We heard earlier this week that author Ann Crispin was in poor health. Earlier today, Jim Macdonald reported that she passed away this morning. Our thoughts go out to Ann’s family and friends.
Category Archives: News
A.C. Crispin bids farewell to her fans.
A.C. Crispin, author of the Star Wars Han Solo Trilogy, posted a farewell to her fans yesterday on StarTrek.com. Ann, who has written for a variety of franchises, including Star Wars, Star Trek, Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as her own original Starbridge universe, made the announcement that her battle with cancer is nearing its end.
Crispin thanked her fans for their support and assured them that she was receiving excellent care, let them know that her husband was collecting messages sent to her, but warned them that she may not have the strength to post to her Facebook or website again.
In addition to being a prolific science-fiction writer, Crispin has also served as the Vice President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and with colleague Victoria Strauss, founded Writer Beware, a offshoot of SFWA that helps writers avoid publishing scams and assists law enforcement in shutting down criminal activity in the publishing world. She has also been a leader in ensuring female voices and representation among the science-fiction community.
Ann’s Star Wars resume includes the Han Solo trilogy and two short stories, one for both Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina and Tales from Jabba’s Palace.
Harrison Ford joins “The Expendables 3”
In what will be the newest addition to a franchise in which no one understands a word anyone says, Harrison Ford will likely come as a breath of fresh air and an unexpected blast of actual enunciation, as Sylvester Stallone tweeted this afternoon that Han Solo would be joining the cast in lieu of Bruce Willis, who has bowed out in some sort of fractious encounter. The Wrap has independently confirmed Ford’s involvement with Ford’s reps, since Stallone has been posting possibilities for the movie on Twitter for months without confirmation one way or another.
Ford will be playing a new character in the film, rather than stepping into Bruce Willis’ vacated role as Church.
The Expendables 3 is due to hit theatres 15 August 2014.
SDCC Film/Television News Round Up
In completely and utterly unsurprising news, this year’s Hall H panels at San Diego Comic Con were the hot spot for all the film news. Plenty of new trailers and clips were shown but here are some of the highlights or at least some of the ones that we thought were awesome and mention-worthy:
- Zack Snyder will officially be directing a Batman/Superman film with an anticipated release date of Summer 2015. The Hollywood Reporter also says that Warner Bros. is aiming for a Flash film in 2016 and a Justice League film for 2017 but that wasn’t announced at the panel (or at least as far as we are aware.)
- Lionsgate treated audiences to a new Catching Fire Theatrical Trailer. (The staff is still recovering from that one.) The film will be out this November.
- We also got to see some of the first footage for the Veronica Mars film.
- The X-men were out in full force with first some footage from the soon to be released Wolverine and then with a trailer for X-men First Class: Days of Future Past. Basically every X-men every was on that panel.
- The anticipated Marvel Studios panel didn’t disappoint especially if you were in Hall H. The audience was greeted by Loki. Yes, Tom Hiddleston was in full Loki costume and character as an introduction for extended trailer/footage for Thor: The Dark World. Then the cast/crew for Captain America: The Winter Soldier got to take the stage. The cast talked about their characters and Kevin Feige mentioned that the Winter Soldier story will definitely stick pretty close to Ed Brubaker’s run on the book. Obviously, the audience was treated to some exclusive footage. Once more, the staff is incredibly jealous. Marvel continued to overachieve by bringing out the cast and crew of Guardians of the Galaxy who all flew in specifically for the panel. Even though they just started filming less than two weeks ago, they still brought footage with them. Unfortunately, no new films were announced. They did, however, have one last mic drop in the form of Joss Whedon taking the stage for the last few minutes to announce the full title for Avengers 2: Age of Ultron. For those in the comic book know, Kevin Feige as said that the film is borrowing the title from the recent book and will not be a direct adaptation of it.
- How I Met Your Mother got its very first SDCC panel for its very final season. Usually, this wouldn’t make this post but we’ve poked fun at how the show has dragged on in the past and how those kids must be adults by now. The crew showed they have a good sense of humor by putting together this promo for Season 9 in which the kids are finally done with Ted’s story.
- And finally, even though the panel was Friday, the trailer for Season 4 of The Walking Dead was also premiered and wow does it look excellent! Season 4 will start airing on October 13th on AMC.
Legend of Korra Book 2 gets a September premiere date and a trailer
http://youtu.be/7ftLm52V1y0
*Commentary unavailable, Bria and Brian hyperventilating due to trailer induced awesome overload*
George Lucas and Mellody Hobson wed over the weekend
Congratulations to George Lucas and Mellody Hobson, who got married over the weekend according to a number of friends.
George Lucas Melody Hobson wedding was joy to behold Bill Moyers service was beautiful, nothing short of profound. Congrats Mr&Mrs Lucas
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) June 24, 2013
Let’s give a Galactic shout out to Master George Lucas & his Bride Melodie on This their WEDDING DAY!! Congrats!!!!!!
— Samuel L. Jackson (@SamuelLJackson) June 22, 2013
Uh-oh: Amazon announces Kindle Worlds
Club Jade clued us in this morning to Amazon’s new plan to pay fanfic authors to publish their works via Kindle. Introducing Kindle Worlds, which is getting around the fuzzy legal grey area of fanfiction by officially licensing these Worlds, and the first to sign on has been Warner Brothers’ affiliated Alloy Entertainment, who owns the license for Pretty Little Liars, Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl.
On the surface, this looks great. Star Trek has been doing this for a long time–anyone who has ever submitted a story to one of the Strange New Worlds anthologies has certainly been aware of what has been, in the past, a relatively willing openness to fan work, and many fan writers have broken into professional publishing through writing for these anthologies. It also seems like a way for fans to get generally professionally curated (?) writing for their favorite universes at a reasonable price.
But there is, I fear, a dark side to all the bright, shiny, happy togetherness Amazon is toting. Continue reading
Think Geek wins at listening to customers
It made the rounds this week that Fox started sending cease and desist orders to Etsy sellers who were producing their own version of the iconic ‘Jayne hat’ from Joss Whedon’s cult TV show Firefly. Both Ripple Junction, who now owns the license to make the hats and ThinkGeek, who sells them, denied any involvement in sending the C&D orders. ThinkGeek posted a blog entry attesting to as much.
While there’s not much that can be done for intrepid Firefly fans who want to sell their own versions of Jayne’s hat, ThinkGeek just announced that they have heard the outcry from fans and therefore will donate all proceeds from the sale of the official Jayne hat on sale at their website to Can’t Stop the Serenity, an organization that hosts charity screenings of Serenity in order to help support Equality Now, a worldwide charity that works to further the cause of human rights and end violence and discrimination against women around the world.
Four for you, ThinkGeek. You go, ThinkGeek.
DVR watch: Mark Hamill will guest-star on Criminal Minds
TV Guide at Yahoo! is reporting that Mark Hamill will be guest-starring in the two-part season 8 finale of CBS’ procedural drama Criminal Minds. While there’s no word yet on exactly who Hamill will play, TV Guide speculates that he may be following more in the footsteps of the Joker than Luke Skywalker:
Details about Hamill’s role are being kept under wraps, but could he be the BAU’s season-long unsub/stalker The Replicator? In the two-hour episode, the team’s pursuit of The Replicator will come to a head when one of them becomes a victim. Executive producer Erica Messer also previously told TVGuide.com that the BAU won’t come face-to-face with The Replicator until the season’s final two episodes.
The Criminal Minds two-part season finale airs May 22nd, 9e/8c.
Lucasarts Shuttered, Employees Laid Off
Kotaku is reporting that Disney has officially shut down Lucasarts and laid off all employees.
Given the lingering hard feelings over Lucasfilm Animation and the cancellation of The Clone Wars, it’s easy to get upset at Disney. I would caution against it, however. Lucasarts was a development studio that was in trouble years before Disney even came into the picture. The number of titles they released plummeted around 2006-2007 and the marquee titles they did release were not well received critically. The Force Unleashed and its sequel were regarded as middling titles and The Old Republic was a huge expenditure that failed to put a dent in the MMO market.
There’s also this to consider:
LucasArts just announced It is moving to a licensing model for games, moving away from development.
— Geoff Keighley (@geoffkeighley) April 3, 2013
Lucasarts has been a development studio in trouble for years. This studio getting shut down doesn’t mean the end of Star Wars games. If anything, I view it as a hopeful thing. For whatever reason, they have been unable to produce quality products internally for a number of years and they probably could have and should have been closed down sooner to redistribute that valuable IP.
If Disney is licensing the Star Wars IP now to other studios, that could be great news for fans.
Edit: Official statement from Lucasfilm
GameInformer received a statement from Lucasfilm discussing the closure of the studio.
“After evaluating our position in the games market, we’ve decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company’s risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we’ve had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.”
In addition, Kotaku is now reporting that Star Wars 1313 and First Assault have been canceled
Staff were informed of the shutdown this morning, according to a reliable Kotaku source. Some 150 people were laid off, and both of the studio’s current projects—Star Wars: First Assault and Star Wars 1313—were cancelled. Disney will still use the LucasArts name to license games, but the studio is no more.