AICN pointed out a very interesting blog post from the personal site of Thomas Dolby:

My host is friend and former collaborator Paul Sebastien, who over the years has worked for Xbox, Playstation, and now LucasArts. Last night he was telling me a little about the forthcoming Star Wars-related TV show, movie and online games-very cool indeed. I'm not a huge fan myself (and definitely not a gamer) but it sounds like Mr Lucas has got his head into a good place. I met him several times when I was working on a movie in the 80s called [name suppressed to protect credibility!] and he's a decent chap, but I could have done without the last three SW movies.

And there you have it: he wrote "movie." Everybody freak out! First off, we have no idea what context this was said in. Since he started talking about the live action TV show, one could guess that there may be a two-hour TV movie to introduce the series. Or maybe Lucas is making our dreams come true and giving Sam Witwer a chance to bring the Force Unleashed video game to life on the big screen. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, and he didn't mean movie at all — instead he meant web series. Who really knows?

Whatever it may be — and it may be nothing at all — we're exceedingly skeptical that it would be a brand new film with little to no tie-ins besides the original series. Which we can safely assume is something everyone secretly wishes would happen, new movies to make us all forget the dreaded Prequels. But if wishes were Tauntauns, right?

And we're not alone in our doubts, Bonnie Burton over at StarWars.com's twitteredsimply "bahahahahahahahaha!"

Still, we're excited for the live action series, and if that's a bigger hit than the Clone Wars animated series, who knows what may happen?

This rumor stems from MarketSaw which claims that the next trilogy hopes to shoot in stereoscopic 3D. But that's not all: George Lucas isn't going to direct. He'll produce, and he hopes that Steven Spielberg and/or Francis Ford Coppola will direct.

Don't get too excited, though: MarketSaw says this massive undertaking all depends on how well Avatar does at the box office. That's right, Avatar's success decides whether new Star Wars lives or dies. Because clearly a brand new movie and a long-established, money-printing franchise are the same thing. But they're both in space so what the hell, it's like the same thing right?

This wouldn't at all be about promoting Avatar, would it? I can see the PR meeting now, "I know let's tell the space nerds if they watch Avatar they'll get more Star Warszes, that'll get 'em in the theaters!" Sounds like somebody is whispering nonsense to drum up Avatar excitement, and you know how these things carry like a game of telephone.

AICN got a denial of the whole thing rather quickly from Lucasfilms, but even they are quick to point out that Lucasfilms would be the last place to confirm anything like this. That said, I do think we could be getting a Star Wars re-release many years in the future with 3D — but a whole new trilogy? Most likely, no.

A couple of years ago Rick McCallum said that he would consider it, and I would expect news from Daniel's camp in the not-too-distant future.

Dragon*Con: Star Wars Live Action series news [Examiner via AICN]

One of the first questions that's worth asking is "Is anyone left?" It's hard to top the much-stated 5000+ characters contained in Marvel's IP, and it'd be a tough argument to suggest that there are any other comic publishers available who could offer anything even vaguely similar, especially considering that the larger companies that aren't DC or Marvel don't own the majority of their IP (Dark Horse, Image, and IDW all predominantly offer creator owned or licensed material); although purchasing one of those publishers may offer existing relationships with creators, it doesn't necessarily translate into anything that Disney (or any other company with large pockets) could immediately take advantage of.

(That said, if I were looking for a publisher purely for the IP rights and wasn't specifically looking for superheroes, I'd probably see if either Boom! Studios or Tokyopop were looking to be bought out; neither has an IP farm anywhere close to the size of Marvel's, but both have had some success coming up with new series and concepts that could easily be adapted into movies or television - at least, until Tokyopop's cutback "restructuring" last year, on their side. Or, of course, Rebellion, who own the 2000AD rights, which could definitely use some exploiting.)

If IP is really what's being looked for, Disney might want to follow Hollywood and go for toy and game companies; Hasbro has been positioning itself as more of a intellectual property generator than toy company since their deal with Universal Studios last year, after all, and with already successful properties like Transformers and GI Joe, they must be looking pretty tempting to any company wanting to buy an immediate in to existing markets right about now. Perhaps not as obvious, but arguably more worthwhile, a videogame publisher like Electronic Arts - owner of The Sims and Dead Space, amongst others - or Valve may not bring the instant brand awareness of Hasbro or Marvel, but unlike both, is currently creating new properties as successful as their Greatest Hits, which might be a better investment in the long run.

All of this conjecture, however, ignores the Bantha in the middle of the room: Lucasfilm.

The privately-owned Lucasfilm may not own have as many separate franchises as Marvel, but it has Star Wars and Indiana Jones, and there's definitely an argument to be made that Star Wars alone is worth as much as the entire Marvel Universe (Containing almost as many characters, and with the ability to spin out as many sub-franchises as it has, after all). More to the point, unlike Marvel, Lucasfilm is much more than an IP factory; alongside the movie studio, publishing arm, online division and animation department - all of which a self-respecting media juggernaut like Disney also has - it includes industry leaders Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light & Magic, making them almost unique in terms of value add (Yes, Marvel may be the industry leader in comic book publishing, but how important is that to Disney's core business?).

It's extremely unlikely that Lucas would sell Lucasfilm, especially as he seems to have become interested in the possibilities television offers to him and the company. But everyone has their price, as the saying goes. The question is just how high Lucas' price would be - and whether anyone could afford it.

I'm particularly surprised by all the violence, this new Bounty Hunter-centric season looks like it's taking the puppet-like characters a whole lot darker. Which could be pretty great — we're looking for the grim-and-gritty Ahsoka Tano.

The next season will begin on October 2.

Here's the official synopsis from the site, and yes if you were wondering that video is narrated by Lance "Bishop" Henriksen.

The Keeper of the Jedi Archives has entered a new holorecord. Continuing his investigation, Master Gnost-Dural delves deeper into the history of the galaxy after discovering that the blockade that Hylo Visz helped end was a result of the actions of the new Mandalore.

BTC 8 – During a Republic resurgence in the Great War, a bold young warrior rose to fame in the Gladiatorial arenas on Geonosis. Adopting the ancient and infamous title of Mandalore, this young leader amassed an army of Mandalorian mercenaries and bounty hunters. The new Mandalore led his forces to form a blockade and challenge the Jedi Order, effectively turning the tide of the war back in the Sith Empire's favor.

In other, very exciting news, TV Squad is hearing rumors are being leaked the George Lucas may stop by San Diego Comic Con to talk about the live action Star Wars television series supposedly gearing up to shoot in Australia as we speak. Or at the very least, Lucas may be piped in via videoconference. Let's hope he doesn't show up empty handed.

The possible heavy on the Fett series, which has been casting for the Rebel Alliance, is rumored to be in preproduction in Australia, right now.

Sci Fi Wire has the scoop from an Aussie site saying that:

The show is assembling high-quality writers from the Aussie TV industry, including writers from the Love My Way and Secret Life of Us, who have been approached by Lucas' longtime producer Rick McCallum.

So perhaps they may reach their 2010 air-date yet. The Jedi-free series covers what happens between Episode III and Episode IV — which means no Hayden, so it has that going for it. Should be interesting to see if people will have room in their hearts for new Star Wars characters.

He talks a lot about his friendship with Francis Ford Coppola and their partnership to make THX-1138, and their fights with Warners over final cut on THX. And he unveils a deep-seated resentment: "Somebody who has the money, or as a result of the money, has the ability to make decisions that are out of their area. Becuase they have the power, because they have the money, they can make aesthetic, directorial, writing decisions, which they really have no business making. But in this country, the dollar is above the individual. A man's brain, a man's experience, a man's talent is below the dollar. The man with the dollar is the final say."

[Cinematical]

So wait, why reboot Star Wars? I'm sick of the reboots. Movies are getting as crash-happy as my Macbook.

Oh, whine whine whine. Too many remakes, sequels and reboots. "Poor me, the entertainment industry is trying to pander to me by recreating the entertainments of my childhood, or in some cases my grandparents' childhoods." I know, it sucks to be you. But look at it this way: a lot of these entertainment franchises need the occasional reboot, because they've been running for decades and are struggling to run the latest firmware. "Women's lib" made Wonder Woman go BSOD several times in the 1960s, and more recently she's been as crash-prone as a J.J. Abrams airplane.

Actually, Star Wars is the perfect example of what happens to a long-running franchise that doesn't get rebooted. You keep adding more and more trendy stuff to the mix, piling on extra chunks of mythos and bits of backstory, and inflating the importance of minor characters until they overwhelm the narrative. (Jango Fett?) It's not the creators' fault, necessarily. It's just what happens when you try to keep a complex universe running for decades without restarting.

Eventually, your once-shiny universe gets to the point where you have to shut it down forever, or do a hard restart. And there's too much money in these old juggernauts to shut them down.

But... But... George Lucas will never go for it!

He will, once he runs out of money. It's just a matter of time. Those life-size solid-gold Yoda bidets don't pay for themselves, you know. (With the proximity activation, and the voice that says, "Wash your bottom, you will." That's expensive stuff.) All it'll take is another few insane Star Wars projects, like another big-screen Clone Wars movie and another three Star Wars TV shows that he's financing out-of-pocket. Chances are, he's already completed a few thousand scripts for his live-action Star Wars show, which takes place between the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy and probably includes a whole set of episodes about Jar Jar Binks visiting the Ewoks.

Eventually, Lucas will need some walking-around money, and the studios will put pressure on him, and someone will come up with an offer he can't refuse. It'll probably allow him to keep his original version of the galaxy far, far away chugging along. It'll be like the Ultimate Marvel Universe, or Smallville: a new reimagined version of the franchise, even as the original version keeps trundling. Call it Star Wars: Extreme. Or Star Wars: Ultraspace. Or maybe Star Wars: Even Farther Away.

Okay, so the Star Wars reboot is inevitable, if not imminent. What makes you think it could possibly be a good thing?

It could be horrendous, sure. But it doesn't have to be, and that's what this primer is about. A few years from now, when Lucas and the suits are having meetings about creating Star Wars 2.0, there are a few simple rules for how to avoid a painful Stepford Wives or Planet Of The Apes boondoggle. (Probably not including Nicole Kidman is a good place to start.)

The good news is, Star Wars has a good solid structure underneath all the crud that's been layered on top of it in recent years. At heart, it's a strong adventure story with a very simple Joseph Campbell-inspired throughline. The original Star Wars is the movie that reinvented entertainment, and forced all of those other franchises to add new features, or reboot altogether. To this day, when people reboot other franchises, they're aiming to make them more like Star Wars — blatantly so, in the case of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek.

So if some Hollywood exec is reading this, and contemplating rebooting Star Wars, the best advice we can give you is: make it more like Star Wars. With a new lick of paint, and less baggage.

Here's the longer version of that advice, in the form of eight simple rules for reinventing our beloved saga:

1) Keep it simple. Just keep reminding yourself that the purpose of a reboot is to jettison dead weight, and don't feel obliged to bring in all the extra crud about Trade Federations and midichlorians. There's the Empire, and the Rebellion, and the Force has two sides: light and dark. Stay within the lines, and give us a cool story about good versus evil, and trusting your feelings, and relying on your friends. Batman Begins scored because it gave us the essence of Bruce Wayne: the tragedy, the grief and powerless rage, and then the quest to become something bad enough to counter the darkness.

2) Keep the sense of joy and dread. Okay, I've dissed both the "hero's journey" and science fiction's obsession with "sense of wonder" before, but there is something to be said for a story where a young person starts out in a small world, and then comes out into a gigantic universe, full of moon-sized battle stations, princesses, space fights and massive ice planets. Of all the stuff that goes into "coming of age" stories, it's perhaps the most universal, since it's about leaving home. And then you find out that you're actually way more connected to this deep history that went on before you were born, because your dad was a Jedi knight. There's plenty of great stuff there.

3) Get back to the characters we care about. It sounds basic, but that's how J.J. Abrams revitalized Star Trek. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader. The classic characters. And here's a suggestion: Anakin Skywalker's dismal progression, where he starts out as a promising young Jedi only to be seduced to the Dark Side? That is what flashbacks or prologues are made for. You could even intersperse Anakin's journey with Luke's, as Luke learns more about his father while he grows into his powers. And speaking of heroes...

4) Admit that Han Solo is the hero as much as Luke. That's the other thing J.J. Abrams' Star Trek did right: It treated Spock as the hero, just as much as Kirk. We all knew, all along, that Spock belonged in the top spot alongside Kirk, but the series had never quite admitted it before. (Probably due to Shatner's ego, among other things.) Han Solo deserves a similar elevation. Like Kirk and Spock, Han and Luke are the yin and yang, except that they go in opposite directions. Han Solo regains his altruism and optimism, just as Luke is shedding his innocence and becoming more of a hard-ass. Bring Han Solo's journey to the fore, and don't be afraid to make him more of a jerky antihero at the beginning, so it'll feel like a real arc. (And yes, that means Han shoots first.)

5) Don't be afraid to make some changes, to bring it up to date. So you're inevitably going to make some changes to the storyline, like maybe making Obi-Wan less of a lying prick. Or maybe you'll want to add more depth to the early scenes of Luke on Tattooine, to show what he's leaving behind, and flesh out his dreams of joining Biggs and Wedge in space. Other changes I might make to the first film might involve having Leia pilot an X-wing in the final Death Star attack, and elminating all the incest-vibes with Leia and Luke. (Not to mention the scene where Vader is menacing Leia, and there's some definite sexual tension. Eww.)

6) A truckload of fanservice makes the revisionism go down. But you're worried, inevitably, about getting bags of bantha poodoo on your doorstep if you make any alterations to the sacrosanct franchise. Fans can be unforgiving murglaks. But they're also very susceptible to bribery. If you throw in lots of references and nods to old stories, then you can do anything. You can blow up Vulcan. You can even make Spock's mom Winona Ryder. You can have an evil assassin cult train Batman. It's all good. You just have to throw in the Kobayashi Maru, Henri Ducard and all the stuff that fans salivate over, and they'll run with whatever changes you want to make. (Having a decent story doesn't hurt either.) Have Spock quote the best lines from Wrath Of Khan, and fans won't care that the Enterprise looks like the bar at the W Hotel.

7) Restrain your video-game impulses. Any new Star Wars will have to be Imax and 3-D and CG and huge, sure. That's just a given, unless those fads have been replaced by something even bigger and more eyeball-gouging by then. But it doesn't have to feel like a video game. The original Star Wars inspired a million video games — because it felt so real and got your adrenaline pumping. It wasn't just the special effects, it was the crazy you-are-there feeling of the Millenium Falcon's gun turrent swinging around, and the stars whizzing past as Luke shot at tie fighters. Try to keep that sense of realness, and actual peril, and genuine thrills. Not so much with the fakey rollercoaster shit.

8) Get a real writer. Please. In addition to feeling invested in the characters, we have to buy into their conflicts and quote their snappy dialog. Seek out one of the legion of Joss Whedon apprentices and press-gang him or her. I'm thinking Drew Goddard, who moved on from Buffy to write Cloverfield, and is now directing Whedon's Cabin In The Woods. Or Jane Espenson. Get someone who can do characters and banter and insane high-stakes drama, and turn him/her loose on the saga of Luke, Leia and their crazy aging biker dad. And may the Force be with all of us if you fail.

Top image from Carlos Number Two on Worth 1000.

Over at VeryEvolved, a lengthy and fascinating article on the nature of nostalgia explains how our brains process memories. And how the disruption of fond, nostalgic feelings can result in extreme emotional backlash:

Every time you recall a memory it may become subtly altered and associated with what ever it was that triggered that old memory. If this trigger happens repeatedly, then you're adding new layer of interpretation that will be recalled automatically with the old memory next time it's called up.

A great example of this in action that also demonstrates fluid nostalgia, is the backlash against George Lucas. A large portion of 70's and 80's children had grown up owning Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader figures and playing in the backyard pretending sticks were light sabers. Fond childhood memories.
When the first abysmal Star Wars Prequel was released the strong feelings against the film weren't just those of disappointment at a bad movie. If it were that simple, we should also feel the same way about Police Academy 7.

The reaction can be partly explained by the sense of attack on our previously fond feelings. Watching the new movie automatically calls up memories from the previous series and all the pleasant childhood playtime memories associated with it. But recalling these fond memories in the context of a negative experience begins the process of re-coding, or modifying our old memories. This is an undesirable outcome for nostalgia as it is usually such a pleasant feeling. Naturally there is some resistance and cognitive dissonance when this happens and the brain will try to avoid it like any other unpleasant experience.

This article is fun and informative - definitely worth checking out. It also includes a quick explanation of why people who hated Duran Duran in the 1980s get warm feelings of nostalgia on hearing the pop band today.

via Very Evolved

Photo by Bonnie Burton.

22 February 1999

Cher M. Henshaw,

OMG, I cannot wait. In just a few short weeks, the culmination of all my hopes, dreams, and fears (ha — not!) will come to pass as Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace hits theaters nationwide.

This shit is gonna be so good.

It doesn't look like any early copies have leaked online — believe me, I would torrent that shit so fast — so I've contented myself with watching the trailer over and over and over again on YouTube. It may be only two minutes long, but that two minutes is enough to validate George Lucas's status as an unsupplantable genius. This movie has it all — the classic slightly-beat-up Star Wars look, the crazy yet believable aliens, the lightsaber fights, and a beautiful girl.

Yup: Natalie Portman, who is like a super-talented actress. She was in The Professional when she was like eight, and I'm pretty sure she won an Oscar for it, because everybody talks about it all the time. I'm not quite sure how Lucas got her, because she's more of a "serious" artist — probably wouldn't want to see her host Saturday Night Live — but she'll surely bring a touch of sophistication to the proceedings. That's a fine thing, because she's obviously an eventual love interest, and one of my favorite things about the original trilogy was how potent but not over-the-top the romance between Han and Leia was. That's what we like. No one wants to see lovers running through a field of fucking daisies.

The whole cast, really, is something to behold. I have to admit, I kinda hoped Lucas would do like he did with the first three movies, and hire total unknowns (although I guess now that there's Wikipedia, no one's really unknown!), but I trust his instincts. I mean, three words for you, M. Henshaw:

Samuel. L. Motherfuckin'. Jackson.

That's right, a little of the old "Royale with cheese" magic is coming to the Galactic Republic. (Speaking of which: Quentin Tarantino — there's another director who's gonna keep the hits coming for decades to come. I'm never taking this Pulp Fiction poster off my wall.) Seriously, though, you could put Sam Jackson in a movie and not even show it to reviewers in advance to promote it — just stick in a scene where he swears a lot — and it would be a runaway success. Between him and this Captain Panaka dude who's in the very first teaser they released, looks like people of color are finally gonna get the respect, and the screen time, they deserve in the Star Wars universe.

And on a totally unrelated note, there's a kick-ass new alien companion to meet! Instead of being a furry dog-bear-thing like Chewbacca, he's more like a dragon. Maybe he breathes fire? (Watch out, Republic — if this guy's not careful, he'll destroy you all by himself! Ha ha!) Anyway, looks like he's got some dialogue, which is cool. Chewie's awesome, but it always seemed like a wasted opportunity that we didn't get to hear the nonhuman take on things more often. I bet this new fella will have a lot of good stuff to say.

Hmmm...went to Taco Bell for lunch and got a little cardboard promotional "coin" from the movie. This one shows Ric Olié, starship captain. Interesting. Looking forward to finding out more about him.

Looking forward to finding out more about the movie's villain, too! Darth Maul — he has a double-bladed lightsaber. It's pretty clear they put a lot of time and effort into his character, so I guess we'll be seeing quite a bit of him. And rumor has it we might just get — hells yeah! — a serving of Boba Fett besides. Well, it might not be Boba himself — it'll probably be a whole army of Mandalorian warriors. That's something we've been waiting to see for a long time now, so I know Lucas won't let us down. He's a master of his craft, and he knows the secret to good storytelling is about a lot more than special effects.

Fuckin' A — he wrote the whole screenplay himself. We are in good hands, M. Henshaw.

Anyway, I don't know what the plot's gonna be like, but I hope it's pure rollicking escapism, because in this post-9/11 world, we've all had our fill of politics. I'm sure I'll be thoroughly familiar with it by the time the movie's been out for a day, though — we're gonna go to the midnight showing and then see it four more times in a row! I confess, when they announced the title, I had some reservations, but the more I think about it, the more I convince myself that The Phantom Menace really does sound pretty cool.

Yeah, this is gonna be so good.

P.S. Saw another trailer the other day for something called Fight Club. How lame does that sound?

Commenter Moff's real name is Josh Wimmer, and he can usually be found at scribblescribblescribble.com/blog.

The documentary, to be released next year, aims to investigate the tortured, contradictory feelings Star Wars fans have for Lucas in light of the prequel trilogy and subsequent spin-offs from the movies, using the power of the internet:

Paying tribute to the YouTube culture in unprecedented fashion, this groundbreaking documentary feature will utilize professional hi-definition footage and amateur homemade videos in equal amounts to craft one of the most original, entertaining, cinematic, and widely anticipated portraits in the history of the medium-the world's first digitally democratic documentary. Chock-full of impassioned interviews, powerful musical performances, never-before-seen polaroids from the original STAR WARS continuity script, stop-motion and 3D animation, Super 8 action figure films, puppet rants and many other surprises, THE PEOPLE vs. GEORGE LUCAS is slated for release in the Spring of 2010 at a theater not too far, far away from you..

Of course, there's a MySpace page for you to find out more.

More images can be found on Michael Heilemann's Flickr set.

Green conceived the story for The Freshman with Hugh Sterbakov, who penned the title with an assist from illustrator Leonard Kirk; Green and Sterbakov are currently scripting the film. Set on a socially stratified college campus, the Top Cow series follows the misadventures of a group of dejected students who acquire peculiar abilities after a lab mishap irradiates them.

io9: How did you decide The Freshmen would make a good movie?
Seth Green: Hugh and I conceived this a couple years ago as a film. What we found was the marketplace at the time was really unreceptive to comic-book properties. X-Men had just come out, and people were still hesitant to believe that a comic book could translate cause it had so much baggage [plot-wise]. So we had an opportunity to make a comic, and we said, “Well, fuck it. Let’s just entrench it in the marketplace.” Although the movie actually will be different than the book.

io9: It would have to be. First of all, there would be a whole lot of vomit.
Green: [Laughs] You know, honestly, Elwood [who can intoxicate others when he’s drunk] remains largely unchanged. He’s got it hard because he’s a straight-A dude who doesn’t really indulge in anything, and his views are so conservative. And the one night that he tries something new, like lets his hair down [by getting drunk], he gets fucked for life.

io9: So how will the movie be different from the book?
Green: The kids aren’t going to wear costumes, obviously. Except for Paula [who can enchant anyone into falling in love with her] and [the group’s powerless leader] Norrin. Cause Paula makes her costume, and Norrin—the costume’s all he’s got. We also had to eliminate characters just for the sake of telling a story in the most concise way. I don’t want to really talk about who, but it’s a heartbreaking thing to do.

io9: Is Ray, whose superpower is essentially having a huge penis, going to stay?
Green: Oh yeah. What I’m touching on are these personalities, and what happens to kids and where they’re coming from and what they go through. And how they become who they are. And that kid, that path—oh my gosh! All I can say is it’s gonna be heartbreaking.

io9: Not to be crass, but I just have visions of Boogie Nights.
Green: It’ll never be that graphic. But he does use it as a weapon. You know, it’s long and indestructible. [Laughs] I mean, there’s a protective sheath constructed for him.

io9: Clearly, this is an R-rated movie!
Green: Yeah, definitely. Your college experience should be rated R.

io9: Will the movie cover the origin story told in volume one, which also touches on the mad scientist’s evil plot?
Green: Essentially. So much of what works well in a comic won’t work well in a movie. So thematically we’re just addressing it. The Beaver [a character who’s turned into the animal] is prominent in the film, but I don’t know that we’ll get into that dam.

io9: You’ve said you’re looking at a $35 million budget.
Green: Hey, it’s all estimations. We haven’t budgeted the script or anything like that. But I know that I need this Beaver to exist in real life. And I know that’s gonna be expensive computer-generated graphics, over like 15 percent of the film. This isn’t an effects driven movie, though. This is a character-driven movie.

io9: Sort of like a purgatory tale.
Green: It’s similar to that. We do play it for laughs, but at the same time this is a very grounded story about real kids dealing with something significant. The changes that you go through when you leave high school and go to college are huge. You’re embracing your own identity for the first time, telling the whole world who you will be for the rest of your life. This is a world where superpowers don’t exist. And I’m not talking first season of Heroes. This is today, this is actually happening, this is right now.

io9: Did you go to college?
Green: I did not go to college. (A) I had terrible entry scores—I’m a bad tester, and (B) I was already working professionally in the field that I was pursuing. So it just seemed silly for me to spend my time in a scholastic environment. [Instead] I went to the used bookstore and just bought a ton of stuff that I wanted to read.

io9: Wouldn’t it be tough, then, to direct a movie about the college experience?
Green: Oh, I spent a ton of time at colleges. All of my friends were in school, and that’s where I’d discuss with them what their experiences were. It was really just responsibility for the first time. For the first time in someone’s life, they set their own alarm; they do or don’t go to school; they do or don’t eat properly. You know? They do or don’t do all the things they’ve been instructed are crucial. That’s what I’m fascinated by.

io9: How far along are you with the script?
Green: Well, we wrote a script and we wanna take another pass at it, but we got it on paper.

io9: Have you sold it?
Green: I spent a bunch of time talking to George Lucas about how he makes his movies. And I really like his philosophies. So we’re writing it, and we’re figuring it all out. I spent a good deal of time producing over the last eight years, so this kind of thing I can handle. We’re gonna partner up with somebody we believe in and who believes in us, and make the movie that we wanna make. At press time, we haven’t picked a producer.

io9: Would you reach out to George Lucas or Joss Whedon for advice about directing?
Green: Absolutely, yes, always. When you’re fortunate enough to get to work with masters, without being a nuisance, take advantage of that.

io9: When would you ideally like to start production?
Green: Um, well, schedule really becomes a product of availability. Hugh has a show that he’s sold to the Sci Fi network. He’s doing a bit of work on that right now. I’ve got Robot Chicken—we just wrapped [another] Star Wars [episode], which is gonna be out Nov. 16. Then I have a movie in April. So it always becomes about where do you put it? But what I will say is that I wanna make this movie. I’m really excited about it. I’m really excited to show it to people.

io9: What do you think of Hollywood’s almost indiscriminate love for comic books now?
Green: It’s making a universe. It’s creating, like, a taxable marketplace. I think that’s what Marvel’s been doing so succinctly: trying to combine all their franchises into something that’s just really serving the fan. What’s nice is that Hollywood studios are essentially banks and don’t really care what the content is as long as it’s turning a profit. They become more and more willing to trust these storytellers who’ve been telling good stories all along.

io9: Yet if you talk to most comics creators and editors, they’d probably argue they’re more or less left out of the process.
Green: Well, you know, everybody’s got their process. As a filmmaker I’m just excited by the prospect of a filmmaker putting their stamp on something that they already love. Jon Favreau was a huge Iron Man fan and look what he gave us.

io9: But there are comic-book companies that solely want to develop…
Green: I know. There is no such thing as selling out anymore. 50 Cent who is the hardest gangster—or at least sold as the hardest gangster around—made $50 million selling Vitamin Water. If you don’t have a clothing line and a record or a comic book or a scent, then you’re just not participating. And it’s a funny thing to accept, as a citizen of the world. I hope this doesn’t sound disingenuous, but I’m not driven by financial gain. All my life I’ve liked to make stuff. And I’ve found myself in a position of opportunity to make some of the things I’ve been wanting to for a long time. And I’m just taking every advantage of it, absolutely.

io9: How big of a comics fan are you?
Green: I think there’s a misconception about me and the size of my comic-book geekiness. I grew up reading comic books. My dad and I did together, and I learned how to draw and I got interested in that storytelling. But around ’96, I just flat-out stopped buying them. The whole collecting market started frustrating me cause all of these companies were doing these ridiculous multiple printings with different covers to gouge the average fan. And I just found the whole thing grotesque and turned my back on it.

io9: Do you want to make anymore comics?
Green: I didn’t write The Freshman. We co-conceived the characters and the stories. I haven’t really given [creating more comics] a lot of thought. You know Geoff Johns is a buddy of mine, and he writes comics all the time. Oh my gosh, that guy is awesome. He and Matt [Senreich, Robot Chicken’s other co-creator] are going to make a movie. But, no, I haven’t really thought about it cause I haven’t had a story I wanted to tell in that medium.

io9: If Joss asked you, would you ever consider taking on the Buffy comic?
Green: See, I don’t think I’m instinctive for those characters or that content. I always put myself in their hands. I was like, “Write me something awesome.” And they never disappointed. I don’t think I’d be a good candidate. I don’t think I have valuable instincts for those characters.

io9: What was your costume this Halloween?
Green: I’ve prepared a Dr. Henry Jones Sr. costume. I love Sean Connery in The Last Crusade. I was Axl Rose one year. That was a very strong costume.

io9: Superficially, you’d appear to have a fascination with Amish people—what with The Freshman’s Amish character, Liam, as well as your role in Sex Drive.
Green: I dressed up as an Amish person when I went with [actor] Todd Grinnell to the Playboy party a few years ago. But I don’t really have some kind of fascination. It’s just come up a bunch recently.

io9: Can you tell me a little about the upcoming Star Wars episode of Robot Chicken?
Green: Oh my gosh, I cannot wait for people to watch this. It exceeded all of my expectations. We have a little bit of a linear story—we kinda discuss the bounty hunters. I’ve always been interested in those guys and who they are and how they got there. Do they have agents, or did they answer an ad? Do those guys compete all the time? Do they hate each other? Are there rivalries? What’s the story? So, start to finish, it’s the bounty hunters story. And mixed up throughout are channel flips that are all over the universe and timeline.

io9: You’re all over the place lately. What can you tell me about your upcoming spot on Heroes?
Green: Oh, I can’t [laughs].

io9: I know that you and your old buddy Breckin Meyer play comic-book nerds in Atlanta who help one of the Heroes.
Green: You possibly know more than I’m allowed to tell you. Yeah, Breckin and I are both in it. And all our scenes are together.

io9: And shots from the set reveal that you have a beard that sorta makes you look like Morgan from Chuck.
Green: Oh. Wow. That hurts a little bit.

io9: Oh, please. You know the girls love you, Seth.
Green: [laughs]

io9: Would you ever do another Star Trek spoof on Robot Chicken and have Zachary Quinto voice Spock?
Green: Not for Star Trek, no. Zach came on and did a Sylar bit for us. And he did some other stuff. He is so funny. He has got to do a comedy, cause he always plays these really scary and serious characters and he’s so fucking funny. We don’t have any new Star Trek bits. We want to see the movie first.

io9: The next episode of Entourage is intriguingly titled, “Seth Green Day.” Explain.
Green: [Creator] Doug Ellin asked me if I wanted to come and do something. And I was like, “Of course I do!” [Laughs] And me and Kevin Connolly get to fight some more. That’s funny. It’s so silly.

top Seth Green photo courtesy of bonniegrrl

77 stars Freaks and Geeks' immortal John Francis Daley, only he's a lot older and he wants to direct. In a series of misadventures and dramatic conversations about the film's themes, he learns and important lesson and meets the sex offender Spielberg in the process. The film's production has been lengthy and brutal - the original hope was to release the movie before Revenge of Sith in 2005. Karina Longworth of Spout attended the screening:

In its current state, 77 is a good 35 minutes too long, its special effects alternate between inspired and straight dodgy, the performances are brutally uneven, it ends three or four times and it’s so drowned in source cue music that a fair deal of the dialogue is simply unintelligible. It’s a mess....There’s enough plot here for several episodes of CW-quality drama, and aside from the actual trip to Los Angeles, none of it feels like it’s operating at stakes higher than your average episode of teen-friendly TV.

I hate to sound like Harvey Weinstein, but can't they just cut it up and run it on TV where the bad acting and dull setups would fit in better? We do hope it uses this classic footage of a Spielberg interview in that fateful year:

The Nightmare Production of '77 [Spout]

The book - a series of emails between Davies and journalist Benjamin Cook - isn't released in the UK until this Thursday (No US or publisher or release date has been announced, but we're hoping that changes very soon), but British magazine SFX got their hands on a review copy and found themselves very surprised by what's inside:

Naturally, the emails have been filtered and edited, but this still feels surprisingly uncensored for an official tie-in book. Take the chapter which discusses online fan criticism: it’s titled “BASTARDS”. You might understand why when you read about Helen Raynor’s reaction to browsing the forums: “She was literally shaking afterwards. Like she’d been physically assaulted”. Davies also breaks his “never criticise the old series” rule (describing Sylvester McCoy’s debut as “a deep, dark trough”) and clarifies the extent of his “script polishing” - often a 60% rewrite, sometimes almost 100%.

They also run down just some of the revelations within the book. In addition to Davies' declining to meet with Lucas to discuss a role in writing Star Wars, you'll also find out about the missing Mark Gatiss script for Who (He'd previously written "The Unquiet Dead" and "The Idiot Lantern" for the series before a third script was dumped at the last minute), why Owen died instead of Ianto on Torchwood and the secret origin of Davros.

Portions of the book have already appeared online - We've linked to them in Morning Spoilers - but clearly the full version of the book contains much more nerditry than just JK Rowling's non-involvement in Who and the identity of the next Doctor. We'll be waiting eagerly for our import versions to arrive in the mail.

Doctor Who - The Writer's Tale [SFX]

The event, held at a Best Buy in San Francisco, gave fans the chance to meet the people behind the game, see exclusive footage, get a chance to test-drive the game pre-release and, most importantly, dress up in impressively-made outfits to show off their devotion for the franchise. During the five-hour countdown to the game going on sale, project lead Hayden Blackman and Star Wars head honcho George Lucas both spoke to the crowd, explaining the ways in which the game marked the start not only of a new era of Star Wars games, but also of a new way of telling Star Wars stories. Not that anyone really cared about that - They just wanted to play with the awesome Wii Remote plug-ins that give you your own lightsaber.

We'll have a review of the game later this week. For now, enjoy a glimpse at what you missed. And, yes, even when you were there, it still looked kind of like a crossover between Star Wars and Chuck.

Once we passed the contemplative statue of Yoda and entered the Jedi retreat known as Big Rock Ranch — where Lucas Animation and Lucas Television are located — we got a chance to meet Lucas himself.

He began by saying that one of the best parts about Clone Wars is getting to know all the characters we never got to spend time with in episodes I-VI of the movies, which were basically a character study of "why somebody gets to be evil." Explained Lucas:

Now we're going to find out about Jabba's family and what the clones are like. The series, the epic, is about one man. It's very narrow. This [show] allows us to get out of dealing with the psychological underpinnings of why somebody gets to be evil.

It's too bad [we jumped over the Clone Wars before] because it's like World War II — it's a huge canvas to be mined. [With this series] I got to fill in a blank and go around in a universe that's not as restrictive and not as dark. It's more lighthearted. The series will be more like Indiana Jones — episodic. And we used ideas from anime and manga too.

One of the main characters in the feature film, a 90 minute introduction to the series that hits theaters August 15, is Anakin's teenage Padawan, Ahsoka. Lucas said:

[With Ahsoka] I wanted to develop a character who would help Anakin settle down. He's a wild child after [Attack of the Clones]. He and Obi Wan don't get along. So we wanted to look at how Anakin and Ahsoka become friends, partners, a team. When you become a parent or you become a teacher you have to become more respnsible. I wanted to force Anakin into that role of responsibility, into that juxtaposition. I have a couple of daughters so I have experience with that situation. I said instead of a guy let's make her a girl. Teenage girls are just as hard to deal with as teenage boys are.

Another cool character we're going to see in the Clone Wars movie, and throughout the series, is Asajj Ventress, an assassin partly-trained in the ways of the Force whose pwers are too wild to become a Jedi. She's working for Dooku in the series. Director Dave Filoni explained:

Ventress was developed for Attack of the Clones — early on, they thought they'd have Sidious' apprentice after Maul be a woman. Then they abandoned the idea of having Ventress be the next apprentice and used Dooku instead. But the concept art was there [pictured above] — they'd developed this character. We thought, "That's a fan fave character [from the Expanded Universe] so let's draw her out." So now you have these two new women coming into the story at the same time — one is Anakin's apprentice and the other is Dooku's. That worked out very nicely for the story we wanted to tell.

One of the big questions a lot of people have about the new series is the look of the animation. Though it's CGI, it's not photorealistic; the characters are made to look like painted wooden puppets (a reference to the marionettes in the 1960s series The Thunderbirds). Lucas addressed this issue head-on:

We didn't want to do photorealistic — photorealistic is what live action movies are. Animation is art. This is an art discussion – either you like photorealistic art, or you like something that tries to find the truth behind the realism. To me animation is about design and style. Our goal wasn't photorealism — we wanted to use computers as paintbrushes.

Lucas also had a lot to say about how the studio put the animation together on a limited budget:

Art is also a technological medium. It has a lot to do with engineering. It's a medium dictated by resources. That was daunting, since we wanted to push the limits beyond anything you've seen on TV. We wanted to take feature animation to television. Normally feature animation costs 20-30 times what TV animation does. So that was a challenge. We had to build a studio from scratch and develop new techniques from scratch. We also didn't make it the normal way you make an animated feature. We treated it like live action feature – editing, rather than storyboarding. It makes a different kind of animated film, since we relied on cutting and editing vs. storyboards. If we can do something that will stand on its own as a feature film, then we've succeeded.

He added, rather bluntly:

This series is a test run for the live action series I'm working on. I'm trying to take Star Wars, which was a $50-million-an-hour adventure, and do it for $2 million an hour. It's hard to do that and have them look the same.

Star Wars features are probably more than $50 million per hour, though the reported budget on Revenge of the Sith is $115 million. What Lucas does seem to be saying is that each half-hour episode of Clone Wars is budgeted at about $1 million. Producer Catherine Winder confirmed that Lucas Animation already has a 22-episode season complete, so Lucas has sunk $22 million into this series so far. But it's likely much more, when you consider startup costs of creating an entire new division. And with 100 episodes planned, this series may end up costing more than a Star Wars movie.

Lucas was also quite blunt about why Clone Wars stars voice actors who aren't big names:

$200 million is the typical license fee on TV series. Major actors make more than that on their coffee break. There are a lot of top actors who aren't movie stars, and I don't need to hire a big star to publicize a movie. I don't need Angela Jolie to get you guys to come to a press conference. That's why big studios use [big-name] actors for animated features. They're paid for press stuff not for doing the movie.

So what's next for Lucas? He's working on the live action Star Wars series, which he revealed will include more "about the entertainment industry." It's also rumored to be gritty and dark. He also admitted that he's begun work on researching the next Indiana Jones flick. He's very interested in doing TV now, and that's what his focus is on, he told reporters.

After the press conference, Lucas lingered in the hallways talking to reporters and shooting the breeze with Dave Filoni (we'll post our interview with Filoni later this week). One had brought his five-year-old son, who had just seen the Clone Wars feature with the rest of us.

"Did you like it?" asked Lucas.

"Yes," the boy said very seriously. "I would like to see it three more times."

"Get that on film," Lucas joked. But you could tell from his smile that he was genuinely delighted that his latest creation had reached his favorite audience. In the end, Lucas is still doing it for the kids.