Nov 18 BEEN away for a couple of weeks, hence the lack of updates, so here's a quick recap for anyone who's been out of touch too.
Star Wars fans in the UK won't have to fork out hundreds of pounds to cross the pond in order to see Attack of the Clones first. The film will be released on the same day as America - May 16, and pretty soon after in every other country.
THE new trailer, Forbidden Love, has been released on the official Star Wars site. Once you've downloaded Quick Time 5, you can see the two-minute teaser, which centres on the relationship between Anakin and Amidala, but also includes footage of Jango Fett and the mysterious Count Dooku, played by Christopher Lee. Dooku's scene involves a fight with Anakin.
ANYONE who caught Parkinson on BBC1 last night will have seen Samuel L Jackson, in town to plug his new gangster movie, 51st State. However Parky, bless him, also mentioned his role as Mace Windu in Attack of the Clones. Jackson recalled how he initially got the part after appearing on Channel 4's TFI Friday, and was asked which director he would really like to work with, and he mentioned George Lucas. Someone from Lucasfilm got in touch and he was handed the role.
Jackson said how he was handed the script, and saw he was going to be talking to Yoda. "This is very cool. I know they won't cut this out of the movie. I'm talking with Yoda. Yoda is my boy. I'm 2nd in command of the whole Jedi Council."
He also talked about acting with green screen backgrounds, where computer special effects are added later, and said Lucas would tell him to fight invisible things, the size of cars. When Parky asked if Jackson ever stopped and wondered what on earth he was doing, he replied: "hell no, I wanted to be there".
Jackson had asked Lucas if he could have a purple lightsaber for his role, as traditionally they're red (for the bad guys), green or blue. He was given an abrupt no. But when he came to see the recent trailer, he realised his wish had been granted and it was indeed purple. He added that this had thrown many fans, and generated great debate as to why it should be purple.
Nov 7 NOT content with giving us the new Star Wars trailer, George Lucas has now announced a string of new Episode II treats for November.
Following on from the Breathing trailer, now available for download at the official site, it's been revealed that on November 9 (Friday) those with the Episode I DVD will be able to access more Ep II footage via the internet.
Then on November 16, the second trailer will be released in cinemas, in front of the new Harry Potter movie. At more than two minutes long, it will have a whole heap of new material.
Finally on November 25 in America only, Fox will air Episode I, immediately followed by the forthcoming web-documentary series, Artoo-Detoo: Beneath the Dome.
Nov 5 AT about 5.30pm today the UK got its very first taste of the new Star Wars movie. Children's news show Newsround screened part of the two-minute trailer for Attack of the Clones.
Entitled 'Breathing', it is just that, Vader's breathing over a series of shots from the film, Yoda, Mace Windu, Jango Fett and Anakin and Amidala kissing. There's a couple of new ships too, but no sign of Christopher Lee or the Emperor just yet.
The other good news is that said trailer is now online at the Star Wars site.
THE new series of Star Trek will be shown on Channel 4, not the BBC. Channel 4 has bought the rights to the fifth series, Enterprise, from Sky One, the owner of the rights.
The BBC's own site said Sky One had sold the rights to Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager to the BBC but now Sky had not approached the corporation, a BBC spokesman said.
Whatever side it's on though, you've got a wait ahead. The earliest glimpse of Enterprise here won't be until the second half of next year - after Sky One has itself begun screening the series. The new series, when it comes, will follow Captain Jonathan Archer, played by Scott Bakula, "in the pioneering days of space travel".
Nov 2 AMERICA may have got it first - but the UK gets it on Monday! The trailer for the new Star Wars film was shown in cinemas across America today. But BBC1's children's news show Newsround revealed it would have an UK exclusive showing of the Breathe trailer this coming Monday. So set your videos now!
LUCAS and co return to London this weekend to complete some of the shots for Attack of the Clones. Lucas, Christopher Lee, Ewan McGregor and more will be at the Ealing Studios in London for some pick-up work for the new movie, due out next May. There is also talk that Episode III may come back to the UK for filming.
Oct 30 THE first trailer for Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones will be released on Friday. In a special e-mail announcement, it was revealed the trailer would only be shown, in Canada and America, in connection with the Disney/Pixar movie, Monsters Inc.
George Lucas said: "I have great respect for Pixar and deep admiration for John Lasseter and his
team. I'm thrilled
to be able to show audiences their first glimpse of Episode II with Monsters, Inc.
It gives me an immense sense of pride to see our companies working together."
Oct 28 LOOKS like the trailer for Attack of the Clones is coming to a screen near you soon. Even nearer though, if you live in America.
Some cinemas already have the short trailer, and it looks like it will go general release in America on Friday. TFN hinted at what may be in store, and that includes Yoda turning towards the camera, Obi-wan "being hung up in the air with a blue force field around him.", a shot with Boba Fett and the young clones sitting at computer monitors doing lessons and Slave I coming at the screen in an asteroid field.
LOOKS like TheForce.net and a couple of web sites are at war. It seems that Prequel-Spoilers.Com created an image, which was posted by Aldera.Net, that portrayed Joshua Griffin and Scott Chitwood of TFN as a couple of Nazis.
Not unreasonably, Scott Chitwood demanded the image be taken down, amd it was. But then a series of e-mails flew back and forth, with Chitwood threatening to sue Aldera. It's all got a little silly, and hopefully they'll all calm down soon. I don't suppose anyone is keen on being called a Nazi, especially in these times, and so anyone who makes such a photo can't expect a too welcoming response.
Oct 22 IF school days are the best of your life, then they just got even better for some students. For the first time some pupils taking HSC exams were able to study Star Wars, but, staggeringly, few schools opted to do so. .
TFN said: "The head of the English Teachers Association, Sue Gazis, said she was surprised by the low acceptance of Star Wars. 'A few years ago, I would have said Star Wars would be popular because it was part of mainstream popular culture, but surprisingly there's not been a big take-up'," she said.
Oct 21 MORE bounty hunter news. The latest edition of Star Wars Insider features interviews with some of the leading bad guys from the films. There's Daniel Logan, who's Boba Fett in the new films, Temuera Morrison, who is Jango Fett, and Leeanna Walsman, who plays Zam Wesell.
There's also a blow-by-blow guide to the New Jedi Order, Aurra Sing's introduction to conventions, and a chat with Rick McCallum.
Oct 19 DANIEL Logan is the new Boba Fett. The official site now lists the actor as playing the famous Bounty Hunter in Star Wars: Episode II. Jeremy Bulloch, who was at our first convention, made the role famous, and now Boba, and dad Jango, are set to appear in Attack of the Clones. Go here for the link.
C-3PO actor Anthony Daniels has updated his official website. He told a Dutch convention a few days ago the new site was not commercial, and listed his forthcoming appearances, old columns he had written, and a list of fake autographs which are on the web. The site is at www.anthonydaniels.com It was a pretty good site before, and now it's even better.
Oct 15 WOW. Wow, wow, wow. If for any reason you don't possess a DVD player, you really need to get one. Now.
The Phantom Menace was released on DVD today, and I've been busy scrolling through most of it for the past few hours. Among the highlights are an excellent audio commentary throughout one version of the film, deleted scenes which include a fuller version of the Podrace, and some amazing Episode II footage via the official web site, with plenty of new Episode II action.
The audio sees Lucas, McCallum and others talk about how the film was made. Lucas makes a point of explaining the film is meant to be like a silent movie, based around visuals and music, and its style is meant to match the other three films, ie the begining, the first appearance of the Emperor as a hologram.
There's two DVDs in the box, and also on there is the Dual of the Fates music video, a making of the Starfighter game from LucasArts, a never-before-seen production gallery and the web documentary series about the making of Episode I.
Oct 14 CHANNEL 4 produced the top-ten TV sci-fi shows of all time last night. Among the treats were Space: 1999, Sapphire and Steel (remember them?), the Tomorrow People, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (really, really awful) and Thundbirds.
Unfortunately my video thoughtfully ran out as they got to the top three, so I'm left guessing that they were The X-Files, Dr Who and Star Trek, but if anyone knows for sure could they drop me a line here? Ta.
BUILD-up to the release of the first ever Star Wars DVD is growing fast. Adverts are being played all over the globe in anticipation of the October 16 release date.
Oct 11 CAST your mind back to the Census that took place a few months ago. A virul e-mail encouraged us all to list our religion as Jedi Knight when it came to filling it in.
Of course, no-one would be that silly, right? Well, wrong, as the bemused folk at the Census department found out. Several sites, and a few newspapers, have pointed out that despite assurances that Jedi would never be listed as a religon, it has found its way onto a Census list.
OK, there's not going to be many chapels built as a result, and it's unlikely you'll be able to suddenly learn how to persuade your boss into giving you a pay rise by wafting your hand in front of him, but the facts are here. Bet the Census website never had so many hits.
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