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Did STAR WARS take a very different path than it might have, primarily because of  merchandising concerns? Producer Gary Kurtz says that is indeed the case, confirming (or re-confirming) many fan’s suspicions.
This year  is the 30th anniversary of  THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and Kurtz will be a guest at the LucasFilm sponsored  STAR WARS Celebration V in Orlando, Florida [...]

Making it’s way just now across the internet are remarks from George Lucas from May, indicating that his proposed STAR WARS TV series is on indefinite stand-by.
“The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don’t know how to do ‘em. Because, they literally are STAR WARS, only [...]

A couple days ago, R. Patrick Alberty weighed in on the subject of whether JAWS (1975) ruined the modern Hollywood blockbuster. The inspiration for Alberty’s piece was this editorial by Ross Douthat, defending JAWS and STAR WARS against charges made by John Podhoretz and David Edelstein. I wanted to weigh in on the subject, not [...]

Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy
It may not be the most suprising news ever but according to IGN George Lucas’ team are officially working on giving the two STAR WARS trilogies the Blu-Ray treatment. At the Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) Steve Sansweet, Lucasfilm ‘Director of Fan Relations’, updated the masses [...]

A still from the Robot Chicken Star Wars parody
That’s right, not quite content to leave his favourite galaxy just yet, director George Lucas (INDIANA JONES, STAR WARS) is planning yet another entry for the STAR WARS franchise; an animated comedy series. According to The Hollywood Reporter Lucasfilm Animation have announced their plans to a air [...]

In “Star Wars and the Modernism of 2001,” sculptor John Powers takes a look at the famous outer-space films made by Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas, examining their historical context (the moon landing, Civil rights movement, Femimism, the Vietnam war).
It’s an interesting piece, but it goes slightly astray in one way: Powers objects that Kubrick’s [...]

The Clone Returns Home
Daily Variety reviews THE CLONE RETURNS HOME, an arthouse science fiction effort from Japan:
Eerie twins and wayward clones provide double trouble, to enigmatic, haunting effect, in “The Clone Returns Home,” a Japanese oddity that should please arthouse auds and sci-fi cultists alike. Bewitchingly intense low-budgeter has few special effects but achieves a [...]

This computer-animated entry in the STAR WARS franchise is every bit as synthetic as the trailers implied, but in its own way THE CLONE WARS is quite an achievement: it almost perfectly synthesizes everything that has been wrong with the films since… oh, well – RETURN OF THE JEDI. You get the unnecessarily convoluted storytelling, [...]

Picking up from the disappointing ATTACK OF THE CLONES, this film finally showed audiences the only plot development that made the prequel trilogy (including THE PHANTOM MENACE) interesting: how Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side of the Force and became Darth Vader. Despite some quibbling, the critical consensus emerged that this is the best [...]

This is the second film in the STAR WARS “Prequel Trilogy.” Unfortunately, it suffers from many of the flaws that plagued THE PHANTOM MENACE: slow pacing, weak storytelling, muddled exposition—all wrapped up on cartoon-like computer-generated effects that are supposed to overwhelm any reservations about the uninspired narrative. Despite being touted as a major comeback, STAR [...]

STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE is the first film in the so-called “Prequel Trilogy,” which provides the back story of how Anakin Skywalker turned to the Dark Side of the Force and became Darth Vader, the cybotic villain seen in the original STAR WARS trilogy. Unfortunately, the film is marred by the fact [...]

 
In anticipation of the Augst 15 theatrical release of STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS, New York Times offers a profile of George Lucas, who muses on returning to a galaxy far, far away. Although not overtly negative, Dave Itzkoff’s article expresses a certain skepticism about revisiting the STAR WARS franchise, in light of Lucas’s expressed [...]

An Appreciation of the Original Films and a Look at How Times (and George Lucas) Have Changed Them
When STAR WARS premiered in 1977, there had never been anything quite like it. Sure, the antecedents were obvious (everything from Kurosawa’s THE HIDEEN FORTRESS to Flash Gordon serials, not to mention Arthurian myth) but the elements were assembled in [...]