My new favourite blog is, sadly, no longer being updated, but there is plenty of archived stuff there to dig into. Going back to the urban legend beloved of stoned students in the 90s, namely that Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon was a sort of secret soundtrack to The Wizard of Oz, this is “one nerd’s attempt to find an album that synchs up with Star Wars”. Here’s an article in which the gentleman in question looks back on the “experiment”, and doesn’t even attempt to justify it. None needed. Anything that brings together my two favourite things, Star Wars and (in the case of the album referenced in the above title) “moody prog rock” is bound to get my approval.

Comics blogger Kate Beaton regularly creates comics in which she converses with her younger self, and recently invited her readers to do the same, leading to an avalanche of responses. I found about this while looking through Lissa Treiman’s blog (whose strip for the Scary Go Round Feats of Strength competition rightfully won, even though it was up against some, ahem, super awesome entries). So, like many others, I was inspired to make my own:

Well what else am I going to talk to my younger self about? I don’t know about anything else. I suspect I have fallen into an easy stereotype here. Many of the responses to Kate’s blog post were along the lines of KID: “I like cartoons and comics”, ADULT: “Me too!”, BOTH: “Yay!”. Cartoonists are a predictable lot, and I haven’t exactly moved away from the immature norm. Ah well. On a similar theme, I knocked together another one:

Now, I am aware of the slightly dodgy Freudian implications of waving around an obvious massive (not to mention glowing) phallic symbol in order to impress my childhood self, but the truth is I would have literally killed for one of these things when i was six.

So what is it about upside down lightsabers? Throughout the Star Wars expanded universe artists are constantly depicting lesser known Jedi with their swords held the wrong way round. This year we have two big Star Warsular events on the horizon, The upcoming Clone Wars animated TV series/Pilot movie, and The Force Unleashed video game. The former prominently features a jailbait alien padawan babe brandishing her saber widdershins, whereas the latter (seemingly in development for the last 53 years, and undoubtedly the Shadows of the Empire of the noughties) focuses on Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, the intertextually named ‘Starkiller’, who also doesn’t know the pointy end from the blunt one. Innumerable fan films and comic books also include this bizarre phenomenon.

I once spent a very enjoyable day playing the much maligned Playstation game Jedi Power Battles, in which the token female Jedi Council member Adi Gallia was depicted using a lightsaber in the Australian fashion (and it was red too, what was meant to be going on there?)

Sure it looks cool, and for all I know it could be based on a real martial art technique, but I don’t recall anyone in the actual movies doing it. In order to point the blade out in front of you, you would have to have your elbow up in the air, which can’t be comfortable can it?

Here is a heads up to let you know that we have reposted the most viewed comic we have ever done. A dubious honour, seeing as it piggybacks on the interest in Fanboys, a movie which itself piggybacks on the popularity of Star Wars. Our pageviews went through the roof for a few days, thanks to TheForce.Net, Digg and StumbleUpon.  It was almost like being genuinely popular, although it’s a good job we didn’t let it go to our heads and rush out to buy that speedboat.

So I finally saw Fanboys thanks to a competition that ran on The ForceCast. I think I read about this movie back in the 90s on Ain’t It Cool News, and it has taken this long to (barely) get a release, a wait of almost Chinese Democracyesque proportions. There’s still no sign of it getting an official release in the UK but those of us who remember the early days of DVD and hung onto our multi region players have at least got the option to get hold of the US DVD.

While it’s a relief to finally get to see the movie that people have been talking about for so long, it only appeared in a handful of American cinemas, and the DVD release has been pretty low key. Coupled with a rather negative critical response, it seems that relatively few people will see it , and that’s a shame as, while it’s far from perfect, it has a massive untapped potential audience that is bound to take it to their hearts.

The film is a story of a group of friends in 1998 who decide to travel across country to break into Skywalker Ranch, so that they can get to see the unreleased Star Wars Episode I before one of them pegs it. I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in the fact that this idea occurred to me many times in the run up to the release of what was surely the most anticipated movie of all time.

At this point, of course, a million AICN Talkbackers will routinely pipe up that when those guys eventually see it they’ll wish they hadn’t bothered. But Fanboys is about the journey, and the characters’ relationships more than the eventual outcome. Along the way there are a few slightly undercooked comedic episodes, some evidence of the studio’s interference, and some fairly unnecessary stunt casting, but the thing that carries the movie along is the terrific chemistry between the central cast. Adding to this is the attention to detail, making it feel like these guys are real friends and real fans. Weirdly, it feels like it actually was made in the late 90s (a side effect of its low budget), and it’s interesting to compare it to 1998′s Free Enterprise, a story about Star Trek fans told with more sophistication, but less charm.

Definitely recommended viewing for fans of Star Wars. And Rush.

OK the new entry in the Star Wars saga is pretty interesting, but I’m not sure where it fits in the timeline. For one thing The Mos Eisley Cantina has turned into one of those ghastly sports bars. It looks worse than The Outlander Club from Episode II. Daft Punk fit right in, of course, as they look exactly like those police robots from THX 1138 and Indie Godheads Ian Brown and Noel Gallagher are now so grizzled that they don’t exactly look out of place next to Hammerhead and Snaggletooth. I don’t know about Snoop Dogg awkwardly handling a lightsaber though. The Drop It Like It’s Hot hitmaker is about as convincing a Jedi as Don-Wan Kihotay. Walrus Man is clearly disappointed with the state of hip hop today and just wants to make his feelings known.

Girly voiced male model and occasional “Soccer” player David Beckhams makes an appearance, being hassled by Greedo… or at least some other rodian – they not only all look alike but they even dress the same. Jabba wants him to play for his team – at this point I could hear a million voices suddenly cry out in terror – or at least a bunch of fanboys bleating about their childhoods being raped. Look, if Adidas is going to sell overpriced sports gear with stormtroopers on or something, that’s fine, but all they need to do to get me to shell out is flog those casual jackets that Luke and Han wear in Empire. That’s what was wrong with the prequels, no casual jackets!