Remaining Clone Wars content targeted for early 2014

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tcw_s5logo_smAccording to former Clone Wars showrunner Dave Filoni, Lucasfilm is targeting early 2014 for the release of the show’s remaining bonus content.

Star Wars fans – I have some exciting news! We have wrapped production on all of the remaining Star Wars: The Clone Wars episodes, and while that might be sad news in one way, it’s good news in another. It means you will finally get to see them. When, exactly, is a detail I cannot yet share. I can confirm that in early 2014 you will be watching the final episodes of The Clone Wars, including one of Master Yoda’s most challenging missions. So, get ready. We’ve got Clone Wars and Rebels coming at you in 2014. Animated Star Wars is alive and well. Trust in the Force my friends.
– Dave

Still no word on exactly how this content will be released (As Club Jade reminds us, Pablo Hidalgo said Lucasfilm was looking at “out-of-the-box” ideas for distribution at D23), but at least there’s a window to look forward to. The content will get out there, it’ll just take a little bit more patience.

Star Wars: Rebels Weekend Roundup

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New York Comic Con was this weekend and among the events was the first Star Wars: Rebels press panel of sorts. While we don’t have a release date or any animation from the show yet, new information and artwork was revealed. Most importantly, we learned that Rebels is set to take place fourteen years after Revenge of the Sith and not the eight years that was originally rumored.

Dave Filoni also checked in with a video and made it clear that a large number of The Clone Wars creative crew will be returning for Rebels.

He also introduced the series’ new villain tasked to hunt down the pockets of Jedi that survived Order 66, the Inquisitor.

Rebels Inquisitor

 

There was also a look at some concept artwork, such as this great look at the interior of a TIE Fighter.

One sight you may want to keep an eye on moving forward is SienarFleetSystems.com. That certainly is some pretty propaganda material.

Fore more details and artwork, be sure to head over to Club Jade to check out Dunc’s Storify compiling tweets from the event.

Review: Star Wars: Ewoks- Shadows of Endor

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Sometimes, a comic book is exactly what it reads on the label and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  Out today is Ewoks- Shadows of Endor; a new Star Wars graphic novel for the younglings about everyone’s favorite fluffy little terrors.  Penned and drawn by Zack Giallongo with colors by Braden Lamb, it’s an enjoyable little tale about how Endor is turned on its head when the Empire arrives to build the shield generator for the new Death Star.

This review contains mild spoilers.

Continue reading →

Star Wars Rebels teaser trailer

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And here’s your fifteen second teaser trailer for Rebels on Disney XD.

The one line that caught everyone’s attention on Twitter last night was “The Jedi will rise.” Marketing buzz, or was Order 66 the least effective genocide ever? Who knows! Just keep in mind this was a fifteen second announcement for a show that is still in development, so the only thing anyone knows is that it’s called Rebels and that it’s airing on Disney XD.

Kickstarter: War of the Seasons by Janine Spendlove

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Last week we were fortunate to have author and all-around awesome human being Janine Spendlove on the podcast. Janine is the author of War of the Seasons, a YA fantasy trilogy that both Nanci and I have greatly enjoyed. Today, she’s kickstarting the launch of the third and final book in that series.

If you’ve read the first two War of the Seasons novels, you can contribute to this kickstarter to get either an ebook or a print version (depending on the contribution level) of the third book. If you haven’t read the prior two novels, you can get those included as ebooks for a $15 or greater contribution or as print novels for $50.

As is the case with many kickstarters, there are bonuses for hitting some stretch goals. Among them? Short stories set in the War of the Seasons universe that will be penned by Star Wars Expanded Universe authors Aaron Allston and Mike Stackpole.

Other stretch goal authors that may wind up contributing short stories both in the War of the Seasons universe and outside of it are Bryan Young, Cleolinda Jones, Albin Johnson (founding of the 501st), and Maggie Allen.

2013 League of Legends World Championship Commentary

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leagueoflegendsworldchampionship2013I’m sure that if you’ve been following the blog for a while, you may have heard me on the podcast once or twice. When I’ve been on, you’ve probably heard me say one of the geekiest things you have ever heard anyone say: I watch e-sports.

Let me be clear about this, I don’t watch just any e-sport; I watch the League of Legends Championship Series. If you don’t know what this game is, if you don’t care what it is, that’s fine. As I’m writing this, the world championships for the series are currently being played. Teams from all over the world–North America, Europe, Korea, China, Southeast Asia and one team of challengers that made it in from Lithuania–have been playing for a month in Los Angeles leading up to last night. Starting at about midnight EST, 9pm PST, October 4, 2013, the champion picks began, and I watched the game between the finalists get ready to start–SK Telecom T1 from Korea, which came in as a third seed and Club Royal from China.

Again, if you don’t care, that’s fine, but let me tell you why I think you should. Continue reading →

Tosche Station Radio #71: War of the Seasons with Janine Spendlove

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On this episode of Tosche Station Radio, the hosts sit down to talk with author Janine Spendlove.

Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight what’s New on the Blog. Nanci reviewed of The Making of Return of the Jedi and did a spoiler free  Go/No-go of The Darwin Elevator. Meanwhile, Bria reviewed The Star Wars #2.

In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci finished reading The Darwin Elevator. Both the hosts caught up with Once Upon a Time and watched The Last Starfighter.

Deak’s Dirt this week starts with Kotaku’s profile of the LucasArts collapse. J.J. Abrams appearance on PBS to talk Star Trek and Star Wars and reassured fans that the franchise wouldn’t be Disneyfied. Dark Horse entered into a distribution partnership with Random House. In the Rumor Roundup, there’s rumblings of live-action Star Wars and  a time placement for Rebels. Apply your grains of salt, but it’s rumored that Saoirse Ronan, Ben Kingsley, and Sullivan Stapleton have read for Episode VII parts.

We’re lucky to have War of the Seasons author Janine Spendlove join us on this week’s Camie’s Concerns. We talk with Janine about Star Wars, conventions, her writing process, and her work on novels and her short stories. Be sure to visit her site and check out War of the Seasons and anthologies she’s featured in!

Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and Audible.com.

There Is Still Good In Him

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“There’s good in him.  I know… I know there’s still…”  “There is still good in him.”  “I’ve got to save you.”

It’s not a stretch to say that redemption is a main theme of the Star Wars films and neither is it a stretch to say that the same theme continued through the Expanded Universe.  The story of someone’s fall to the dark and eventual redemption to the light has been repeated countless times throughout.  This is, afterall, a franchise built upon the story of the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

So why, in recent years, have we seen stories go against this?

I’m talking, of course, about Jacen Solo and also Vestara Khai.  How did we get to a point in the Star Wars universe where Luke Skywalker, Dark Side Redeemer Extraordinaire, isn’t consistently giving it his all to try and bring back his nephew or a young girl from the dark side?  But before we get there, let’s look back at redemption throughout the rest of the Star Wars Saga.

Continue reading →

Dark Horse Exclusives For NYCC

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SWTHE #1 NYCC VAR CVRHeaded out to New York Comic Con this month?  Keep an eye out for the Dark Horse booth and for their convention exclusives.  This year, one of the exclusives will be a special limited edition of The Star Wars #1.  The comic is the adaptation of George Lucas’s original screenplay which we’ve been reviewing.  There will be only 1000 copies of this special convention edition book sold at the con.  They will be sold for $5 a copy (which is a dollar above the usual cover price) and will be limited to two per person.

Read the entire press release for all of Dark Horse’s exclusives after the jump.

Continue reading →

Go/No-go: The Darwin Elevator

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Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 10.00.44 AMThe Darwin Elevator, Jason M. Hough’s debut novel, features a large cast of characters, page-turning action sequences, alien technology, and a zombie-like plague. When I first heard the novel praised on Twitter, it seemed like something I should check out. Then I was lucky enough to win a signed copy by the author! What did I think?

I’ve seen The Darwin Elevator described as “popcorn science fiction”, and that’s definitely an apt way to put it. But that’s not to say the novel isn’t smart. Hough kept me guessing throughout the approximately 475 pages, and I never could figure out what was going to happen next. Most of the secondary characters, especially Tania Sharma and Samantha Rinn, are engaging and fun to read about. The main protagonist, Skyler Liuken, is adequate, but somewhat bland. I hope that changes in Books 2 and 3. And I wanted to punch the villain, Russell Blackfield, every time he appeared on the page.

This brings me to one thing I wasn’t entirely comfortable with: the rampant objectification of women. It’s not done in a glorifying way by any means, but rather to show how awful conditions in Darwin are, and how awful Blackfield is as a person. It certainly worked, considering how much I hated Blackfield by the end of the book. But some of it was a little over the top  and cliche, and made me a bit too uncomfortable.

All that said, The Darwin Elevator kept me engaged throughout and I definitely want to pick up the second and third novels in the trilogy, collectively known as The Dire Earth Cycle. I give it a GO.