For the past 10 years, the 501st and Rebel Legion costuming groups have brought their costuming expertise to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida for Star Wars Weekends. I’m proud to say I’ve participated in the past three years of the event and I’m excited to share with you a little behind the scenes knowledge of what it takes to march and what we go through to make it happen.
StarWars.com speaks with the visual effects legend on the 30th anniversary of Return of the Jedi.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws might be one of the most influential films in history. It set the stage as one of the first, true summer blockbusters in 1975, paving the way for the cultural hysteria Star Wars would cause just two years later. Add to the fact that it stands to this day as a fantastic, […]
We sometimes forget, with the saga remaining so fresh and vivid in our minds, remastered and updated in the latest formats and constantly playing around the world that while the characters of Star Wars may remain eternally young, the actors who portrayed them on-screen, like the rest of us mere mortals, age, get older, and […]
This week the Star Wars community bids farewell to a much-loved friend. On April 15 Richard LeParmentier, Admiral Motti from A New Hope, became one with the Force. To anyone who attended conventions Richard was the upbeat and always-friendly celebrity who was ready with a smile and a conversation. It didn’t matter who you were, […]
The man who first showed us the effects of the awesome powers of the dark side passed away suddenly on Monday 15th April 2013 in Austin, Texas. Richard Leparmentier, better known to millions of Star Wars fans as Admiral Conan Antonio Motti left an indelible imprint on the Star Wars galaxy, helping to illustrate the […]
In the spring of 2009, Lucasfilm got the following email (without any sort of visual attachment) from a recent visitor to the Star Wars: Where Science Meets the Imagination museum tour. One of the items on display which was of great interested to me was “Luke’s prosthetic Hand”. It was a prosthetic of Luke’s hand […]
Here at Tierfon Rebel Base we had a family wedding a few weeks ago. Family members came in from across the galaxy. Most of ‘em Navy-types. I’m at the cantina ordering bantha milk, and cousin Tom Mustin comes up to join me, asking, “What’s shakin’, Dak?” I tell him I’m gonna write posts for the […]
If you’ve watched the final arc of the fifth season of The Clone Wars, you might have noticed something interesting about each of the episode titles. (And if you haven’t watched the final arc of the fifth season of The Clone Wars, why in the world not?) Each of the episode titles, “Sabotage,” “The Jedi […]
On the town square in Kinsman, Ohio, you’ll find a bank, a veteran’s memorial, and a used bookstore with an owner who will unhesitatingly volunteer the assertion that Yoda was born here. And he’s right — from (yes, you know what’s coming next) a certain point of view. Because rural Kinsman — which is almost […]
By now, I’m sure you’ve all had a chance to digest what happened in the Season Five finale of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. It was very emotional and like I teased all season long, I’m sure you now have more questions than answers about what happened and what’s going to happen next. Imagine being […]
This installment’s hunt for answers wasn’t sparked by any long-burning question. It probably won’t turn your world upside-down like the Max and Wedge posts did. But if I were the kind of guy who really enjoyed photo-supported Star Wars esoterica (and I am), I’d be all over this (and I am). I stumbled upon this […]
There was a panel at a relatively small model show Saturday in the community center of my relatively small town, Petaluma, California, population 57,941. That’s not nearly as small as most semi-rural towns in wine country, but for a guy born in Philadelphia it sure is. There were about 2,000 people who filled the center […]
It was never any secret that George Lucas was a fan of Akira Kurosawa’s. In the first installment of this column, we looked at the inspiration of The Hidden Fortress on Episode IV, but that’s not where the influence between Lucas and Kurosawa ended. By the late seventies, Kurosawa was a legend, but couldn’t get […]
Longtime readers of StarWars.com will already know this story. Parts of it were recounted in the official Homing Beacon email newsletter back in September 2004, and then a few months later on the ol’ user blogs that used to be hosted on this site. But since neither of those archives are readily available, and since I’m […]
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Photo by Joichi Ito (Creative Commons Attribution Licensed) Photo published with photographer’s permission. Director J.J. Abrams will be directing Star Wars: Episode VII, but he’s been a lifelong fan of the saga. In fact, his common appreciation for Star Wars led him to working with his regular collaborator Damon Lindelof, not to mention the endless […]
What I’d like to write about I can’t. Two of the more interesting projects I’m working on still haven’t been announced. One should be announced in May; the other…who knows, but later than May. Stay tuned… What I can say is that our video/doc crew is starting work on a sizzle piece for Jeffrey Brown’s […]
Back at Star Wars Celebration V, I thought I was being clever when I asked Dave Filoni what films they’d been looking to draw inspiration from for episodes of The Clone Wars that had not yet aired. We talked for a while and he gave me quite a list of films that I would expect […]
Western films have long served as inspiration in the course of film history. Orson Welles reportedly watched John Ford’s film Stagecoach repeatedly while preparing and editing Citizen Kane. Akira Kurosawa was said to have worshiped the work of John Ford and applied the Japanese sensibilities of samurai to a uniquely western genre of storytelling. Kurosawa […]
It’s easy to watch Disney films and see the similarities between so many of the motifs of classic storytelling and the hero’s journey that is ever present in the Star Wars films. It’s difficult to pin whether the films and cartoons of Walt Disney directly influenced the creation of Star Wars (with a few notable […]
Back in Season Two of The Clone Wars, there was a fantastic episode named “Senate Spy.” It told a story of intrigue among Senators when the Jedi Council asks Padmé to spy on a fellow senator (and former lover) who is working with the Separatists. To spy on him, she’ll need to rekindle their relationship. […]
One department head once remarked to me that there weren’t any storyboards done for the Star Wars prequel trilogy. What he/she meant was that, in the traditional sense, animatics had replaced storyboards by the mid to late 1990s, at least at Lucasfilm, so there weren’t any Joe Johnston-style storyboards created for ILM. Instead CG animatics […]
Most of the rest of Season One plays out as it originally aired. Here’s a look at the next four episodes airing in syndication and my timeline notes.
Season Five. I can hardly believe it. When I first arrived at Lucasfilm and George and I had our first meetings to discuss the The Clone Wars, he spoke of doing at least a hundred episodes. Well, in Season Five we will pass the 100 episode mark, and keep right on going. At the time, […]
When Tom Spina and I were brainstorming ideas to make our Celebration VI behind-the-scenes panel on the Mos Eisley cantina aliens truly memorable, we both gravitated to an unnamed alien lurking in the shadows of the infamous watering hole. Despite over three decades of scrutiny, this shifty looking barfly had managed to avoid the spotlight. […]
Alex Kane
Anina Walas
Bria LaVorgna
Dan Brooks
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Cole Horton
Dave Filoni
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Jennifer Heddle
Dana Jennings
James Floyd
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Kelly Knox
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Mark Newbold
John "Dak" Morton
Neil Kleid
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Dan Zehr