The Death of Obi-Wan Kenobi

Obi-Wan Kenobi Is Dead, Vader Says
Lord Vader announced the killing of Obi-Wan Kenobi at the Imperial Palace on Coruscant
DEN DHUR and HALLIS SAPER
May 9, 2011
http://www.galacticempiretimes.com/2011/05/09/galaxy/outer-rim/obi-wan-kenobi-is-killed.html

CORUSCANT — Obi-Wan Kenobi, the mastermind of some of the most devastating attacks on the Galactic Empire and the most hunted man in the galaxy, was killed in a firefight with Imperial forces near Alderaan, Darth Vader announced on Sunday.

In a late-night appearance in the East Room of the Imperial Palace, Lord Vader declared that “justice has been done” as he disclosed that agents of the Imperial Army and stormtroopers of the 501st Legion had finally cornered Kenobi, one of the leaders of the Jedi rebellion, who had eluded the Empire for nearly two decades. Imperial officials said Kenobi resisted and was cut down by Lord Vader's own lightsaber. He was later dumped out of an airlock.

The news touched off an extraordinary outpouring of emotion as crowds gathered in the Senate District and outside the Imperial Palace, waving imperial flags, cheering, shouting, laughing and chanting, “Hail to the Emperor! Hail Lord Vader!” In the alien protection zone, crowds sang “The Ten Thousand Year Empire.” Throughout the Sah'c district, airspeeder drivers honked horns deep into the night.

“For over two decades, Kenobi has been the Jedi rebellion’s leader and symbol,” the Lord of the Sith said in a statement broadcast across the galaxy via HoloNet. “The death of Kenobi marks the most significant achievement to date in our empire’s effort to defeat the rebel alliance. But his death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that the rebellion will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must and we will remain vigilant at home and abroad.”

Obi-Wan Kenobi ’s demise is a defining moment in the stormtrooper-led fight against terrorism, a symbolic stroke affirming the relentlessness of the pursuit of those who turned against the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars. What remains to be seen, however, is whether it galvanizes Kenobi’s followers by turning him into a martyr or serves as a turning of the page in the war against the Rebel Alliance and gives further impetus to Emperor Palpatine to step up Stormtrooper recruitment.

In an earlier statement issued to the press, Kenobi boasted that striking him down could make him "more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

How much his death will affect the rebel alliance itself remains unclear. For years, as they failed to find him, Imperial leaders have said that he was more symbolically important than operationally significant because he was on the run and hindered in any meaningful leadership role. Yet he remained the most potent face of terrorism in the Empire, and some of those who played down his role in recent years nonetheless celebrated his death.

Given Kenobi’s status among radicals, the Imperial Galactic government braced for possible retaliation. A Grand Moff of the Imperial Starfleet said late Sunday that military bases in the core worlds and around the galaxy were ordered to a higher state of readiness. The Imperial Security Bureau issued a galactic travel warning, urging citizens in volatile areas “to limit their travel outside of their local star systems and avoid mass gatherings and demonstrations.”

The strike could deepen tensions within the Outer Rim, which has periodically bristled at Imperial counterterrorism efforts even as Kenobi evidently found safe refuge it its territories for nearly two decades. Since taking over as Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, Lord Vader has ordered significantly more strikes on suspected terrorist targets in the Outer Rim, stirring public anger there and leading to increased criminal activity.

When the end came for Kenobi, he was found not in the remote uncharted areas of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions, where he has long been presumed to be sheltered, but in a massive compound about an hour’s drive west from the Tatooine capital of Bestine. He had been living under the alias "Ben" Kenobi for some time.

The compound, only about 50 miles from the base of operations for the Imperial Storm Squadron, is at the end of a narrow dirt road and is roughly eight times larger than other homes in the area, which were largely occupied by Tusken Raiders. When Imperial operatives converged on the planet on Saturday, following up on recent intelligence, two local moisture farmers “resisted the assault force” and were killed in the middle of an intense gun battle, a senior Stormtrooper said, but details were still sketchy early Monday morning.

A representative of the Imperial Starfleet said that military and intelligence officials first learned last summer that a “high-value target” was hiding somewhere on the desert world and began working on a plan for going in to get him. Beginning in March, Lord Vader worked closely with a series of several different Admirals serving onboard the Death Star to go over plans for the operation, and on Friday morning gave the final order for members of the 501st Legion (known commonly as "Vader's Fist") to strike.

Kenobi and a group of his followers were eventually captured while fleeing the system, and taken aboard the Death Star, which was in the midst of surveying the recent environmental disaster on Alderaan. Darth Vader called it a “targeted operation,” although officials said four tie fighters were lost because of "mechanical failures" and had to be destroyed to keep them from falling into hostile hands.

In addition to Kenobi, two men and one wookiee were killed, one believed to be his young apprentice and the other two his couriers, according to an admiral who briefed reporters under Imperial ground rules forbidding further identification. A woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, the Admiral said. Two droids were also reported missing.

“No Stormtroopers were seriously harmed,” Lord Vader said. “They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, I defeated my former master and took custody of his body.” Jedi tradition requires burial within 24 hours, but by doing it in deep space, Imperial authorities presumably were trying to avoid creating a shrine for his followers.

Lord Vader has denied requests to present photographs of the body, describing them as "too gruesome" for the general public.

Football Season Is Over: 2011 Officially Begins

In the final insult to a completely humiliating season for Brett Favre, the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XLV, beating the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25. It's their fourth SB title, and it took Packers QB Aaron Rodgers three years to win one, as many as Favre had in his entire career. Rodgers, unlike Favre, also won the game's MVP award, passing for 304 yards and 3 touchdowns. The curse of the Lutefisk continues...

The game was watched by a record 111 million in the US, 4.5 million more than last year's game and 5 million more than the final episode of M*A*S*H. Probably the coolest ad: a young boy dressed like Darth Vader trying to use The Force to open a 2012 Volkswagen Passat.

The NFL changed things around this year, presenting all the season best awards during the week. Here's the winners:

MVP: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Offensive Player of the Year: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
Defensive Player of the Year: Troy Polamalu, Pittsburgh Steelers
Offensive Rookie of the Year: Sam Bradford, St. Louis Rams
Defensive Rookie of the Year: Ndamukong Suh, Detroit Lions
Coach of the Year: Bill Belichick, New England Patriots
Comeback of the Year: Michael Vick, Philadelphia Eagles

And finally, the Hall of Fame picks: modern era players Deion Sanders, Marshall Faulk, Richard Dent and Shannon Sharpe, NFL Films founder Ed Sabol and senior picks Chris Hanburger and Les Richter. A good list, though it contains some snubs: Faulk got in over running backs Jerome Bettis and Curtis Martin, wide receivers Chris Carter and Tim Brown were left out, and five time Super Bowl champ Charles Haley failed to make the cut. And then there's Oakland Raiders quarterback Ken Stabler and punter Ray Guy, the two most offensive long-term snubs from Canton...

10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Empire Strikes Back

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/10/10-things-empire-strikes-back

10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Empire Strikes Back
October 12, 2010
Charlie Jane Anders, io9
Categories: Books and Comics, movies, sci-fi

Here’s a slightly different version of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It’s just one of many revelations in a new making-of book.

The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back by J.W. Rinzler comes out today, and it’s not just essential for fans of the classic film. It’s also a must-read for anybody who’s interested in the creative process, because it goes into excruciating detail, on a day-to-day basis, on the troubled genesis of an amazing film.

You get inside the heads of everybody involved with it, and you see how much pain went into every frame of this movie. In particular, there’s a 17-page section in which you get a transcript of director Irvin Kershner and the actors — especially Harrison Ford — agonize over every second of the crucial carbonite freezing chamber scene, trying to get as much emotional truth and reality out of it as possible. This was on set, after the screenplay had already been revised several times, and every moment of that sequence gets rehashed and debated until it’s (arguably) perfect. There’s tons and tons of eye-popping concept art, including tons of versions of the Luke/Vader fight.

What Rinzler’s book drives home is that Empire Strikes Back was as groundbreaking and daring, in its own way, as the original Star Wars. The film went way over schedule and massively over budget, and almost ran out of money a bunch of times. Everybody became sick on set, Mark Hamill broke his thumb doing one stunt, and there was an accident with the bacta tank that could have killed Hamill if he’d been inside. Also, the movie’s second unit director and its first screenwriter both died during the process.

You see how George Lucas put together ESB at the same time that he was building his business empire, including Lucasfilm and the more mature version of Industrial Light & Magic. Lucas was creating his team and fighting for creative freedom, even as he was stepping back from writing and directing — and a big part of this movie’s brilliance stems from Lucas’ drive to finance the film himself, keeping 20th Century Fox out of the loop creatively. (And if Empire had failed, Lucas would have been broke, despite the first film’s huge profits.)

What comes through, in every interview and behind-the-scenes detail, is the determination of everyone involved to make The Empire Strikes Back bigger and better than the original Star Wars. In spite of huge, almost insurmountable difficulties, the determination to create something better comes through clearly.

In addition to the concept art, there are also a ton of set photos, including things like a cast being made of Harrison Ford for the “frozen in carbonite” Han Solo, and Darth Vader and Boba Fett out for a stroll. And there are tons and tons of pieces of script pages and scribbled notes. You get a real sense of what it would have been like to be inside this madhouse of creativity and seat-of-the-pants improvisation. More concept art shows the evolution of the tauntaun, which started out as a kind of weird lizard.

10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

1. Yoda was originally named Buffy. No, really. In Lucas’ earliest outlines for the sequel, Luke meets a supernatural entity named Buffy, or Bunden Debannen. Here’s how Lucas described it:

Buffy very old — three or four thousand years. Kiber crystal in sword? Buffy shows Luke? Buffy the guardian. “Feel not think.”

And Lucas concludes by saying Luke will become the chosen one, “the human Buffy.” In later drafts, he thought of Yoda as a kind of small frog, and Yoda had a full name: Minch Yoda.

In the earliest script draft, Minch has the immortal line: “Skywalker. Skywalker. And why do you come to walk my sky, with the sword of a Jedi knight?… I remember another Skywalker.”

2. Lucas considered having a scene where Luke’s face gets injured. Mark Hamill was injured in a car accident in 1977, and his face had to be reconstructed — so for a while, Lucas planned on including a sequence where Luke’s face is damaged, and we see it getting patched up by a droid. This got as far as filming — there’s a set picture showing the droid bandaging Luke’s face — but was cut out of the movie.

3. Luke’s journey to becoming a Jedi Knight would have had a lot more bumps. One idea that got tossed around a lot in the early stages of planning ESB was the notion that Luke’s lightsaber had a crystal hidden in the hilt, with secret encrypted information on it — including the coordinates of Minch Yoda’s planet. And Luke would have been “humiliated” when he couldn’t use the Force to stop an attack by a bunch of ice monsters on the rebel’s Hoth base. (With Han telling Luke, “You’re not a Jedi knight, and you never will be.”) Meanwhile, Darth Vader senses that Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star and there’s a new wannabe Jedi in town — so Vader uses telepathy to choke Luke in his spacecraft, nearly killing him — except that R2-D2 jumps the ship into hyperspace and takes it to Yoda’s planet.

4. We could have visited other planets. Possibly including a “water planet,” with an underwater city, and a “city planet,” with the whole planet built over. And at one point, Lucas considered having a visit to the Wookiee home world (some of which ended up in the Christmas special), and Ralph McQuarrie did some concept art of a young Chewbacca. (Also, Lando Calrissian’s home would have been the planet Hoth — not the ice world, but another planet named Hoth — and there might have been a whole alien race living there. And in one early draft, Lando was a clone warrior, one of the many clans of clone fighters left over from the wars.)

5. Darth Vader would have had a castle. And it would have been an evil fortress — in some versions, it’s surrounded by lava, and full of gargoyles who are Vader’s pets.

6. Vader wasn’t Luke’s father at first. In Leigh Brackett’s first script draft, Luke meets his real dad, who says he sent away Luke and his secret sister for their own safety. (Luke’s sister has been training to be a Jedi knight in secret, just as Luke has.) And Papa Skywalker administers the oath of a Jedi Knight to Luke, in which Ben, Minch, Anakin and Luke cross lightsabers, and Luke swears to “dedicate my life to the cause of freedom and justice.”

7. The Luke-Leia-Han love triangle is a much bigger deal in earlier drafts of the script. It’s at the root of Luke’s struggles for self-respect and his humiliations. When Darth Vader is trying to win Luke over to the Dark Side in the second draft, written by Lucas himself, Vader says, “You’re in love with Leia. You don’t want to lose her to Han Solo…. But you will, if you lack the courage to use the strength that’s in you. A strength as great as mine, Luke.” And then at the end, Leia flat-out tells Luke that he’s not the one she loves, because she’s into Han. Also in this version, Han doesn’t get frozen in carbonite — instead, he just flies off to take care of business, leaving Luke and Leia watching the Millennium Falcon disappear.

8. The film posed unique challenges for special effects and model work. Darth Vader had a new Star Destroyer, which was supposed to be 16 miles long! And they built a full-size Millennium Falcon, which was 65 feet wide and 80 feet long. Also, ILM had to start a new stop-motion animation department just to make the Imperial Walkers and tauntauns work. (They tried a man-in-a-suit tauntaun, with “hilarious if not film-worthy results.”) And then there’s the challenge of Yoda — as we reported the other day, they considered everything from a monkey in a mask to a small child or little person to play the Jedi sage, before deciding to go with Frank Oz’s puppetry.

9. Stanley Kubrick nearly killed the movie. Empire was sharing studio space with The Shining, and there was a huge fire that burned down Stage 3 at Elstree Studios, destroying The Shining’s sets. That meant that Empire had to give up some of its own studio space, and The Shining went way over schedule, especially as Kubrick used the delay as an excuse to rethink his own movie. “Timewise, it is doubtful the picture will recover,” one crewmember wrote at the time.

10. Miss Piggy had a cameo in one of Yoda’s first scenes in rehearsal. When Mark Hamill first met Frank Oz, he asked him to do a brief Miss Piggy cameo during rehearsals on set, as a practical joke — but when the time came much later, it caught even Hamill off-guard. During one scene, Yoda tells Luke to follow his feelings. Luke protests that he has followed his feelings — and suddenly, Frank Oz whips out a Miss Piggy puppet, saying, “Feelings? You want feelings? Get behind the couch and I’ll show you feelings, punk. What is this hole? I’ve been booked into dumps before, but never like this. Get me my agent on the phone!”

Send an email to Charlie Jane Anders, the author of this post, at charliejane@io9.com.

Tags: George Lucas, io9, Mark Hamill, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back

30 years after 'Empire,' Boba Fett strikes back in a big way

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-03-25-empirestrikes25_CV_N.htm

30 years after 'Empire,' Boba Fett strikes back in a big way
"He had that Clint Eastwood vibe to him": In The Clone Wars cartoon airing in April on The Cartoon Network, a teenage Boba Fett leads a motley crew of bounty hunters.
By Anthony Breznican, USA TODAY
3-25-10

The upcoming 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back is turning into a fete for Fett.

Boba Fett, the galaxy's most fearsome bounty hunter, was just a supporting character in the original Star Wars sequel, but his cult-favorite status has placed the masked mercenary at center stage in plans to commemorate the movie, which opened May 21, 1980.

There will be new toys, a convention and special screenings hosted around the world. But the biggest development: A teenage version of Fett will appear next month in the popular Cartoon Network show The Clone Wars, bridging the generational gap between fans of the original trilogy and kids reared largely on the prequels.

Who is he? That question is what makes him so popular.

Mostly silent, his face hidden behind a sinister helmet, he wore green Mandalorian armor (a race of Star Wars galaxy warriors) and seemed to unnerve even Darth Vader. "No disintegrations!" Vader warned him in Empire— the context of which still remains a mystery.

As fans guessed at his background, Fett stood out in the film by using cunning and camouflage (in the form of jettisoned space junk) to track the Millennium Falcon, leading Vader to a fugitive Princess Leia in Cloud City, and freezing Han Solo in carbonite as a trophy for gangster Jabba the Hutt.

Much of Empire's heralded dark tone can be laid directly on Boba Fett.

"Well, he started out as a character in the famed Christmas special," notes George Lucas, referring to the comically bad 1978 TV program — which he has since hidden away like an awkward high-school prom photo.

"I thought the idea of a storm trooper-ish kind of guy with rocket packs who was actually a hero — not just a nameless, faceless guy — had a chance for pizzazz. So, we made an über-storm trooper and I called him Boba Fett. I liked the idea that he was a bounty hunter and carried six-shooters. ... After the (Christmas show), we put him in the films. And then after that, he became more and more of a popular character."

The special featured Fett as a cartoon. He wouldn't appear in live action until two years later, when Empire premiered. Meanwhile, kids who collected Star Wars action figures could mail in proof-of-purchase tags to get a free Fett toy.

Dave Filoni, now the supervising director of The Clone Wars, still remembers getting his. "It came to my house in a little white box," he says. "I knew this had to be the coolest guy in the Star Wars universe — and he hadn't even done anything yet!"

When the movie finally revealed Fett as a villain — merciless, but still mysterious — the character stood out even among Yoda, the tiny, ancient, alien Jedi; gambler-turned-politician Lando Calrissian; and the film's big revelation — Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.

"It speaks to individuality," Filoni says. "The storm troopers look cool, but they're all the same. Boba Fett looked like he'd been through a lot, like he must have a lot of stories. He had that Clint Eastwood vibe to him."

Filoni kept that in mind when bringing Fett into The Clone Wars. The character begins on the show April 23 and continues in the season finale April 30.

"What makes Boba Fett interesting is the mystery," Filoni says. "So I'm very careful about how much we reveal. When you watch the movies later, even if you've seen all the Clone Wars episodes, the mystique is still there. It's not like I'll turn on all the lights in the room."

Some clues have emerged

But after three decades, countless Lucasfilm novels, short stories, comic books, video games, and three feature-film prequels, fans finally know much, much more about Fett's origin.

In 2002's Attack of the Clones, it was revealed that the storm troopers are all replicas of one notoriously tough bounty hunter, Jango Fett (actor Temuera Morrison). Boba, it turns out, is also a clone — but one created without the subservience of the others, and raised by Jango as his son.

We last saw the child Boba (played by Daniel Logan, who voices the character in The Clone Wars cartoon) utterly alone, staring contemplatively into the face of his slain father's helmet.

What does he want in the animated series? "If there's one word: revenge," Logan says.

That's bad news for the Jedi, who took out his double-dealing old man. But it could be good news for real-life fathers and their kids by uniting older fans with the young in a shared appreciation for all things Fett.

Star Wars superfan Tom Pniewski, 44, co-host of the podcast We Talk Clones, says his 10-year-old son is a big Commander Cody fan (a major character from the cartoon) but hasn't developed the same appreciation for the beloved bounty hunter.

"Bringing Boba Fett on as a 12-year-old and 13-year-old means those tweens can catch on to him and attach to the character," Pniewski says. "For me, he doesn't need the explanation. But maybe for this generation he does need that."

As much as fans crave a return of the character, there's an inherent risk, too. "Their love is so profound that it almost becomes like this is sacred text. When you start messing with that, even when the creator starts messing with that, the fans take it personally," says Alexandre O. Philippe, director of the new documentary The People vs. George Lucas, about the love-hate relationship some hard-core Star Wars fans have with the franchise.

However, if Fett's appearance on The Clone Wars manages to please both old and young, Philippe says, "that would be great! But (older) fans have been so cranky for so long, it's difficult to figure out how they'll react."

Man behind the mask

One older fan who is curious about the new Fett story line is Jeremy Bulloch, the English actor who brought Fett to life in Empire and Return of the Jedi.

All of the character's back story is news to him. "I never had a script!" Bulloch says. He was just given his lines on the set and instructed to look menacing.

"The least you do with a character like Boba Fett, the stronger he is," Bulloch says. "He moves in a very slow way. Like a snake, a cobra. He stands up — then he strikes, and it's all over. And he goes back into this pose."

Boba Fett is one of the veteran character actor's smallest roles, but it has made him famous the world over. Bulloch credits three things for the popularity:

•The costume, which includes a grappling hook and wrist-mounted flame-thrower, not to mention that famous rocket pack. "And he has Wookiee braids," Bulloch says. "It's like a scalp, like the Indians. He just hangs them over his shoulder." They are never explained, but suggest bad things could be possible for Chewbacca and his kind.

•The prey, specifically the smart-aleck smuggler played by Harrison Ford, who owes galactic gangsters more money than his life is worth. "Of course Boba Fett captures Han Solo, so he gains respect for that," Bulloch says.

•The backtalk. Not only does Vader seem wary of Fett's recklessness, but he also gets scolded by the bounty hunter when Fett fears he will kill Solo instead of turning him over as a prize. "Not many people do that and get away with their lives," Bulloch says with a laugh.

While the costume made Fett iconic, it was horribly awkward to wear. Much of the character's trademark stillness came from the heaviness of the suit. "My main aim was to stand upright," Bulloch says. "It looked so cool, but to wear it was unbearable."

That's another thing many fans have come to appreciate over time. Adam Homan, 38, a metal sculptor from Tucson who has been a life-long Star Wars fan, recalled making his own Boba Fett armor for a Halloween party when he was a college student.

"At the end, I made my way to the door, saying goodbye to people, and there was this little table by the door with all these Hummel figurines and collectibles. And as I turn to leave, the jetpack just sweeps across this table — and smash," he says.

No one was interested in telling Boba Fett it was no big deal. "This gal was on her knees on the floor, trying to piece them together with her hands, saying, 'These were my grandmother's!' "

In that moment, a childhood wish returned — flight. "There was no way to play it cool," Homan says. "If the rocket pack had actually worked, I would have just fired right out of there."

Zappa Meets Kirby

http://royalflushmagazine.com/2009/10/13/zappa_meets_kirby/

World’s Finest – Royal Flush 6 Exclusive!
Step inside the Fourth World as we relive that one magical day when…
FRANK ZAPPA met JACK KIRBY !
by Jeff Newelt • Illustration by Rick Veitch • Photos by Michael James Zuccaro
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009

I’ve always been a sucker for the big teamup: Superman / Shazam. Hulk / Thing. chocolate & peanut butter. So when I came across a photo of Jack Kirby and Frank Zappa embracing finally, my synapses started firing like FBI at Waco.

Were they friends? Did they hang? Play action figures together? WTF! I had to know.

For those not so in-the-know as us ubergeekanoids, Jack Kirby was the visionary artist who created The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, Thor, Silver Surfer, Captain America…the Marvel universe sprang forth from his (and writer Stan Lee’s) head. In the ’70s, Jack went solo, rocking out idiosyncratic cosmic characters – the New Gods, Omac, Forever People, Eternals, Devil Dinosaur, Kamandi, Demon, all nutty, jazzy, psychedelically mythic stuff.

Frank Zappa was a musical iconoclast and genius composer/producer/guitar player. He wove together humor, avant-garde classical guitar-rock, doo-wop, dada, jazz-fusion, and political satire, hired the badass-est musicians, and rolled with world leaders like Czech playwright/philosopher Vaclav Havel. His songs are like audio comic books, hypervisual with colorful characters and scenarios like “Camarillo Brillo,” which includes the lines “She had a snake for a pet / and an amulet / and she was breeding a dwarf / But she wasn’t done yet / She had gray-green skin / A doll with a pin / I told her she was awright / But I couldn’t come in.” Sounds just like a character out of Kirby’s Demon.

Jack and Frank, both universe builders, one music, the other, comics. But what was the connection?

Fast-forward to present day. I’m at a conference in New Mexico teaching social media to female entrepreneurs, and one lady says, “Yer not one of those comics people, are you? My husband’s one, Steve Sherman.” D’OH! Steve Sherman was one of Kirby’s fabled assistants! I reached out to Steve and turns out Jack and Frank Zappa were not only pals, but also essentially neighbors. How was this friendship kept secret so long?

A mere week later, I wind up having drinks with fellow Flusher Paul Pope and none other than Frank’s youngest son, Ahmet Zappa! We learned all about Kingdom Comics, the new graphic novel line Ahmet is helming for Disney.

Contextual rewind: Not just a comics impresario, Ahmet’s been rocking in different media since he was a wee young lad. He was lead singer/songwriter in Z, a band he formed with his brother Dweezil in the early ’90s, an actor on Roseanne and Growing Pains and in films such as Pump up the Volume and Jack Frost, and most recently hosted VH1’s But Can They Sing?

So I had to show Ahmet my Blackberry screensaver, the image I had found of his dad and Jack together, and Ahmet goes, “Whoa, I never saw that! That’s in my living room… Jack would come over and smoke cigars and Frank would smoke cigarettes, and they’d talk and talk.”

One of the things Frank and Jack had in common: the prodigious amount of cosmic goodness that extruded from their respective noggins was not the result of drugs; they both enjoyed tobaccy but only the unwacky. We had other stuff to discuss that evening, so I made Ahmet promise to reconnect ASAP to spill the magic beans on this egregiously undocumented duo. And he kept his promise.

Ahmet, one of four Zappa kids, the other three being Moon Unit (the oldest), Dweezil (second oldest), and Diva (youngest), was always into superheroes his entire life.

“I loved Spider-man; it’s the jam,” gushed Ahmet. “My dad loved comics and was the first to advertise rock n’ roll in comics, for We’re Only In It For The Money [in Fantastic Four #72, 1968, Natch!]. My mother made Dweezil and I costumes of Spider-Man and The Mighty Thor.”
The son of a gregarious rock star, Ahmet grew up meeting every celebrity musician under the sun. But it wasn’t a rocker who gave Ahmet that first feeling of being around greatness. “I was not starstruck at all by rock stars because music is its own language and my father spoke it, so we spoke it,” Ahmet explains matter-of-factly. “This totally demystified the fame or the celebrity. There was no currency for ‘oooh, that guy sold a million records, we just cared about good music. One of the most significant moments in my life is when my dad said, ‘meet Jack, he’s the guy who created all those superheroes you love.’ That blew my little mind. I thought it was awesome and weird that my dad had this friendship with this guy. It was like meeting like a real magician!”

And Jack brought some presents for the kids, but oddly, they weren’t comics. “Actually, he first came over with these Mr. Men books, you know Mr. Tickle, Mr. Impossible… I thought they were fantastic, and was like ‘did you do these too?’ Weird. Dunno why he brought those instead of his own books, but later, of course, he wound up giving us comics too. Jack gave me this Silver Surfer book. I didn’t know what to make of this silver dude on a surfboard; it didn’t make any sense but, he was super cool. This was around the time Empire came out and was HUGE [1981 –ed.], and I remember Jack confided in Frank that he felt like the stories he created helped shape the Star Wars saga, that he saw direct parallels between his characters and the movie’s story arcs.”

Of all rock stars in the world, Zappa, famously an outspoken champion of free speech and artist’s rights, was the ultimate sympathetic ear.

“He told my dad stuff like, ‘Darth Vader was Doctor Doom and the Force is the Source’ and that George Lucas ripped him off. Now this you may not know, and I was only a kid, but I remember learning at the dinner table that my dad was asked to write the music for Star Wars; he turned it down, he said he wasn’t interested. That would’ve been really strange, the lives of us Star Wars fans woulda taken a different turn and that whole score woulda sounded like Tatooine Cantina music.”

Two powerful worlds that happened to collide one special night in 1981. A friendship began and a mutual bond was formed. These two titans are now sadly no longer with us, but their spirit lives on now through their family keeping tradition alive.

The only regret, Royal Flush readers, is that we’ll never get to visit the parallel universe where Frank Zappa actually got to score Star Wars. The place called the Fourth World. ?

Darth Vader 'comment' to Luke Skywalker

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/5304310/Darth-Vader-comment-to-Luke-Skywalker-is-most-misquoted-film-phrase.html

Darth Vader 'comment' to Luke Skywalker is most misquoted film phrase
A comment supposedly made by Darth Vader to Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars trilogy has topped a list of phrases most often misquoted by film fans.
10 May 2009

The words "Luke, I am your father" are familiar to millions of fans of the George Lucas films.

They are widely believed to have been uttered by Darth Vader when he confronts Luke Skywalker in the Empire Strikes Back - but in fact they do not feature in the film.

Second place in the poll was taken by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, with the evil Queen's quote 'Mirror, mirror, on the wall - who is the fairest of them all?'.

The actual line begins 'Magic Mirror, on the wall'.

In third place in the poll of 1,500 film fans, by LOVEFiLM.com, was Dirty Harry - played by Clint Eastwood - saying "Do you feel lucky, punk?"

In fact, he says "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya punk?"

And while "Play it again Sam" may be forever linked with Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart's actual line is "You played it for her, you can play it for me. If she can stand it, I can. Play it!"

Fifth was Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs, who did not say "Hello Clarice" but instead said "Good evening, Clarice".

Star Trek's Captain Kirk did not say "Beam me up, Scotty", with the closest he ever came to this phrase was a less pithy "Scotty, beam us up".

Darren Bignell, Communications Manager for LOVEFiLM, said: "Iconic film lines are part of everyone's vocabulary these days, but it's interesting how years of quoting have had a Chinese whisper effect on accuracy."

The Top Ten Movie Misquotes (below in misquoted form) were as follows:

1. "Luke, I am your father" - Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

2. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?" - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

3. "Do you feel lucky, punk?" - Dirty Harry (1971)

4. "Play it again, Sam" - Casablanca (1942)

5. "Hello, Clarice" - Silence of the Lambs (1991)

6. "Beam me up, Scotty!" - Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

7. "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn" - Gone with the Wind (1939)

8. "If you build it, they will come" - Field of Dreams (1989)

9. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto" - The Wizard of Oz (1939)

10. "Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?" - The Graduate (1967)

Force is strong for Jedi police

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8003067.stm

Thursday, 16 April 2009
Force is strong for Jedi police

Eight police officers serving with Scotland's largest force listed their official religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms, it has emerged.

Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which features in the Star Wars movies.

The details were obtained in a Freedom of Information request by Jane's Police Review.

Strathclyde was the only force in the UK to admit it had Jedi officers.

In the Star Wars films, Jedi Knights such as Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda use the Force to battle the evil Darth Vader, who has strayed to the dark side.

Jane's Police Review editor Chris Herbert, who requested the information, said: "The Force appears to be strong in Strathclyde Police with their Jedi police officers and staff.

"Far from living a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, some members of the noble Jedi order have now chosen Glasgow and its surrounding streets as their home."

Provided voluntarily

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police confirmed: "At the time of the request, 10 (eight police officers and two police staff) had recorded their religion as Jedi."

She added that the force monitored "six strands of diversity" - age, disability, gender, race religion and belief, and sexual orientation.

The force said the information was provided voluntarily and securely stored.

About 390,000 people listed their religion as Jedi in the 2001 Census for England and Wales. In Scotland the figure was a reported 14,000.

The Office for National Statistics did not recognise it as a separate category, and incorporated followers of Jedi with atheists.

Last year, brothers Barney and Daniel Jones founded the UK Church of the Jedi - which offered sermons on the Force, light sabre training, and meditation techniques.

Strathclyde Police employs 8,200 police officers and 2,800 civilian staff.

Star Wars: Episode 3.5?

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1823817,00.html

Thursday, Jul. 17, 2008
Star Wars: Episode 3.5?
By AP/DERRIK J. LANG

Consider it Star Wars III and a Half — complete with a pivotal plot twist.

When LucasArts releases Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Sept. 16, the video game will serve as George Lucas' official median between 2005's Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith and 1977's Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. In the game, players become Darth Vader's secret apprentice and use The Force to hunt the remaining Jedi.

Force Unleashed allows gamers use supercharged Force powers to bust through objects, wield a lightsaber, blast lighting bolts and fling around foes. The game will also change the way fans view Episode IV through Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, LucasArts project lead Haden Blackman told The Associated Press at the E3 Business and Media Summit.

"There's a couple of big twists and turns in the story," said Blackman. "One revelation in particular really impacts the rest of the saga as a whole. It goes way beyond filling in gaps. We try to make a bridge on every level. The story has a real implications on Episode IV. In some ways, without the apprentice, Episode IV couldn't happen."

Versions of The Force Unleashed will be available on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2. Blackman and his team worked with Lucas to craft the original saga, which mixes both pre-established elements from the Star Wars universe as well as new characters, locales and details from game developers.

"We pitched a number of different story ideas and concepts to him," said Blackman. "With him, we picked and chose the strongest elements. As we worked on The Force Unleashed, he encouraged us to create new characters as well use existing characters. He told us, 'If you're going to use Vader, that's fine, but here's how you can use him.'"

In the first level, players will plow through the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk as Darth Vader. Subsequent levels find players serving as Vader's apprentice and traveling to such locales as a TIE Fighter construction facility, the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, the overgrown planet of Felucia and back to an Empire ravaged Kashyyyk.

"Story-wise, we left some openings for a sequel," said Blackman. "The concept of 'The Force Unleashed' could be taken in any direction. We could potentially do a Force Unleashed game set in a different Star Wars time period with a new storyline. We were definitely cognizant to leave some doors open at the end."

Lucas will premiere the new computer-animated film Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which takes place between Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones and Episode III, on Aug. 10. The film will be pegged to a new weekly animated TV series as well as new Clone Wars video games for both the Nintendo DS and the Wii.

How's `Hancock' stack up among movie twists?

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/ap/20080707/121543770000.html

How's `Hancock' stack up among movie twists?
Monday July 7, 2008

A Will Smith movie packs in millions of people over Fourth of July weekend. No surprises there.

Yet Smith's "Hancock," the tale of an anti-social boozer who happens to be a superhero, comes with an abrupt plot twist, one that has divided critics and the moviegoing public in the real world (Critics and everyone else can't agree. Now there's a real surprise).

For those who have yet to see "Hancock," we won't give the secret away, but it has something to do with why Charlize Theron's soccer-mom-style character doesn't want Smith's surly superhero anywhere near her family.

Critics generally thought the turn the movie takes halfway through was a cheat, spoiling what had been a promising idea that was a fresh twist on the superhero genre in its own right.

The people who turned "Hancock" into an instant blockbuster beg to differ to the sum of $185 million worldwide at the box office in just a few days.

The plot twist in "Hancock" won't go down in cinema history alongside Darth Vader revealing he's Luke Skywalker's pappy in "The Empire Strikes Back" or Anthony Perkins turning out to be a slasher in his mom's housedress in "Psycho."

However, it does give us a chance to buzz once more about the really great curve balls and maybe a wild pitch or two that Hollywood has tossed our way.

Here's a look at some of the most memorable screen surprises, in no particular order:

MY GIRL: Has there ever been a stranger what-the-heck moment than the revelation that the enticing woman Stephen Rea lusts after in "The Crying Game" really is a guy? The dreamlike gotcha gesture delivered from beyond by Forest Whitaker's character was directed as much at male audiences everywhere who had to hit the reset button on their manhood after falling for Jaye Davidson as a hot new screen goddess only to learn he shared their XY chromosome makeup.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS US: How do you turn an utterly forgettable movie into one for the ages? Let Charlton Heston learn that the super-food of the future is made of humans so he can bellow "Soylent Green is PE-E-E-OPLE!" And don't forget the "Saturday Night Live" skit about a "Soylent Green" sequel where Phil Hartman impersonates Heston, learning that the powers that be didn't change the recipe like they promised, so he can holler "It's still PE-E-E-OPLE!"

HEAD IN THE SAND: Heston gets to curse out humanity in general in "Planet of the Apes" as he stumbles on the noggin of the Statue of Liberty lying on the beach and realizes he's been on Earth all along but in the distant future, after his species has blown itself up. Tim Burton's remake substitutes a terrible twist as astronaut Mark Wahlberg makes it off the simian world and returns to his planet, only to find a monkey named "Ape Lincoln" sitting on the Lincoln Memorial.

POOR BRUCE IS DEAD: With "Breakfast of Champions" and "The Story of Us," Bruce Willis' career might have been dead. But M. Night Shyamalan kept him alive by killing him off in the opening moments of "The Sixth Sense" but concealing that fact so completely that movie-goers were shocked into seeing the flick again and again after they learned he was a ghost. Audiences were somewhat less than shocked with Shyamalan and Willis' next surprise ending superheroes are real! in "Unbreakable."

READY FOR MY SHOWER, MR. HITCHCOCK: Perkins as his own mother has enduring shock value, but Alfred Hitchcock pulled a true stunner earlier in "Psycho" as the killer snuffed Janet Leigh, the movie's lead character up to that moment. That's like Dickens having Oliver Twist die of cholera in chapter three. Who do you root for when the heroine gets tossed in the trunk of her car and submerged in a swamp?

KEYSER SPACEY: As prime suspect Gabriel Byrne lay dying near the end of "The Usual Suspects," you just had to wonder "Well if it's not him, who the heck is Keyser Soze?" Watching Kevin Spacey transform from the grubby, gimpy little Verbal Kint into world-class criminal mastermind Soze in the space of one city block is one of those moments that makes you think "Yeah, this is why I like movies."

MY SISTER, MY MOM: Incest turns out to be the stuff of one of cinema's most artful surprises at the end of "Chinatown," when we learn that Faye Dunaway's little sister also is her daughter. And we get to see Jack Nicholson slap the information out of her repeatedly in a climax that's nothing short of a gut-punch.

MISSION IMPERTINENT: Speaking of slaps in the face, arguably the worst plot twist ever comes in Tom Cruise's first "Mission: Impossible" tale. Millions grew up watching Peter Graves' noble Jim Phelps run the Impossible Mission Force on the small screen. So when Jon Voight's Phelps turns out to be the bad guy in Cruise's version, it was disrespectful of both the source material and its fans. Why didn't Cruise just play Phelps himself, but as the hero everyone remembered the character for? Maybe Cruise was afraid that, like Graves, he would wind up hosting episodes of "Biography" in his golden years.

The Greatest Five Seconds in Movie History

http://www.matchflick.com/column/1640

The Greatest Five Seconds in Movie History
by Bobby B.

"No. I am your father."
-- Darth Vader, The Empire Strikes Back

It is difficult -- if not impossible -- to understand the impact these five words had on all of popular culture back in 1980. They were spoken, of course, by one of the cultural icons of the last half of the twentieth century; the modern fairy-tale symbol of all that is evil; the ultimate cinematic bad-ass; Darth Vader. And when a stunned Luke Skywalker heard these words his expression of shock, horror and disbelief found millions of reflections in the faces of the audience that bore witness to this awe-inspiring revelation. There has never and will never be another moment like it in the history of film.

Nearly thirty years later the phenomenon that is Star Wars is taken for granted. Young people today don't know and older people don't remember that there was a time when no one knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father. Nowadays that moment in cinematic history has become a part of our social fabric. I would venture to guess that everyone reading this has uttered those five words (probably altered erroneously to include a sixth – as in "No Luke, I am your father") in their deepest baritone at some point in their lives. Take a moment: can you think of anyone who does not know where those five words come from or who it was that said them? Someone may or may not know who Michael Corleone is, or Iago, Sauron, or the White Witch; but everyone knows Darth Vader. People who have never seen any of the Star Wars movies (I hear there are such people, poor, sick, twisted souls) are cognizant of Luke Skywalker's dark lineage by sheer cultural osmosis. But it goes deeper than that. Those five words were much more than a powerful twist in the ultimate fantasy flick. That sentence changed movies and by extension, America, forever. More than any other film THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is responsible for the American tradition of the summer blockbuster. It wasn't the first. GONE WITH THE WIND, THE SOUND OF MUSIC, and THE GODFATHER had all been massive in their day. And then there was JAWS, and STAR WARS changing the game altogether.

Released at the beginning of summer, they put up numbers never before seen. This was a result not just of the films themselves, but the changing face of marketing. Still these two spectacular hits were surprises, first-timers, phenoms unto themselves. The release of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK stirred in a new ingredient...anticipation. Springing directly out of the hype machine and story momentum of the first film, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK opened to a blockbuster reception. The world had spent three years waiting for it. Slated to be The Event for the summer of 1980, everyone wanted to be a part of it. We had rushed to see JAWS and STAR WARS because we'd heard they were great but we'd penciled in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK on our calendars because we knew it was coming...and thus a tradition was born.

This had everything to do of course, with the impact of STAR WARS. Movies are our societal dreams, the creative manipulation of our collective sub-conscious. In the 1970's America had started out having a difficult time of it. We had lost a war for the first time – a war we weren't even sure we should be participating in. A president had resigned in disgrace. Symbols of hope from the decade before – Martin Luther King, Che Guevara, Bobby Kennedy – had been assassinated and the civil rights movements for Black and Native Americans, women, and homosexuals seemed to have crashed on the reefs of the Me Generation. And the films of the Seventies reflected this new, bruised and battered

reality: CHINATOWN, THE FRENCH CONNECTION, TAXI DRIVER, SAVE THE TIGER, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, THE DEER HUNTER, THE EXORCIST, even THE GODFATHER. Though these films were often brilliant they didn't provide relief from an increasingly complex, frustrating and dangerous reality. America had needed a break, an escape. And STAR WARS had provided.

STAR WARS drew on the literary and mythic traditions of Joseph Campbell, Beowulf and King Arthur, among others, as well as the cinematic traditions of Westerns and Flash Gordon serials. It was a new movie that touched something old within us, something primal. The simplified positing of conflict between two stark extremes – Good and Evil – had in itself been a relief from the moral ambiguities of the day. It felt like a throwback to an earlier era, the days of Once Upon a Time, a period when there were clear answers to tough questions, our memory of an age that probably never existed. Child-like, but not childish, its stunning special effects dazzled kids and cynical adults alike. Perhaps most importantly Star Wars provided a lot of fun at a time when that was what everyone needed. And it was HUGE. Even though we now live in the Age of the Blockbuster, STAR WARS is still one of the highest grossing films of all time. Everyone saw it. Everyone knew the story. Everyone knew what a light saber was. We hummed the music on the playground. "May the Force be with you" became the phrase of the day. Republicans and Democrats sat side by side, mouths agape, in like wonderment during the cantina scene. A Jew and a Muslim were both enthralled by the awesome sight and voice of Darth Vader. Young people and old gripped their chairs on the roller-coaster ride culminating in the exhilarating destruction of the Death Star. For two hours, people of every culture, color and race forgot their differences and had a blast. STAR WARS had, in effect, engendered a cinematic community that wasn't bound by borders or ideologies or even culture.

The full potential of the social impact of film had been stunningly realized in one stroke and it was more than anyone could have imagined. Groups of human beings often function as a single organism in behavior and this newly formed Star Wars community had been no different. Having had one blast of ecstasy the whole world now waited for its next fix. And that was THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Adding to the anticipation was that it took years for the next one to come along. Almost before the first film ended there was a rumor that there was going to be a second one. But there was nothing for a while, only speculation. And then speculation became more concrete. Quite deliberately it was leaked that a sequel was in production. Movie buffs, science fiction geeks, children, even professionals over their water coolers hotly debated the title and plot of the new film. Everybody else was drawn in when the marketing campaign began anew.

(STAR WARS had changed the face of movie marketing and maybe marketing in general. It was perhaps, the first movie ever to become a full fledged corporation. There were toys, lunch boxes, comics, cartoons, books, clothes, games, you name it – that carried the STAR WARS name or image. Thirty years later this is old hat. But in the late 1970's this was something new. I was too young to realize that I should have been terrified.)

So we were all waiting. The story, the characters, the marketing campaign, the time period had all combined to create a perfect storm of anticipation. Whatever else was going on in your community in the summer of 1980 you knew that one thing you were going to do, one thing that most people in most communities across the United

States were going to do, we were all going to go see THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

I was twelve that year. My family was in transit. My dad was in the military and we had spent three years on a little island, Terceira, out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. That summer was a good one. We were visiting my mother's family in San Antonio, Texas and if you've ever been to Texas in the summertime you know that it's blistering. Temperatures were in the hundreds. You could see the heat coming off of the street. Summertime in San Antonio was about snow cones and dirt, baseball and ice cream, watching flamenco dancing on the riverside and dashing from one air conditioner to the other. We went to Six Flags and I rode a bigger, meaner roller coaster than I had ever ridden before. We went to the zoo and rode on elephants. We saw family we hadn't seen in years. And we planned to go see THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. It was the first movie anyone ever did that for. The weekend it opened people packed to go see the movie because they were going to have to wait in line...for hours. They brought lawn chairs and comic books, squirt guns and games to play. We brought a bunch of quarters because the age of Star Wars had also ushered in another technological and social phenomenon -- video games. This was also the dawn of the age of the multiplex. And once you made it to the ticket booth you probably weren't buying tickets for the next showing but the one after that or the one after that. Before movie theaters had one, two or three screens. Now for the first time there were epic movie houses with screens in the double digits. THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK was showing on six different screens and we still had to wait. But we were cool with that because it was a festival atmosphere. I went with my sister and my cousins but it was like we were friends with everybody who was there and it seemed like there were a million people there. People were playing Frisbee in the parking lot, sitting under umbrellas on the sidewalk, eating lunch in the back of their pickup trucks. Everybody was happy and excited. Everyone was talking about the movie and what they hoped to see. Everyone was an expert on the nature of the Force and the intricacies of being a Jedi. We were all waiting to see Yoda who was already a household name and face due to marketing. And when we finally, finally – not after hours of waiting or even days, but after years of waiting – were sitting in our seats staring up at the screen about to find out what happened to all of our friends, Luke and Leia, Han Solo and Chewbacca, R-2 D-2 and C3PO...it was as sweet a moment of anticipation as any we'd experienced.

And it was awesome. I have heard since that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK opened to mixed reviews when it first came out. All I can say is I was completely unaware of anyone not liking the movie and frankly, sometimes people think too much. From the opening scenes on the ice planet Hoth, to the romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia, to the training of Luke by master Yoda, to the introduction of Lando Calrissian and the Cloud City THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK expanded and deepened the first film and it did it with the same flair and excitement. Thrilling events tumble over each other: the fight with the Wampa, the thunderous battle with the Empire in the ice when the rebels were forced to escape, Luke's pilgrimage to Dagobah, the chase through the asteroid belt, the finding of the Cloud City.

And then, of course, there was the climactic light-saber duel between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, the fight that everyone wanted to see, the real-deal showdown between Good and Evil we all knew was coming. And it went the only way it could go really. Luke putting up a good showing but really fighting a fight he could not win. We all knew that. After all, this was Darth Vader, the coolest cat in the Universe, a dude so bad he could choke you to death with a dirty look from behind his black helmet. But Luke showed skill, courage, heart. And then it happened. Beaten, helpless, with his back against the wall (or rather, hanging over a giant air-shaft) Luke finds himself facing the personification of cinematic evil on a slender bridge. We all knew Luke wasn't going to die but what was going to happen? How was he going to get out of this mess? And then, out of nowhere, a curve ball: Darth Vader for whatever reason decides to bring up Luke's father:

Darth Vader: Obi Wan never told you what happened to your father.

Luke: He told me enough. He told me you killed him.

We all knew that. Like Luke we learned it from the venerable Obi-Wan Kenobi -- Luke's mentor, a man who'd sacrificed himself to save Luke and his friends -- in the previous movie. And then it happened, the words none of us ever imagined we would hear:

Vader: No. I am your father.

WWWWHHHHHAAAAAAAATTTT??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?

It was electrifying, seismic, a bombshell. Looking back it was as though two hundred million movie-goers all audibly gasped at the same time. Certainly, everyone in the theater I was in did. And the next time I saw it and the next time after that. It was an ultimate story-telling moment in our ultimate story-telling medium; absolute, perfect, completing a perfect circle that made pure emotional sense. And it had been building up for three years, we had all been waiting for just this moment – and none of us had known it.

For one five-second sliver of time (I'm counting the four seconds Vader took to say the words and the immediate next second of shock on Luke's face) we were all one mind, one heart, frozen. It was epic.

There have been a hundred -- a thousand truly great moments in film history: the ending of CASABLANCA, when Dorothy first sees Oz in THE WIZARD OF OZ, Orson Welles entrance in THE THIRD MAN or when Atticus Finch leaves the courtroom for the last time in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, to name a tiny, tiny few. And I don't know that THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is a great film in the way these other films are great. The first three STAR WARS films were a product of zeitgeist, they captured a moment. This was something that George Lucas himself didn't seem to understand with the subsequent STAR WARS films. But there has never been another moment in film history that brought so many people together into the same emotional space and mindset as those five seconds in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK when Darth Vader broke it down reeeeeeeeeeaaaal proper like and let Luke Skywalker know what was really going on.

It didn't take long before you started hearing people saying "Oh, yeah, I knew it all along." and "They didn't fool me.", etc. And you know, maybe some of them did know and maybe some people weren't fooled. If so, it's too bad for them. There are some things more important than being in the know. Those people who "knew" missed out on the greatest five seconds in movie history and one of the greatest moments of community in the Twentieth Century.

Animated 'Star Wars' to hit theaters

http://www.variety.com/VR1117980757.html

Posted: Mon., Feb. 11, 2008
Animated 'Star Wars' to hit theaters
Lucas' 3-D project going bigscreen before small
By DIANE GARRETT

Another "Star Wars" tale is on its way to the bigscreen, but it won't be distributed by Fox.
Lucasfilm has partnered with Warner Bros. Pictures and Turner Broadcasting on "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a 3-D toon that will bow in theaters this August before moving to the smallscreen in the fall. The Aug. 15 feature will set the stage for the spinoff skein, which will bow on Cartoon Network, followed by airings on TNT. International release dates for the feature and TV series are still being set.

Multiplatform project is an expansion of the earlier "Clone Wars" microseries that aired on Cartoon Network. However, Fox's homevid arm released those episodes on DVD, just as it has distributed every "Star Wars" theatrical release since 1977.

Lucasfilm said Warner Bros.' cable and theatrical resources made it an especially good fit for the project. "We're trying to do something unprecedented -- marrying TV series and theatrical release," a rep said.

Under this deal, Warner will release the film and TV skein on DVD.

Warner execs eagerly tracked the project throughout the development process, and decided to give the property a theatrical launch after seeing footage.

"I don't know anyone who wouldn't want it," said Stuart Snyder, president and chief operating officer of Turner Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media, who said a theatrical launch "has always been contemplated as part of the process."

The "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" movie is expected to run around 100 minutes and pick up between episode II and III. Anakin Skywalker is not yet Darth Vader. The story will then continue in 30-minute smallscreen installments.

George Lucas, who has revisited the property and time again over the decades, said he mounted this new spinoff because he "felt there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell." He said he wanted to tell them through animation, pushing the technology forward at the same time.

Lucas serves as exec producer on the project, which will primarily employ voice actors. The only original actors returning are Anthony Daniels as C3PO and Matthew Wood as General Grievous and the battledroids.

Dave Filoni is the helmer. Henry Gilroy, Scott Murphy and Steven Melching are the writers. Catherine Winder is producer.

Lucasfilm Animation has already produced more than 30 episodes in the TV skein, with production continuing in Singapore and Taiwan. On Tuesday, Lucasfilm is launching an online Web docu about the project at Starwars.com.

(David S. Cohen contributed to this report.)

'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' due Aug. 15

http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-clone13feb13,0,6476102.story

'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' due Aug. 15
The computer-animated film will act as a feature-length preview for George Lucas' new cable television series.
By Geoff Boucher
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 13, 2008

First "Indiana Jones," and now "Star Wars" -- this summer is turning out to be the season of George Lucas.

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a new stylized, computer-animated feature film, will open Aug. 15 in theaters and set the stage for a tie-in television series with the same name and mode of artwork that will begin airing as a 30-minute weekly series in the fall on the Cartoon Network and TNT.

The film and series will center on the wartime tales of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and feature Padme Amidala, Mace Windu, Count Dooku and the other characters introduced in the second trilogy of live-action "Star Wars" films that began in 1999.

For casual fans trying to keep track of the timeline, this film and series would take place after the events of the 2002 movie "Attack of the Clones" and right before those in the grimmer 2005 installment "Revenge of the Sith," which shows Anakin succumbing to the dark side of the Force and donning the black cape of Darth Vader.

"I felt like there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell," Lucas said in a Tuesday press release. "I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of the animation forward."

There already was a 2-D animated series called "Clone Wars" that centered on the conflict between the Jedis of the Republic and separatist groups and their battle droids, but this new film and series will be later in the continuity and have a dramatically different look that melds photo-realistic battle sequences (think of an enhanced, top-flight video game) and stylized characters that sometimes resemble marionettes.

Lucas has also said that he is working toward a live-action television series based in the "Star Wars" universe but that it would not feature the central characters of the iconic franchise, which has grossed $4.3 billion in theaters worldwide. "It's about minor characters," the filmmaker told The Times in October. "It has nothing to do with Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader or any of those people. It's completely different. But it's a good idea, and it's going to be a lot of fun to do."

The other famous franchise associated with Lucas is swinging back this year as well. "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" arrives on Memorial Day and brings the feisty archaeologist of the title back to theaters for the first time since 1989. Lucas, who created the character, is executive producer and shares writing credits with David Koepp. Steven Spielberg returns as the franchise's director.

geoff.boucher@latimes.com