Wondering what’s been happening at StarWars.com? Here’s a quick roundup of what you might have missed this week, including some new Halloween content, special previews of bonus features on Star Wars: The Clone Wars The Complete Season Four Blu-ray and DVD (coming next week!), and lots more!
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Tags: star wars halloween, The Clone Wars, the clone wars season four blu-ray
News | 
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An Ed Natividad concept board depicting a Jedi assault on Theed from Episode I.
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 served as the basis for ILM’s photo-real digital shot production. For the original trilogy, postproduction boards had acted as a guide for the camera crews working with actual models, miniatures, mattes, and so on, listing the elements needed for each shot, which would all be combined on the Optical printer, with a few exceptions. Those sorts of boards were effectively gone by the time Episode I rolled around. But what our newly announced book Star Wars Storyboards—The Prequels makes clear is that a whole lot of storyboards were created for the prequels (it’s scheduled for a spring 2013 publication from Abrams).
6 Comments » | Tags: storyboards, the prequels
Behind The Scenes, Books and Comics, The Movies | Permalink
Halloween approaches! You’re rushed for time, but want to show your Star Wars love. I have a super-quick Leia project just for you! Leia’s A New Hope look is so iconic that it’s easy to make an instantly-recognizable homage to every Star Wars fan’s favorite princess. This isn’t going to be a screen accurate version, but it’s perfect for those times when you get a last-minute invitation to a costume party, or if you just want to add a little Rebel chic to your wardrobe. You will need some basic sewing skills, but this is all fairly simple stuff. Best of all, it will only take you an hour or two.
4 Comments » | Tags: Costumes, Crafts, Halloween, how-to, Leia
Creativity | Permalink
Andrew Kishino has been many things in his life and career, from hip-hop artist to Transformers video game voice actor. Now he can add something else to his impressive list: Star Wars hero.
As the voice of Saw Gerrera on The Clone Wars, Kishino brings to life one of the key figures of the current Onderon story arc, and in a sense, the larger Star Wars saga. Saw is one of the founders of the Onderon rebellion against the Separatist occupation; the Onderon rebels’ tactics and formation, supported by the Jedi, will go on to lay the groundwork for the Rebel Alliance from the classic Star Wars trilogy. It’s a strong link from the prequel era to the original films, and with Saw at the core, his significance is larger than it might initially seem.
StarWars.com recently caught up with Kishino to talk about the special meaning Star Wars action figures have for him, getting the part of Saw and why he originally thought it was for a show on The CW network, and how his experience as a rapper informed his portrayal of the Onderonian rebel.
8 Comments » | Tags: andrew kishino, saw gerrera, The Clone Wars
The Clone Wars | Permalink
For me, Halloween is the time of year when I embrace the dark side to the fullest. I find that the spooky holiday just brings out the Sith in me. So for this year’s festivities, I decided to carve a Stormtrooper pumpkin. What better way to salute the boys in white than by carving their helmet into the side of a squash? Now I’m no Pumpkin Geek but fortunately there are a lot of cool Star Wars templates online, like these downloadable Star Wars stencils here. For my carving, I liked the idea of using a Stormtrooper helmet not only because it’s so iconic, but also because it’s fairly simple to carve. So if you’re a beginner carver (like me), then this is the design you’re looking for!
4 Comments » | Tags: Crafts, DIY, Halloween, Holidays
Creativity | Permalink
Halloween is about spooky stuff, dressing up in costume, and to put it simply, having a lot of fun: all things that are part of the Star Wars experience. As such, the Official Star Wars Blog will be featuring special posts over the next couple of weeks that celebrate the connections between the scary fun of Halloween and the Star Wars saga.
You can stay tuned to this post, which will be regularly updated to include all Halloween-related content.
5 Comments » | Tags: Halloween
News | Permalink
Concept and Tradability
Sketch cards, Autographs, Relic Cards, and Parallels are all very fun, collectible and exciting, but what about the base cards? You know, the cards that comprise the vast majority of any given series? They are the meat of the pack in all card products. They are the cards that occupy most of the time, energy, and creativity that it takes to build these products. In the past, base cards were nearly always enough. Unfortunately though, modern competition has diminished their greatness and their novelty. Cable TV, DVD, Blu-ray, downloads, and the mighty Internet have challenged trading cards as king of movie freeze-frame, take-it-with-you splendor. So we needed to take this beyond what you’re getting from those digital wonders. This base set needs to be something special and should feel important. Not only should it be informative, but it should possess some interactivity between cards and it needs tradability.
3 Comments » | Tags: galactic files, topps, trading cards
Collecting | Permalink
Back in high school I worked, along with my good friend Nate, on a comic called “The Bandits.” The comic was pretty much 50 percent ripping off Monty Python, and the other 50 percent was Star Wars… The Bandits ended up meeting various characters, riding in vehicles, and visiting scenes from the Star Wars films.
1 Comment » | Tags: Art, Comics, Jeffrey Brown
Creativity | Permalink
I’ve been back in the States from my Namibia trip barely one week, and tomorrow morning I’m taking off to work at Brand Licensing Europe in London. I’ll be in London for the week, then will travel on to Essen, Germany for Celebration Europe meetings, then finally take a too-quick trip to Belgium and the fabled fan-built Star Wars prop warehouse.
1 Comment » | Tags: celebration europe II
Events | Permalink
I didn’t visit Paris to watch the conclusion of the Tour de France and I wasn’t planning to spot Quasimodo at the Notre Dame either. This time I had an appointment with history: an appointment with Star Wars toys. As president of TeeKay-421, the Belgian Star Wars Fanclub, I received an invitation from a respected Belgian newspaper to visit the exposition called “Les Jouets Star Wars” (”The Star Wars Toys”) at the Les Arts Décoratifs museum. I went by Thalys from Brussels to Paris, armed with the latest Dark Horse comics and The Essential Reader’s Companion.
4 Comments » | Tags: Action Figures, kenner, Les Jouets Star Wars
Collecting, Events | Permalink
