most frightening fellow in the galaxy joined the dark side because the Jedi saw him for the arrogant turd that he was. "Make the Jedi play with me, Chancellor! Boo hoo hoo. Waaaaaaah." The Force helped Luke get over his whining. It seems to have made Anakin's worse.

Darth Vader (of the original films) deserved a better past than he was given. Why must every Sith lord have a "Darth" name? Why is every other lord's name derived from English - Maul, Sidious, Plagious - except Vader's? What's with the cheesy Frankenstein homage at his "birth."

Hayden Christensen needs to learn that one need not knit one's eyebrows and glower to appear angry or evil. He might just as well have announced "I'm angry now." At least that would have added some variety to his expressions.

Yoda, trivialized you have been. Am I the only person who's noticed that Yoda has been reduced to being a hopping fortune cookie? Watch The Empire Strikes Back again and you'll notice that he doesn't always speak in reverse. Like any other believable character, he varies his speech patterns. It's like Frank Oz phoned in his performances. Maybe he disliked the dialogue too much to try to make it sound good. Anyhow, trite he sounds.

Loose ends weren't tied up any more than playing Operation counts as surgery. Leia supposedly vaguely remembers her real mother. Well, that's shot to hell. How about nobody calling Ben Obi Wan since long before Luke was born.

The Galactic Empire apparently only last about 20 years. Gee, I'm almost impressed. Somehow, the rebellion is less exciting when it's against such as nascent power.

Samuel L. Jackson was dull. For the love of all that's good, how did Lucas manage to make Mr. BMF dull?

George Bush should not have been a character in Revenge of the Sith. The whole scene surrounding Anakin's ultimatum was entirely inconsistent with the Star Wars universe and served only to make a political statement. "Only the Sith deal in absolutes" is wholly wrong: Jedi often do deal in absolutes and the Sith usually do not.

It's pretty apparent that the Jedi decided what elements of the Force were light and which were dark — an absolute distinction. The Sith, however, avail themselves of whatever is of utility to them. Doubt me? Pay close attention to Palpatine justifying the use of the dark side of the Force to Anakin. Also, every Jedi power is matched by a Sith power. However, the Sith wield other powers as well, such as lightening shooting from their fingers.

R2D2's scenes were funny but felt out of place. Why are we laughing at slap-stick in the midst of a deadly battle? Also, what happens to R2's jets between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope.

Padme was another pointless character. She was only there to cry a lot and give birth. She added absolutely nothing to the plot.

Ian McDiarmid was great as usual. However, even he could not overcome all the poor dialogue. I cringed at his howling "Nooooooo" during the lackluster fight with Mace Windu. His scream about ultimate power made me want to make a parody to the Real Ultimate Power site. Maybe someone will beat me to the punch and save me the effort.

Count Dukoo. Could we find a lamer name? How about Howard the Dukoo? I know this is really a complaint about Episode II, but the lameness is re-emphasized when General Grievous excitedly informs Obi Wan that he learned how to use light sabers from "Count Duuuuukooooooooo!"

Silence sometimes speaks more eloquently than the greatest orator. One scene Lucas didn't fumble was the tense moment in which Anakin and Padme each stared out a window. That moved me, despite Anakin's cheesy scowl. Instead of relying on endless flashes, bangs, and booms, Lucas should have let his maestro do the job he does so well and allowed scenes to move fluidly and without haste.

I really agonized over what numerical rating to give this movie. It certainly has a lot of flashy gee-whiz elements to it. I wanted to account for that and sheer "force factor". It's easy to be dazzled by the effects and blinded by geeky devotion to Yoda and the gang, but ultimately, this is a middle-of-the-road flick and undeserving of the name Star Wars.

I hates Lucas! I hates it forever! is another review that I agree almost entirely with.

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of "Star Wars," Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC will throw the largest party ever for fans of the saga, taking over the entire Los Angeles Convention Center in May 2007 for five days filled with live entertainment, celebrities from all six movies, special film and video presentations, an exhibit of movie props and costumes, exclusive merchandise sold at a 24-hour-a-day store, pop culture tributes, immersive events, costume contests, and scores of additional activities.

"Star Wars" Celebration IV will fill the L.A. Convention Center from Thursday, May 24 to Monday, May 28, 2007. Admission to the first day of the event will be for worldwide members of the Official "Star Wars" Fan Club, many of whom will help plan and run special programming themselves. The convention will be open to the general public from Friday through Monday, Memorial Day.

"Generations of fans have loved 'Star Wars,' many passing along the 'Star Wars gene' to their children," said Steve Sansweet, Director of Content Management and head of Fan Relations for Lucasfilm. "This is the first chance to celebrate all six movies in the saga-George Lucas' complete story-as well as the vibrant future of 'Star Wars.' If you've ever been to one of our Celebrations-or if you haven't been before-this is the one not to miss."

Celebration III, a four-day event held in Indianapolis in April 2005, attracted more than 34,000 fans from all over the world. "We started getting questions about a possible Celebration IV even while the last convention was running," Sansweet noted. "So we're determined to far outstrip anything we've done before, both in size and scope, as well as introduce many first-time activities and lots of exclusives."

Lucasfilm is also working on other "Star Wars"-related events in the Los Angeles area just prior to Celebration IV, "so we're expecting Southern California to become 'Destination: Star Wars' from the weekend before through Memorial Day weekend," Sansweet said.

The convention announcement was made jointly by Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC. Gen Con will once again manage the convention on behalf of Lucasfilm and the Official "Star Wars" Fan Club. The Celebration IV announcement is being made a year in advance to give fans worldwide a chance to plan for a week-long "Destination: Star Wars" blow-out in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is the ideal site for a 30th Anniversary convention, Sansweet said, since there are many "Star Wars" roots in the area. It was also the location of the first official "Star Wars" fan gathering, the 10th Anniversary Convention. "Star Wars" opened on May 25, 1977, on just 32 theater screens in North America, including Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard.

One of the highlights for fans at a "Star Wars" convention is the chance to buy unique merchandise, including an exclusive, limited-edition action figure. Because this has led to bottlenecks and long lines in the past, the Celebration IV store will be bigger than ever, self-service, well-stocked with merchandise, have plenty of check-out lanes...and be open 24 hours a day from the opening of the show on Thursday until the close on Monday!

"Gen Con is thrilled to be working again with Lucasfilm on this very special event," said Peter Adkison, owner of Gen Con LLC, producer of Gen Con Indy and other Gen Con events. "Together I know that we will produce a convention that will not only meet, but exceed, fans' expectations. With Lucasfilm 100% behind this show, it's going to be the biggest party in the history of the franchise. We are particularly focused on dramatically improving the selection and service in the Celebration store."

Online ordering for tickets to the event and for discounted hotel rooms is scheduled to begin late summer/early fall.

Star Wars Weekends continue -- the second in four consecutive weekends at Disney-MGM Studios in Florida celebrating the power of the Force is happening right now! Last week, fans got a chance to meet Star Wars legends Rick McCallum and Peter Mayhew. This weekend, Jake Lloyd (Anakin Skywalker from Episode I) and Matthew Wood (General Grievous) join celebrity host Warwick Davis.

Fans of all ages and Star Wars characters of all varieties unite to celebrate the heroes, villains, droids and magic of the saga. In addition to costumed characters, fun activities and the Star Tours theme park ride, celebrity guests will be in attendance for meet-and-greet sessions, star conversations, and classic Hollywood-style motorcades.

Click here to enter our 2006 Star Wars Weekends picture viewer to see some of the excitement. The viewer will be updated each week, so be sure to check back often. All photos are by Mark Ashman, courtesy of Disney.

Continuing our series of exclusive audio interviews from Disney Weekends, click below to listen to Jake Lloyd and Matthew Wood discuss their Star Wars experiences, courtesy of Disney's David Brady. You can play them here or download them onto your favorite mp3 player.

TORONTO -- Peter Jackson's remake of King Kong and the final episode in the Star Wars series were the big film winners at the 2006 Spacey Awards, while the science fiction series Battlestar Galactica and Stargate SG-1 were tops in television categories.

The fourth annual awards, honouring the best in sci-fi and fantasy entertainment, are the creation of CHUM Television.

In an acceptance speech recorded in New Zealand, Jackson spoke of how he felt unworthy of the award and owes a debt to King Kong, in particular the original 1933 classic that inspired him to become a filmmaker.

"I make films for people exactly like you," he told the audience. "That's who I am. I'm a fan. I'm a sci-fi, action, fantasy, adventure, horror fan. I'm a genre fan and I really appreciate the fact that other fans respond to our work."

As in the last three years, the Spaceys eschew the traditional audience, podium and red carpet format. Instead, camera crews head out around the country and the world to present the awards -- a stylized space-alien bust -- where the recipients can be found in their homes or a casual environment.

King Kong won for best sci-fi/fantasy movie and actor Andy Serkis, who brought King Kong to screen life through CGI motion capture technology, was named best non-human performer.

Speaking from Los Angeles, he thanked the writers of the screenplay, actor Naomi Watts, who played opposite the Serkis-motivated digital King Kong, and WETA, the New Zealand F/X company.

"And, what's the other guy's name? Peter Jackson, he's quite important, I suppose," Serkis joked.

Land of the Dead was named best horror movie and Sin City was deemed the best movie adapted from a comic.

Best movie hero was Batman from Batman Begins and best villain Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith.

The Star Wars finale also won favourite action sequence (the Darth Vader/Obi Wan light sabre duel) and favourite special effects.

The seven "favourite" categories were the result of online voting by viewers. The other winners were chosen by a panel the producers are calling "a crack team of space experts here."

Battlestar Galactica was favourite TV show, Lt.-Col. Cameron Mitchell favourite new TV character from Stargate SG-1, which also won for favourite TV ensemble cast. The favourite movie was a bit of a surprise, Serenity, Joss Whedon's big-screen followup to his short-lived outer-space TV series Firefly.

Best animated movie was Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The favourite video game was Resident Evil 4.

Hollywood B-movie king Roger Corman was given a Lifetime Achievement Award for five decades of low-budget film-making that launched the careers of, among others, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro.

Makeup effects master Stan Winston was given a Special Achievement Award for 30 years of creating screen monsters and aliens.