Turns out George Lucas himself is a fan of the animated series. "Lucasfilm is probably the only company out there right now that is progressive enough to allow this," Seth MacFarlane told the LA Times. "Certainly we would have a laugh doing this with Indiana Jones or Wrath of Khan. But I can't imagine in a billion years that Paramount would give us permission."

Fox ended up looking to clear rights with LucasFilm after MacFarlane and co. continued to make small Star Wars gags on the show. Worried the wrath of Lucas would hit the network, they groveled at the bearded one's throne and to MacFarlane's surprise, LucasFilm okayed any references to the franchise as long as Peter, Lois, Meg, Chris, Brian, Stewie and the rest of the characters looked just like the stars of the film.

When Family Guy's first Star Wars spoof, Blue Harvest, aired, George invited the show's team up to Skywalker Ranch to watch it with him and his son. How rad is that?

"He laughed a few times, yeah. He's a very muted guy."

Family Guy's feature length Star Wars spoof, Something Something Something Dark Side comes out on DVD & Blu-ray 12/22.

Q & A with Seth MacFarlane [LA Times]

The DVD is loaded with even more video including 23 deleted scenes which expand the back story of that alien race. Also there's plenty of art, commentary plus an in-depth look inside the mothership hovering over Jo-Burg. District 9 will be available on December 22, 2009.

[Two Videos via UGO and Scifi Wire]

The official name for the Empire Strikes back spoof is Something Something Something Dark Side, and it'll be on DVD & Blu-ray 12/22.

It looks much campier then Eli Roth's original, which could be either a bad or a good thing, depending on whether it actually ends up being funny. The first film managed to balance horror and hilarity pretty well, so here's hoping.. Either way it's nice to see Rider Strong again. Cabin Fever 2 will be out on DVD and Blu-Ray February 16, 2010.

[via Shock Til You Drop]

Hollywood Parts is selling off everything from the Terminator Salvation set — and we mean everything. Even boxes of clean t-shirts. While some of the things in this list could be interesting to own, like the Terminator X-Rays, or half metal skeletons of dead terminators, much of this stuff is the worst, especially this silver platform shoe get-up that Helena must have worn when she was a floating head at the end??? This costume must be from the trashed script many moons ago — sad really, 'cause that outfit could only have spiced up this film.

[via IESB]

Publisher's Weekly noticed this little gem on Amazon. Both complete series will be available soon, along with The Best of Rocko's Modern Life but when, we're not sure. There is no date as of right now, but we'll keep checking. Maybe this is the holiday miracle we've been dreaming about. Now all we need is the complete DVD set of Liquid Television, and we're set.

You can watch the first episode of the The Maxx, which was adapted from Sam Kieth's comic book below, along with the first episode of The Head.

The official title is Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side and it's out on DVD December 22. I'm already thinking this may be better than Blue Harvest.

Trek Movie has an exclusive featurette titled Masks vs. Prosthetics where you can finally see the new looks for both Gorn and the Salt Vampire. The new aliens were supposedly created for the Rura Penthe Klingon prison scenes, but that was cut.

How To Paint Rachel Nichols Green, Watching A Director In Love With His Lens Flair Almost Makes Up For The Blinding Shots, And Leonard Nimoy Is A Class Act: A Behind The Scenes Feature

If you don't watch anything else, watch this. It's an amazing insight into how they made the movie, from J.J. acting like a fanboy over his lens-flare technique, to Leonard Nimoy getting choked up on his final day of filming.

Simon Pegg's Accent Was Kept In Check By The Scottish Police

Nero Is Really Just Misunderstood

Quinto Was Urged By Fans To Audition For The Role of Spock

The Klingons Were Kids

As we mentioned recently, in some of the long shots involving Klingons, they were replaced by child actors wearing replica Klingon guard costumes — and filmed at an angle that made their corridor sets look even larger and more impressive than they otherwise would have.

Filming The Drill Platform Looked Even Cooler Than In The Movie

Even Spock Can Lose His Cool

Quinto Helped Bring In Pine For Kirk

Victor Garber Is A Klingon

According to our old reporting, it seems like a scene merely meant to show some cool Klingons costume updates and tell us what the heck Nero was up to for all those missing years, as well as clue the audience into the passage of the 25 years before we get to see grown-up Kirk. But it does have Nero's most quotable line from the trailer: "The wait is over."

The Star Trek DVD and Blu-Ray is out tomorrow. And our final say on which is the superior purchase? Definitely the Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray version of Star Trek is leaps and bounds ahead of the DVD, packed with a tremendous amount of proprietary extras - essentially, it's the big brother of the two, with over three hours more footage.

The three-disc Blu-Ray version also includes a Starfleet Vessel Simulator which allows you to interactively explore the U.S.S. Enterprise and the Romulan vessel Narada, with 360˚ views and awesome close-ups. For example, on both ships, you can actually fire their on-board weapons, getting a chance to see and hear them. Inside the Enterprise, you can take a brief tour of the bridge — although it does look to be the same views we got on Paramount's Star Trek page before the film, the detail on the Blu-Ray is simply outstanding enough to warrant another look.

The release itself could quite possibly be one of the best recent examples of this newfangled Blu-Ray technology becoming more than just a "better picture" DVD, as we've seen with so many releases before. And with its double digit additional "branching pods," this Blu-Ray is the only option for people who actually care about watching all the special features available - you know, true fans.

Here's is the Vessel Simulator we mentioned:

Additional reporting and writing by Caitlin Petrakovitz.

Over at Undead Backbrain, Robert Hood and Avery Guerra have the full story. But in a nutshell, it's a giant crocodile. Fighting a spiny supergator. Gnashing of teeth!

Meet Dinocroc.

Rrrooowrrrr! I am Dinocroc! I rule the jungle!

I am Supergator! I am on my way to major man noms!

Nom nom nom! RRRrrrowowworrrr!

This DVD cover for the unrated version of the film is all over the interwebs today, and it's just more of the same monster pinup crap that misrepresented the movie in the first place. If you want to see scantily-clad ladies undulating, go rent any number of other fine movies in the SF and horror genres. I highly recommend Pervirella or The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak.

But if you want a smart, weird movie about what happens when BFF goes WTF, rent Jennifer's Body and ignore the cover. This is a great B-movie that uses monsters and demons to tell a story about how co-dependent and poisonous high school girl friendships can be. It's about how Megan Fox is a monster, not eye candy.

Poster image via Bloody Disgusting

Anyone else shocked this was how they chose to use Baird? We can see why it got cut — it doesn't exactly paint Kirk as a sensitive guy when dealing with alien species, but damn if Chris Pine isn't turning his charm up to 11 here.

Star Trek will be out on DVD Nov. 17. [Borders]

I'm keeping my lips sealed on exactly what the clip is all about, but suffice it to say that every fan of the original series is going to go apeshit over it.

There's no mention of this little treat on the disc itself (it's a secret), but here's what you need to do to access it:

- Go to the extras menu

- Highlight the Admiral to Director featurette

- Now navigate to the right with your remote

- You should see the BSG Seal appear – hit enter and enjoy!

The Plan came out on Tuesday.

via Darth Mojo

It's nice to know that Stephen Sommers was completely and utterly aware of what he was making: giant splodey toys! G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra will be released on DVD and Blu-ray release on November 3rd. Kabooooom.

As you might know, the writers' strike forced Bay to start work on TF2 without an actual script — all he had was an outline by writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. So a lot of the movie's early designs and ideas came about without a real script, and when Orci and Kurtzman came back to work after the strike, Bay was able to tell them which robots he wanted in the movie. As he says in this clip, all of that pre-visualization work and brainstorming with artists actually informed the movie's script, once it finally had one. You probably have your own ideas about whether that was a good thing.

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen comes out on DVD tomorrow, October 20, on Blu-Ray and DVD, wherever awesomeness is available.

Here's what the press release says about the two-disc DVD/Blu-Ray edition:

Two-Disc Special Edition DVD & Blu-ray:
The TRANSFORMERS: Revenge of the Fallen two-disc Special Edition DVD is presented in widescreen enhanced for 16:9 televisions with Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, French 5.1 Surround and Spanish 5.1 Surround with English, French and Spanish subtitles. The Blu-ray will be presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital with English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese subtitles. The disc breakdown is as follows:

Disc 1:
• Commentary by Michael Bay, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman

Disc 2:
• The Human Factor: Exacting Revenge of the Fallen-This multi-chapter documentary chronicles the entire creation of the film and includes interviews with the cast and crew:
o Seeds of Vengeance - Development and Design - After the overwhelming success of 2007's Transformers, how do the filmmakers top themselves for the sequel?
o Domestic Destruction – Production: United States - Michael Bay believes in going big: Big action and big explosions. Cast and crew are pushed to the limit as they traverse the U.S. from New Mexico to Pennsylvania.
o Joint Operations – Production: Military - No other filmmaker in the world enjoys the kind of military access and cooperation Michael Bay has. Here we see just how efficient our armed forces are and the awe and respect shown by the cast.
o Wonders of the World – Production: Middle East - You can't really reproduce Egypt anywhere but Egypt so off we go to Giza and Luxor.
o Start Making Sense - Editing - In order to turn over the massive amount of film as quickly as possible to VFX, four editors work tirelessly in a unique tag-team approach to shape the film.
o Under the Gun – Visual Effects – Revenge of the Fallen features the most complicated VFX in film history. So complicated in fact that the filmmakers were unsure they would make the deadline. The DEVASTATOR VFX alone required 83% of ILM's total render farm capacity.
o Running the Gauntlet – Post-Production and Release - Working seven days a week, Michael Bay and company usher the film through sound design, Digital Intermediate color-timing and a globe-trotting whirlwind of premieres.
• A Day with Bay: Tokyo-An intimate and fun all-access journey with Michael Bay as he travels to Tokyo, Japan tor the world premiere of the biggest film of the year.
• 25 Years of TRANSFORMERS-Access an all-new featurette celebrating a monumental milestone for one of Hasbro's most successful and popular franchises.
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub-Explore conceptual artwork created by the production for 12 of the most popular AUTOBOTS and DECEPTICONS from the film.
• Deconstructing Visual Bayhem with Commentary by Pre-Vis Supervisor
Steve Yamamoto- A series of multi-angle pre-visualization sequences allowing viewers to learn how some of the film's most spectacular scenes were created with an introduction by Michael Bay.
• Extended Scenes
• Music Video: Linkin Park's "New Divide"

BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE:
• The ALLSPARK Experiment-Viewers get their chance to unleash the power of the recently recovered ALLSPARK shard on Earth vehicles. Begin by selecting and customizing a vehicle with a selection of parts and accessories. Then apply the ALLSPARK to this creation and watch what happens. Applying the ALLSPARK to certain custom combinations enables four new robot characters with special powers. If viewers discover all four, they unlock a fifth vehicle, which reveals a top secret message about the future of the TRANSFORMERS movie franchise.
• NEST: Transformer Data-Hub-A database of some of the TRANSFORMERS characters that appear in the new film, offering users access to each robot's confidential file including:
o Innovative 3D spin galleries of each robot
o A timeline for each TRANSFORMERS character charting its origins, back story and design evolution from toys to animated series to comics and finally feature films
• Giant Effing Movie – A very personal look at the making of the movie.
• The Matrix of Marketing-An archive of the film's promotional media including trailers, posters and television spots.

The new press release describes "The Plan" as a 90-minute feature, but we're guessing that's just the length of the shorter televised version. Amazon is listing the DVD release as 112 minutes long, meaning we'll hopefully get to see a lot more tangled Cylon sex and politics. (And given how racy the Caprica DVD was, this could be pretty strong stuff.)

Here's the official synopsis:

The Cylons began as humanity's robot servants. They rebelled and evolved and now they look like us. Their plan is simple: destroy the race that enslaved them. But when their devastating attack leaves human survivors, the Cylons have to improvise. Battlestar Galatica: The Plan tells the story of two powerful Cylon leaders, working separately, and their determination to finish the task.

The DVDs will include:

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE PLAN - BONUS FEATURES

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan on Blu-rayTM Hi-Def and DVD takes viewers deeper into the acclaimed space drama with exclusive bonus features, including:

EXCLUSIVE TO Blu-rayTM Hi-Def:

* BD-LIVETM: Access the BD-LiveTM Center through your Internet-connected player to download more exclusive content, the latest trailers and more!
o MY SCENES: Bookmark your favorite scenes from the movie.
o BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TRIVIA: All-new trivia game.

BONUS FEATURES (BLU-RAY™ HI-DEF and DVD):

· DELETED SCENES

· FROM ADMIRAL TO DIRECTOR: EDWARD JAMES OLMOS AND THE PLAN – A day-in-the-life with director and actor Edward James Olmos, as he tackles the most ambitious Battlestar Galactica production to date.

· THE CYLONS OF THE PLAN – Features interviews with the actors who play the film's key Cylons, including Dean Stockwell, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Michael Trucco, Rick Worthy and Michael Bennett.

· THE CYLON ATTACK – This featurette takes viewers behind the scenes for the planning and execution of one of Battlestar Galactica: The Plan's major action sequences.

· BEHIND THE PLAN - An in-depth look at some stunning visual effects and the role post-production plays in bringing the world of Battlestar Galactica to life.

· FILMMAKER COMMENTARY

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan debuts on Blu-rayTM Hi-Def and DVD on October 27.

And here's a clip!

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is available On Demand and via Digital Download, and it also comes out on DVD and BluRay today. You can get it from the WBSHOP.com here. (You can read our review here.)

Here are some more clips, that have been posted on Youtube:

And here's some promotional artwork:

To be fair, Public Enemies actually fixes a lot of the plot problems with the original comic it's adapting. We're given a better reason for Lex Luthor becoming President of the United States, and it's one that both ties in with the current economic climate and provides an unintentionally hilarious opening to the movie. Businessmen, so crushed by the collapse of the world's markets, smash up newspaper vending machines so that they can steal the coins contained within. (Really, animated moviemakers? Newspaper vending machines? We also get a denouement that actually offers closure, as opposed to the original series' more open-ended, to-be-continued-in-Infinite-Crisis, climax.

But in the process of fixing those issues, a lot of the (for want of a better way to put it) fun of the story feels skewed: When your story opens with global economic collapse prompting Americans to abandon the two-party political system in order to avoid devolving into riot-filled chaos, scenes of superheroes punching each other ad nauseum for the better part of half an hour in the middle of the movie seem somewhat... out of place. As does the climactic appearance of a rocket that looks like a giant Superman/Batman composite, with booster rockets for a cape.

The tonal dissonance is the movie's biggest problem; if you took out a couple of "bitch"s and comments about Power Girl's breasts, what you'd have left would be a great film for kids. What survives from the original comic is an ideal big, bold, childlike story: Lex Luthor becomes President, frames Superman for murder and all the other superheroes try to arrest him! And there's this massive kryptonite meteor that's headed to Earth that no-one can stop! Dude!!! (The meteor plot feels a bit unnecessary here; it's been pulled over from the original comic, where it was really a set-up for the next storyline, and without that context, becomes a little bit "We need a bigger ending — oh, why don't we use this meteor?").

But as it is, the movie is unsure of which audience it's aiming for - an adult audience who wants references to Power Girl's breast size and gets the weird quasi-Jon Stewart gag at the start of the movie (bleeped out, because... Well, I'm not entirely sure why, really?), or a kid audience for whom the idea of Hawkman, Captains Marvel and Atom, Katana, Power Girl, Black Lightning and Major Force going up against Superman and Batman is genuinely new and exciting.

On the plus side, the movie looks great; Director Sam Liu finds a way to translate original comic artist Ed McGuinness' distinctive, blocky style while keeping it familiar enough to fans of Batman: The Animated Series and the Justice League cartoons, and the voice work by old hands Kevin Conroy, Clancy Brown and Tim Daly (amongst many others) has just the right mix of sincerity and smirk.

Also enjoyable are the extras, which include a preview for the next DC Universe movie, Justice League: Crisis On Two Earths (which, despite the claims of it being all-original, seems to be a version of Grant Morrison's JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel), a fun Dinner for Five rip-off featuring animated mavens Bruce Timm, Andrea Romano, Gregory Novak and Batman himself Kevin Conroy, and extra episodes of the Superman animated series (on the DVD, at least; I believe the Blu Ray edition has different episodes in addition to everything else). While the movie itself is uneven but mostly enjoyable, when you factor in all the extras available on the DVD and Blu Ray editions, the package suddenly becomes a lot more attractive to fans of either the characters or animated superheroes in general.

Overall, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies doesn't necessarily measure up to earlier DC Universe animated movies (Wonder Woman and Justice League: The New Frontier are probably better, I'd argue), and some of the changes in the adaptation create new problems even as they fix old ones, but there are definitely worse ways to spend the couple of hours or so it'd take to watch this. Just don't expect more than a good old-fashioned superhero slugfest, with some added bells and whistles.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is released September 29th.

Cameron tells John that she'll find a workaround to avoid trying to kill him again:

Okay, so it's not exactly an essential scene — we got to find out about Cameron's little self-destruct mechanism workaround in a later scene that did air. But it's a nice moment of tension between John Connor and the robot he depends on way too much. And it's always nice to see Summer Glau doing that creepy stalker thing she does so well.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season is out on DVD/BluRay Sept. 22, and here's a list of the special features:

- Write the Future - An inside look at creator Josh Friedman and the writing process and how it guides the creative decisions for each episode.
- Conceptualization - Visual Effects supervisor James Lima and others discuss the production challenges of bringing the sci-fi world of Terminator to television.
- Blood and Metal - Go behind the scenes with special makeup effects artist Rob Hall and the cast as they reveal the process of creating realistic cybernetic organisms.
- Designing Destruction - Production Designer Marek Dobrowolski and others discuss the challenges of combining real locations with futuristic sets to create a world in which the present fights to avoid a horrific future.
- Choreographing Chaos - See how Stunt Coordinator and 2nd Unit Director Joel Kramer and Special Effects Supervisor Steve Galich work closely to create the stunts and on set effects that add an undeniably kinetic quality to each episode.
- War Stories - From an unexpected earthquake on the jam-packed Santa Monica pier to the intricacies of filming underwater sequences, the producers and cast reflect on some of the most memorable production challenges from Season Two.
- Setting the Tempo - Composer Bear McCreary and the producers explain the process of taking cues from the Terminator mythology and incorporating them into the score. Bear, Josh Friedman and Shirley Manson also talk about the process of recording the season opening song "Samson and Delilah."
- Motivations - The producers and cast discuss the themes of Season Two and how these informed both the writing and acting.
- Terminated Scenes
- Cameron vs. Rosie: Fight Rehearsal - The raw fight rehearsal and choreography session between Summer Glau and a contortionist is interwoven with storyboards and interviews explaining this intricate battle sequence.
- The Storyboard Process: Cameron Goes Bad - The production team outlines the process for mapping key sequences from the show in Storyboard format.
- Audio Commentary with Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Summer Glau and Shirley Manson and Executive Producers Josh Friedman, James Middleton and John Wirth
- Gag Reel
- Collision with the Future: Deconstructing the HUNTER KILLER Attack - Interactive exploration of the climactic Hunter Killer attack featured in the Season Two finale. Four simultaneous points of view show all elements of the filmmaking of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles from Production, Direction, Visual Effects, and Special Effects. Additional focus points allow the viewer to explore even more elements of what it took to create this dramatic stunt sequence. (Blu-ray only)

Can. Not. Wait. [MovieWeb]