Welcome back to the Homing Beacon, the official newsletter of starwars.com, and your first source for exclusive Episode II updates.

Episode II Safety Is Job One
Leaving military school at a young age to run away and join the circus, and nowadays plunging into lightsaber fights with zeal may give Stunt Coordinator Nick Gillard a reckless daredevil reputation, but safety is his primary concern.

For Episode II, Gillard definitely had safety challenges, such as the stunt-work involving full-sized speeder replicas. "The safety on these things starts on the drawing board, because of lot of these speeders have to go on hydraulic gimbals, which throw them around all over the place," explains Gillard. "You have to make sure the structure's sound, so we get a structural engineer in to make sure it doesn't break up. We have to make sure there are no moving parts that are going to catch a stunt performer. Underneath it, we crash-pad the whole area just in case they get knocked out. Safety is such an issue these days on a film, you cannot hurt anybody. If you're having actors do all of their own stunts, it's paramount."

As glimpsed in an early on location video segment, one of Gillard's first tasks was blowing up eight people. "We're going to use a CGI explosion so we just used eight stunt people as doubles, and they march and dive at the right time," explains Gillard. "Then the explosion is put in afterwards. It's a much safer way of doing things."

That is not to say the task isn't dangerous. "In the rehearsal we use crash-pads for them to land on. But of course, when we do the take they have to land on the floor. Which is another reason why you always have to use stunt people. They dive into the floor."

Kurt Kaufman: Episode II Art & Architecture
Concept Artist Kurt Kaufman helped envision some of the vehicles and architecture that will be seen in Star Wars: Episode II.

Hasbro's New Look
Hasbro, makers of Star Wars action figures and toys, has just completed a total makeover of its Star Wars website. Check out what's new, and if you're a registered member at their site, you can vote on who will be made into the next action figure.

Cloak of Deception
If you're tired of hearing about real-world politics, then escape into this tale of intrigue in the Republic Senate. In this hardcover Star Wars novel due out next summer, see the events that lead up to The Phantom Menace, and the crisis that ends Chancellor Valorum's career.

The Edge is Near
The galaxy is forever scarred by the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and their deadly campaign against New Republic worlds continues in J. Gregory Keyes' Conquest, the first book of the Edge of Victory duology.

Jedi-Con 2001
The Official German Star Wars Fan Club is organizing its third Star Wars convention next Easter weekend, from April 13 to 15, 2001 in Cologne, Germany, with an appearance by Rick McCallum and a symphony orchestra among the highlights.

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The Art of Roleplaying
The new Star Wars roleplaying game is available now from Wizards of the Coast, and the first two products feature some amazing cover art by Adam Hughes and Drew Struzan. Find out how these covers came to be from the artists who illustrated them in this feature.

Anatomy of a Dewback
Things have changed since the 70s. Back then, dewbacks weren't very active or mobile. They were huge puppets -- statues, really -- that kind of just sat there on the horizon, relying on sound effects editors to bring them to life. When revisited in the 90s as part of the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition, dewbacks took on a new digital life, but getting there took a lot of hard work and snooping around, as chronicled in this in-depth documentary.

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