Star Wars

By Christopher Campbell I nearly had a stroke as my inner geek (which looks a lot like my outer geek) heard that Lucasfilm was planning on remastering the Star Wars films in 3D, and that a new Trilogy was planned.

By Christopher Campbell I mean, that definitely looks like some large-scale, intense action, and I’d love to watch the full film, but I’m still not seeing what game it’s changing. It’s only revolutionary if you were in the bathroom during all the over-sized, not-quite-real-looking battles from Star Wars I-III.

By Christopher Campbell We’ll ignore the first Star Wars prequel, because this honestly doesn’t look that terrible. But it does look at least as bad as the latter two films in that trilogy. There’s not really a specific shot to focus on with this one. Just look at any of the busy shots, action scene or otherwise, with al...

By Christopher Campbell Perhaps it sounds outlandish — maybe even as wacky as the story of reptilian aliens lustily devouring cat food while being imprisoned by humans in “District 9” — but Variety reports that Oscar voters are gobbling up the hit sci-fi flick. They’ve only endorsed a few in the past (”Star Wars,”...

By Christopher Campbell By the time the Star Wars prequels arrived, George Lucas had already ruined our childhoods with his re-release of the original trilogy, each film updated with ill-fitting special effects, remastered soundtrack and some plot alterations in order that the trilogy could be “the way it wa...

By Christopher Campbell John at The Movie Blog agrees that prequels aren’t cool, but he’s more optimistic now that Scott’s at the helm: ones were let downs. With prequels, you already know certain things will happen… and certain things won’t happen… which takes a lot out of a story for me…

By Christopher Campbell The other day I took in a triple feature consisting of the following very different films: Shane Meadows’ Somers Town; the political farce In the Loop; and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Two things each of these films did share are they all come from the UK (the last is a co-producti...

By Christopher Campbell “I remember when I saw the trailer for ‘Star Wars.’ I was there. People camped out around the block. I think people recognize when you show them something you’ve never shown them before, something that’s new and fresh. You don’t need a brand.”

By Christopher Campbell Comparing visionary director Kerry Conran to Spielberg and, in other places, George Lucas probably did more to ruin Sky Captain than help it, because that’s some very lofty praise. Sure, the pulp and serial influences made us think of those filmmakers already, but they didn’t raise our e...

By Christopher Campbell Examples: “Tarzan” (numerous Tarzan films); “Mowgli” (numerous Jungle Book films); “Victor, l’enfant sauvage” (The Wild Child); “Nell Kellty” (Nell) Examples: “Hannibal Lecter” (Hannibal Rising, et al.); “Billy Chapman” (Silent Night, Deadly Night); “Annakin Skywalker”/“Dar...

By Christopher Campbell It may be the third episode in the story, but Revenge of the Sith is the sixth installment in the franchise (rather than Return of the Jedi, which is the sixth episode but the third installment). We’ve been chastised previously for favoring Attack of the Clones to this final Star Wars preque...

By Christopher Campbell The most interesting thing about Natalie Portman’s casting in Thor isn’t just her chance to redeem herself from the Star Wars prequels — it’s what her role tells us about the Thunder God’s surprising status in the movie…this probably means we’ll be seeing a lot of Thor’s human alter ego, D...

By Christopher Campbell It would be downright asinine of me to use the word “good” to describe both the G.I. Joe trailer with the new trailer for the sci-fi flick District 9, which I think we can all agree looks definitively “good.”  It also appears to be science fiction, have aliens, action scenes but also a coherent p...

By Christopher Campbell Like the High Score itself, Natalie Portman carries a whiff of unattainable prestige, and if Universal added her to the film’s cast, it would be a Twin Galaxies-worthy coup. It may seem like a lot of work for the actress — after all, she’d have to be on-screen at all times — but isn’t Portman du...

By Christopher Campbell …the runner-up position in my book goes to Revenge of the Sith, the final and most futile attempt from clumsy director and tin-eared writer George Lucas to create a prequel trilogy to match the myth-making spirit of the original Star Wars saga he unleashed in 1977. I’d still watch Sith five...

By Christopher Campbell The midnight screenings alone earned $16 million, putting it third behind The Dark Knight ($18.5 million) and Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith ($16.9 million). As Skids might say, “Daz be a ‘hoooo lodda cheddah! Cans you ordah lunch? I can’z be readin duh orderin’ papuh.”

By Christopher Campbell Speaking of Frank Lloyd Wright, it’d be cool to live in the Ennis House, which functions in the movie as Deckard’s apartment building (it’s also featured in other films and TV shows). We’d actually rather live in the Bradbury Building, though. Too bad it currently houses government and LAP...

By Christopher Campbell So what was it? A new movie? Another special edition of the original trilogy? Not exactly. It turns out that LucasFilm was shooting new footage for Disney’s Star Tours ride. Please feel free to take a moment and let whatever emotion you were feeling about a potential new Star Wars movie subsi...

By Christopher Campbell It’s amazing, and really quite sad, that nearly a decade after the release of The Phantom Menace, people are still complaining about George Lucas. Sure, he also messed up his Indiana Jones franchise last summer, but whatever, there’s nothing we can do about it except skip out on further Lu...

By Christopher Campbell Franchise: Indiana Jones New Genre: Spy Film Franchise: Harry Potter New Genre: Teen Sex Comedy Franchise: Ocean’s Eleven New Genre: Western Franchise: Die Hard New Genre: Marital Drama Franchise: Friday the 13th New Genre: Romantic Comedy

By Kevin Kelly When did you see your first fan film? When will regular audiences ever be able to see the shot-for-shot Raiders of the Lost Ark remake? Have there been any instances where fan films have directly influenced big-budget Hollywood films? Do you have a personal favorite fan film?

By Christopher Campbell The song “Star Wars” by a capella group Moosebutter is nearly a decade old, but it’s suddenly becoming a hit thanks to the popular YouTube video “Star Wars - an a capella tribute to John Williams,” which has been showcased everywhere from StarWars.com to an NBC affiliate in Atlanta. The prob...

By Kevin Kelly We’ve previously mentioned this Lucasarts game set in the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope (or the last prequel, and the original Star Wars movie for those of you less fluent with Star Wars geekery), but it holds up on its own as far superior all three of Lucas’ prequels. Darth...

By Kevin Kelly George Lucas and his galaxy far, far away have been guilty of dipping into the well of video gaming more than anyone else in Hollywood history. Since hitting screens in 1977, there have been over 100 Star Wars games on multiple systems. Just recently, Lucasarts released Star Wars: The Force...

By Kevin Buist Our friend Kevin Kelly shares the tale of his journey to the fabled Skywalker Ranch to see Clone Wars and meet the elusive George Lucas. The film, essentially a two hour trailer for the upcoming animated series, gets into some pretty wonky territory when it asks the question we’ve all wonde...