Given the involvement of Jim Henson and Frank Oz in the Star Wars films, this may have been inevitable. The episode, which originally aired on February 23 1980 features Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Kenny Baker (R2-D2) and a cameo by Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca). The show starts with the introduction of Kermit’s special…
Why you should give the Disney-JJ Abrams Star Wars a fair chance
The trailer for the first of the new Star Wars films is here and I’m not sure how to feel. I’m still skeptical about Disney being able to do Star Wars and I’m still skeptical about the idea that JJ Abrams can do anything well at all but it occurs to me that I might…
Relaxation & meditation recordings for nerds
BBC 6’s Peter Serafinowicz created the Dalek Relaxation Tape for Humans (see below) as a bit of a joke, but somehow it fits. For most of my life I’ve seen the new-agey meditation and relaxation tapes and CDs. Things like “Songs up the Humpback Whale”, “Mountain Stream”, “Bird Songs”, “Thunderstorm” etc. At one point in…
Watch the original Star Wars parody “Hardware Wars”
I remember, shortly after Star Wars came out everyone would rush to see anything even vaguely Star Wars related. It wasn’t long after the release of the original film, way before Spaceballs, that filmmaker Ernie Fosselius decided to do a parody entitled Hardware Wars. Like many things from the 1970s, it’s far cheesier than I…
Goodnight Darth Vader: the latest children’s title from Jeffrey Brown
I learned this year that watching Star Wars on Father’s Day is becoming a thing, because of the whole Vader being Luke & Lea’s father thing. (It appears that decades later people are still in shock about that one.) Personally, as a father, I don’t get it. Darth Vader was responsible for untold thousands of…
Someone mashed up Star Wars to look like the Guardians of the Galaxy trailers (video)
Making trailers is an art in it’s own right. Yes, Guardians of the Galaxy looks awesome but this trailer, made from the first 3 Star Wars movies by ‘the Unusual Suspect‘, instantly makes me want to go watch those again too. Here, in case you haven’t seen them are the trailers for Guardians of the…
They Might Be Giants – Star Wars mashup (video)
Fingertips is an odd little song. It was buried at the end of 1992’s “Apollo 18” album. If you played the CD straight through it was an odd collection of choruses – which sounded like parts of 21 different songs crammed together. According to TMBG’s John Linnell that’s exactly what it was: “The project was…
Annotated Star Wars blends the scenes with their influences (Video)
Last week a CineFix Video provided a little film history to show how Star Wars got its creative start in Japan in 1910. Now, this video from Michael Heilemann, an interface director at Squarespace, goes above and beyond, mashing up scenes from Star Wars with the films that inspired them. According to FirstShowing, Heilman is…
CineFix explains the origin of Star Wars starting in 1910 Japan
What do silent films in Japan, World War II, Westerns, America’s move the suburbs, the end of the film studio monopolies, an auto racing accident and Samurai have to do with Star Wars? If you don’t know – watch this history lesson from CineFix. (All of this without even getting into Joseph Campbell’s work on…
Help UNICEF and win a chance to be in Star Wars VII
In a video released today (see below) JJ Abrams announced that, by making a $10 donation to the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) through Omaze.com/StarWars fans can win a chance to appear in Star Wars VII. According to the press release “Star Wars: Force for Change, a brand new Star Wars initiative from Disney…