The Clone Wars returns after a Thanksgiving hiatus with a doozy of an episode, and is accompanied by all sort of new content on the site. Here’s a recap of last week’s stories in case you missed it.

 

MONDAY

• CLONE WARS: The video preview for “Cloak of Darkness” was actually posted a week earlier, but this week kicks off with a behind-the-scenes article talking about the all-female showdown in this, the ninth episode of the series. Luminara and Ahsoka square off against Ventress. Leave your cliches about hair-pulling in the last century, dullards. It’s so not only backwards, but none of these dames appear to have hair. The short piece features quotes from episode director Dave Filoni and fanboy favorite writer Paul Dini.
• HYPERSPACE: The Fan Club rescues another lost Star Wars source piece from oblivion by finally providing a home for the Castaways of Endor, a guide to various Endor lifeforms originally pitched for the long gone (but not entirely forgotten) magazine, Star Wars Gamer.  Daniel Wallace and Amy Pronovost team up to profile three intelligent species and six not-quite-sentient ones, complete with new illustrations by Pronovost. Gunda!

TUESDAY

• COLLECTING: If you’re on LFL’s holiday mailing list, this is the card you’ll be getting. If you’re a Star Wars fan and on the holiday mailing list, these are the cards you wished you were getting.
• BLOG / COLLECTING: While surfing eBay on his work hours (it’s cool; he’s supposed to), Pete Vilmur stumbles across this sweet custom paint job on Hasbro’s big Millennium Falcon.
• BLOG / FANS: Meanwhile, Bonnie Burton uncovers a 1977 mural in San Francisco that featured C-3PO and R2-D2 extolling the virtues of a healthy diet. 
• VIDEO GAMES: Speaking of great art, check out these 10 fantastic images plus incredible poster for the new Star Wars Galaxies TCG expansion, Squadrons Over Corellia. “Over Corellia? No, I’ll never get over Corellia.”

WEDNESDAY

• BOOKS: Del Rey’s Brobdingnagian book, The Complete Encyclopdia, will soon start testing the load capacity of bookshelves, and StarWars.com provides a preview of the massive tome’s interior spreads, with squint-and-maybe-you-can-read-them images of page layout, including what looks like to be a tantalizing page torn out of a Sith high school yearbook. StarWarsShop is offering a version of the book signed by all seven authors myself included — To paraphrase the Dude: Ever hear of Team Encyclopedia? That was me. And six other guys. 
• FANS / EVENTS: Beverely Hills was the place to be to honor Samuel L. Jackson with a lifetime achievement award, and R2-D2 and C-3PO were there. We’ve got the pics to prove it.
• CLONE WARS: Though we’ve interviewed her in the past, Ashley Eckstein returns to talk about Ahsoka, this time in a story tied into “Cloak of Darkness” and generally released to the net.  
• BOOKS: Dark Horse provided their previews for upcoming comics in March 2009 and beyond, including — and I’m just going by the cover here — a story involving Darth Cranky having his tub-time interrupted.

THURSDAY

• BOOKS / GAMES: Brooks Brown interviews author Rob Smith on his latest book, Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts. The story features images from the book, including some rare concept and behind-the-scenes art on classics like Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road and The Dig. The factoids about Douglas Adams’ involvement in the Labyrinth game and the primordial MMO that was Habitat still has our heads spinning.
• CLONE WARS: This week’s webcomic, Transfer, sets up the events of “Cloak of Darkness,” including the assignment of Ahsoka to Luminara Unduli. Illustrated by Katie Cook.
• VIDEO GAMES: Brooks is back with a showcase of WhatTheyPlay.com, a handy site for parents to guage whether or not the popular video games — LucasArts’ included — are appropriate for their kids.  
• VIDEO GAME: A big day for video game news, and here’s a preview of some of the downloadable content available for The Force Unleashed, including a level set within the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and character/costume downloads that let you play as, get this, C-3PO.  
• COLLECTING: Kids today. Gah. Going on about their Blu-Rays and iPods and atomic jet boots. In our day, if we wanted to see Star Wars at home, our options were to set up a shanty town in a theater lobby, or to settle for Star Wars on Super-8. Did we care if our Kenner slideshows were 1080p or 1080i? No siree. To be fair, we were kind of stupid. 

FRIDAY:

• CLONE WARS: Get ready for a one-two hit of eye and ear candy. First up, the interwebs are giddily surprised to hear that James Marsters has snuck into The Clone Wars, as Captain Argyus. According to his interview, he auditioned for Anakin… for Episode I? …. so, he was gonna play a nine year old? That’s range.
• CLONE WARS: Equally fetching is Olivia d’Abo, who voices Luminara Unduli in The Clone War series. This adds to an already impressive record of voice acting. Many folks think of her as Kevin’s sister on “Wonder Years,” but geeks always point out that Next Gen episode where she played a Q.
• COLLECTING: StarWarsShop is having a two-day sale where you must choose wisely.
• CLONE WARS: The “Cloak of Darkness” episode guide is update, with all the photos, facts, trivia and quotes you’ll want to revisit after watching this most awesome episode. 
• CLONE WARS / VIDEO: The regular commentary video with director Dave Filoni posts, and he discusses how the Senate Commando characters came about.

This entry was posted on December 9, 2008 at 12:03 am and is filed under Uncategorized, recap. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.