Archive for ‘In Pop Culture’



Star Wars Collecting Solves Murder on Bones

StarWars.com Team | January 10, 2011

In the episode “The Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck” in the hit crime drama Bones, a murder investigation is cracked wide open thanks to someone buying Star Wars collector cards for way more than they are worth. Great to see Star Wars collecting being used to solve a murder case!

This isn’t the first time Dr. Sweets has dropped some Star Wars references on Bones, but it’s the coolest!

WATCH FULL EPISODE: Bones: “The Twisted Bones in the Melted Truck”

(at 16:50)

Dr. Sweets: “I see you bought Star Wars trading cards.”

Suspect Kathy Lyford: “Yeah, growing up me and my brother were all fans of the Force.”

Sweets: “I understand. I’m a Star Warrior myself. (In C-3PO’s voice) Don’t you call me a mindless philosopher you over-weight glob of grease.

Suspect: “Excuse me?”

Sweets: “C-3PO. I sounded just like him…from Star Wars. It’s like the most quoted line in the movie.”

Suspect: “Yeah. Of course.”

Sweets: “Can you explain to me why you spent $500 on a Jedi Knight trading card with a red border when it’s value is less than a dollar?”

Suspect: “I don’t know. I guess I made a mistake.”

Sweets: “What about The Clone Wars card you bought last month? Again you spent $500 but you could probably find it right now online for 50 cents.”

Suspect: “When I get stressed, I shop. You don’t have to make it into a big deal.”

Sweets: “I’m not making this into anything it’s not. I assure you.”

(more…)

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Rare “Holiday Special” Backstage Photo Found

Pete Vilmur | January 4, 2011

AP Photo by George Brich

As someone always on the lookout for rare old Star Wars photos, I was pleased to discover Forbes.com’s Geek Beat columnist David M. Ewalt had unearthed a cool old gem from the vaguely-documented “Star Wars Holiday Special” of 1978, which we actually lent a bit of coverage to a couple years ago.

Articles from Nov 17, 1978

While researching a couple of those pieces, I came across a rare Associated Press image of Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher in photocopied articles from 1978, but couldn’t locate the original in Lucasfilm’s expansive Image Archives (apparently, wire photos were not automatically sent to LFL for approval and/or cataloging). Enter Ewalt’s Geek Beat column, which appears to have located the original shot of Ford and Fisher in a rare backstage moment captured by AP photographer George Brich.

Ah, to be a fly on the wall to hear what Ford is sharing with Fisher before their next Holiday Special take…

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Daft Punk Helmets More Star Wars than Tron

StarWars.com Team | January 3, 2011

French dance music duo Daft Punk (Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter) have been doing a lot of press lately for their work on the soundtrack for the Tron sequel. This interview with Los Angeles Times caught our attention mainly for their awesome shout out to Star Wars and how it influenced their iconic helmet costumes.

Of course, we knew of Daft Punk’s love of Star Wars thanks to their cameo in last year’s Force-tastic adidas Originals commercial.

So it had to be asked: Are those robot helmets (without which Daft Punk is never photographed) an implicit homage to Tron?

“It’s closer to a Star Wars vibe,” said De Homem-Christo. “It’s very ’70s, but very relevant to me. We are robots, because we think it fits.”

Bangalter added: “We liked the idea of these robot personas — the concept that robots, that technology can connect people or help you integrate on a daily basis but also scare people. That’s what we created instead of showing us. We find it more stimulating and entertaining.”

Read the full interview here:
Daft Punk discusses the inspiration behind the robot helmets: More ‘Star Wars’ than ‘Tron’ — via LA Times

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Tron’s “Rinzler” Has Lucasfilm Connection

Pete Vilmur | December 17, 2010

With Tron: Legacy opening wide today, we thought we’d share a little-known Lucasfilm connection to one of the film’s characters recently revealed by director Joseph Kosinski in a visit to LFL’s Presidio headquarters. Rinzler, a character introduced early on as one of the film’s chief villains, was apparently named after Lucasfilm Executive Editor J.W. Rinzler, author of several books including The Making of Star Wars, The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, and the recent Making of The Empire Strikes Back, among others.

“Friends told me about the fact that there’s this character Rinzler in the new Tron movie,” says Rinzler. “So I went online to see if I could figure out where they got the name. But I couldn’t find anything. There aren’t many Rinzlers in the States and it’s not a name that means anything, as far as I know… Then when Joe Kosinski came as a guest speaker I was actually on my way to the event before I realized this might be a chance to ask him. So I waited till after the q-and-a, went down to the front, and said I had a strange question but had to ask where he got the name, or where the writers got the name. And he said that he was sitting with the two writers working, and there was a book on the table ‘a Making of’ he said… ‘Oh yeah, it was Making of Star Wars by someone named Rinzler.’ So I said ‘that’s me’, thanked him, shook his hand and said I had to go out and buy a few action figures — needless to say, my kids are thrilled.”

Check out the official Tron: Legacy website here.

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Star Wars Crossover Poster Designs

Pete Vilmur | November 29, 2010

Screenrant.com updated over the weekend with a cool set of four fan-designed Star Wars crossover posters — that is, “Star Wars-ified” versions of classic movie posters. Artist Matthew Ranzetta creates Star Wars send-ups for Empire of the Sun, The Princess Bride, and, most appropriately, Cool Hand Luke. The artist’s style is minimalistic but compelling. Head on over and check them out.

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Torchwood Jedi Masters?

StarWars.com Team | November 23, 2010

Actors from the hit British sci-fi Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood pose with lightsabers and puppets from Avenue Q.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Star Wars cross paths with the Torchwood crew. Actor James Marsters popped up on the show quoting Princess Leia as a hologram as you can see here.

Of course, with the next season of Torchwood coming to the States, we’d love to see the Scooby gang catch aliens at Skywalker Ranch. Capt Jack already has his Jedi pose down pat! HINT HINT.

————–
SOURCE: io9.com

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Rare ILM Behind-the-Scenes Photos at Vanity Fair

Pete Vilmur | November 12, 2010

With tonight’s premiere of the new ILM documentary Industrial Light & Magic: Creating the Impossible on Encore, VanityFair.com has posted several rare behind-the-scenes photos from films worked on by ILM’s Dennis Muren –

Eight-time Oscar winner Dennis Muren is the first visual-effects artist to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Ahead of Encore’s November 12 documentary about Industrial Light & Magic—the visual-effects arm of Lucasfilm where he is creative director—Muren shares behind-the-scenes photos from five of his famous projects: Terminator 2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Empire Strikes Back, Jurassic Park, and E.T.

The new documentary airs Nov. 12 at 9 pm on Encore.

Head on over to VanityFair.com to check out the photos, and see the StarWars.com interview with documentary director Leslie Iwerks.

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Mythbusters Grant Imahara Talks C-3PO Suit

StarWars.com Team | November 8, 2010

At this year’s w00tstock geektastic cabaret, MythBusters Grant Imahara did a presentation about this character appearances dressed as C-3PO for Lucasfilm as he was working full-time for THX and ILM.

Grant talks about what’s like dressing up as Golden Rod to shoot car commercials in Japan, meet Oprah, and to open an amusement park in Australia with Hugh Jackman. He also describes other highlights while dressed as C-3PO like meeting Carrie Fisher & Magic Johnson.

WATCH VIDEOS:
Part 1
Part 2

Read more about Grant Imahara on StarWars.com:

Be sure to follow Grant Imahara on Twitter.

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Simon Pegg Talks Star Wars & His New Book!

StarWars.com Team | October 19, 2010

Actor, comedian and Star Wars fan Simon Pegg, best known for his Brit slacker role in Spaced as well as a reluctant zombie killer in Shaun of the Dead and a younger Scotty in the Star Trek reboot, recently published his autobiography Nerd Do Well.

In his book, Pegg talks about his childhood, teenage years, family life, the happenstance meeting of his wife and his friendships with actor Nick Frost, director Edgar Wright and Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin. Anyone who reads interviews with Pegg, follows him on Twitter and reads his blog knows how much Star Wars inspires/angers/entertains him on a regular basis. So it’s no shocker that his autobiography is scattered with Star Wars memories.

Tom Lamont from The Guardian interviews Pegg about his new book:

Star Wars has been the most consistent supplement and tonic, Pegg an impressionable eight-year-old when George Lucas’ epic arrived in his local cinema in 1977. “I was the exact demographic for that film,” he says. “I was a **** 1m-high target, and it got me right through the eyes. I can mark out my life from that point in terms of my relationship with that film.”

No exaggeration. A game of Jedi re-enactment in Gloucester’s woodlands helped a youthful Pegg and his peers get over the death of a friend in a car accident. A socio-historical interpretation of the film with Ewoks as Vietnamese militia was his thesis subject as a film student at Bristol University. On one occasion, in hospital after an operation, Pegg awoke from his anaesthetically induced coma an hour too early, confounding doctors until it was realized he must have overheard a fellow patient on the ward watching Star Wars on VHS, jealously aroused by the sound of R2-D2’s clicks and beeps.

Read the full article here:
Simon Pegg: “I measure my life in terms of my relationship with Star Wars“

Be sure to check out Simon Pegg along with Nick Frost in the new sci-fi comedy Paul.

Read more about Pegg and his thoughts on Star Wars here:

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1978 Star Wars Ballet

Pete Vilmur | October 8, 2010

This video of a Star Wars ballet was making the rounds a few days ago, posted first at Cinematical and described, surprisingly, rather positively:

When it comes to things that don’t seem to go together, Star Wars and ballet would be pretty high up on my list. Sure, lightsaber duels have a certain choreography to them, but full on ballet?

That’s what viewers are treated to in this old clip featuring performers Galina and Valeri Panov dancing an elaborate tribute to Star Wars accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra — conducted by none other than John Williams. I’m not sure when this event happened, exactly, but you know it was in the distant past because once the segment ends they toss it to George Burns.

Thanks to our resident Star Wars bibliographer Bob Miller (who never fails to amaze us with his extensive collection of Star Wars media mentions dating back over 30 years), we were able to determine the Star Wars ballet was part of a two-hour special on ABC, “The Stars Salute Israel at 30,” which was broadcast on May 8, 1978 at 9:00 p.m. PST. It was held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in L.A., taped on May 7.

So there you have it. Check out Cinematical’s original post to watch the video.

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