Only America could host the idea of having a commercial about a commercial. And that’s exactly what VW have done in the build-up to the Super Bowl, which of course, is more of a marketing showreel than an actual sporting event.

Hell. American Football is barely a sport in itself. Ostensibly, it’s two teams of androids running at each other screaming. What’s not to like?

Anyway, the commercial about a commercial features a squad of dogs all in Star Wars garb and  together, they sing a very familiar tune. Click over the jump to watch it. And no, we’re not getting paid for this.

Last year, we saw VW flogging their Passat with an advert called ‘The Force’ which showed a little Vader trying to use his powers around the house.

The company behind that have come up with another Star Wars themed commercial and George Lucas obvious doesn’t mind coining it in for zero work. So how do you top Mini Vader? DOGS. And VW stuck out a teaser for the upcoming VW Super Bowl commercial.

And Super Bowl ads are not to be sniffed at. This year, companies are paying an average of $3.5 million for 30 seconds of advertising time in the big game (which is on February 5th).

But you don’t care about that.

You want to see a bunch of dogs dressed in Star Wars outfits singing a song don’t you? Keep an eye out for the AT-AT. Absolute show stealer.

William Shatner – or, The Shat, as we like to call him -  is a fine, fine man. We say ‘fine’. We actually mean ‘like watching an endless loop of terrible car wrecks, limbs flying through the air’.

Right? Right.

The Shat is prone to opening his mouth and not thinking too much about what tumbles out. That’s why he’s so fun. And when he does think about it for a second, it usually translates into the most hilariously earnest acting you’ve ever seen. That doesn’t stop him from judging other people’s work. Hell no. Why would it? Now, he’s sticking the boot into Star Wars. It’s Star Wars versus Star Trek!

See, despite obvious evidence to the contrary – not that Bill Shatner would know, because he’s never seen Star Trek according to… well… himself – the daft ol’ sod who played Captain Kirk doesn’t think George Lucas’s six-film franchise is a patch on Star Trek.

He told The Sun:

“Star Trek had relationships and stories that involved humanity and philosophical questions. Star Wars was special effects.”

Yep. Star Trek definitely didn’t have any of those. You’ve seen those polystyrene rocks and lousy costumes they all wore, right?

And of course, Star Wars dealt with humanity (the lack of it in Darth Vader; the toil of the human soul in the face of inherent good/intrinsic evil  with Anakin; the cry of OH THE HUMANITY every time Jar Jar Binks appeared on-screen) and philosophy (Yoda – The end) while Star Trek… uuh… well… there was a lot of sitting around waiting for meteors to hit the ship.

But Shatto isn’t done there. He’s laying into Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, adding:

“[She] can’t compare to the marvellous heroines we had on Star Trek.”

That’d be the marvellous heroines who Bill didn’t like talking too much. Nichelle Nichols (Uhura you you-hura) infamously gave The Shat a dressing down, kicking off with ‘Now let me tell you why I hate you‘ before telling him that, despite the few lines she had in the show, he would sometimes argue with the director that an Uhura dialog line was unnecessary.

To quote Nichols:

“Bill Shatner would crap on the last piece of pizza just so no-one else could enjoy it.”

So, aside from Star Trek fans and actors (Nichelle Nichols excepted, of course) all being wholly stupid and mental, Lucas doesn’t compare to Shatner in one field.

Roll VT…

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!

George Lucas has got everyone thinking about Star Wars again, what with him re-releasing it for the millionth time and, better yet, still tinkering around with it in a bid to utterly infuriate absolutely everyone who loves the films.

Well done George.

So while Lucas meddles, we fiddle. This means we started thinking about the hottest gals from the Star Wars films. When we kicked our measly brains into gear, it transpired that there aren’t too many girls in the Star Wars universe. So who with excite our spaceballs?

There’s a few lists knocking around looking at the fine ladies of the Star Wars universe, but to be honest, they’re all completely rubbish compared to this list.

That’s because we’ve got the nerve/complete lack of shame in fancying non-humans.

Yeah.

You heard.

There’s going to be alien folk in this list. It’s okay though. We’re not proper pervs because it’s only human women in costumes.

It’s not like fancying ET

…and the less said about that particular adult film the better… you’ve seen it too, right? Oh god, don’t go and search for it if not.

Seriously. Don’t.

Anyway, swiftly moving on, here’s our list of most smokin’ Star Wars babes. Start stroking your light sabres now.

Max Rebo Band Backing Dancers

Just imagine what these three gyrating knackpots could do for you after they’ve finished doing a turn for Max Rebo & Co. COR!

Queen Breha Antilles Organa

Regal women always get us hot under the collar. That’s why we flirt with Tories. They’re the dirtiest people on Earth. Christ knows how filthy an actual space queen is!

Oola

You remember Oola don’t you? She’s the one who works for Jabba and, if you’re well on the ball, you’ll know that one of her green boobies pops out of her costume in the film by accident. George Lucas has probably airbrushed that from history, but rest assured, you’ll be able to find it on the internet if you really want to see it.

Aayla Secura

She’s a Jedi fercryinoutloud. What more do you want?

Zam Wessell

Assassin shape-shifter (or something like that), Zam is good looking until you kill her. Then she turns into a horrible lizardy thing. What have we learned? Stay on her good side and don’t kill her.

Shaak Ti

Another Jedi Master. And look at her, all weird and smokin’ hot!

Stass Allie

Another fit Jedi Master. Sadly, her beauty was killed by the evil swine in the Clone Wars. Shame.

Twi’lek twins

These twins barely featured in the films, but were considered good-looking enough to appear on various promotional materials before Episode I came out. And yes, we fancy them even though they have weird ears and long fins of skin instead of a haircut.

Princess Leia

Leia at number 2?! Heresy! Especially given that Chewbacca totally fancies her as well, as the picture shows. Listen, sure she’s mean-ass with a gun and totally got off with Han Solo (the coolest man who ever lived who wasn’t a Beatle), but she’s just not as hot as…

Queen Amidala/Padme

Dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble…

BONUS ROUND:

We have no idea who Dorme Parricida is, but we found her picture on some Star Wars wiki and… well… we rather like her.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!

Star Wars, great as it is, is by no means perfect. There’s loads of mistakes in it which are really, quite unacceptable. How can you have a masterpiece with a Stormtrooper smacking his head against a beam?

And so, George Lucas is our saviour, here to iron out all these imperfections and make the film as good as it could be.

His latest move is to take a scene that’s bugged us for ages – the death of Emperor Palpatine – and make it vastly superior by getting Darth Vader to actually emote, rather than stand there like some useless work experience lump in a mobile phone shop.

Lucas has made many small improvements to the original Star Wars trilogy (and he’ll invariably do the same with episodes 1, 2 and 3 in the future also – hopefully ramping up Jar Jar Binks’ involvement to provide excellent comic relief from all that political rubbish).

Remember when he made Greedo shoot first? That was a vital change because, until that point, Han Solo looked like a bit of a racist. Sure, he can be a belligerent goon, but a cold-blooded racist murderer? No thanks.

And now, he’s added a little audio to the scene in Return of the Jedi where Darth Vader finally gets a heart and saves his son Luke from being killed by Palpatine.

This change will be seen in the upcoming Blu-ray collection of the films, and has Vader shouting “No! Noooo!” before he chucks the Emperor down a glowing shaft.

Lucas has also made the Ewoks blink, which is a blessing. Those horrible beady, lifeless eyes staring at you… brrr.

Of course, not everyone is happy with these improvements that Lucas is making. Comedian Paul Scheer wrote:

“If George Lucas continues to change Star Wars at this rate in the year 2028 it will just become Spaceballs.”

What’s wrong with Spaceballs? That’s great too! Fact is, George Lucas is making the changes to Star Wars that have always ruined it as a film. One day, he’ll get rid of all those segments which are wrong, leaving us with a pristine version of the greatest sci-fi franchise ever made.

Thanks George.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!

George Lucas must have more dead horses on his Skywalker ranch than the stables after the Grand National.

How else could he keep flogging them?

Not content with ruining his own credibility with the Star Wars prequel trilogy and Indiana Jones vs the Aliens, Lucas has announced that he has 2 series worth of scripts ready for his new live action Star Wars TV show.

The new show is to be set between the end of Revenge of the Sith and the beginning of A New Hope, which will hopefully mean that it will average out and be somewhat tolerable to watch.

Rumour has it that the show is also to focus on minor characters within the Star Wars universe and not go anywhere near the pesky Skywalker clan and the acting gene that skipped a generation when it came to Anakin.

Do you remember that guy in the Cantina scene? You know the one, he was milling about in the background minding his own business and having a quiet drink before quietly slipping out without causing much of a disturbance to anyone?

Well, thanks to George Lucas, you’re now going to get to see his entire life story, IN HIGH DEFINITION!

The screen will sparkle as we see what lead him to Mos Eisley spaceport and how he found out about the Cantina and it’s delicious mix of beverages and death sticks.

Why is he drinking anyway? Is it to escape the stresses of his life? Maybe he lost some money on the pod races and was trying to find a loan shark before the Storm Troopers got to him and mistakenly believed that his droids were the ones they were looking for.

Well, thanks to the genius that is George Lucas, we’re about to find out!

Variety clearly is the spice of life.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

When Jar-Jar Binks ran roughshod over the dreams of a generation, few people realised that Star Wars creator George Lucas wasn’t just taking a massive CGI turd in the bedside slippers of their collective nostalgia.

He was also using him to send the  apocalyptic warning in the headline.

The neckless sci-fi titan apparently believes that the world will end in the year 2012. At least that’s according to, ahem, comedian/actor Seth Rogan.

Rogan, after a recent meeting with he-who-can-create-and-destroy-childhoods-at-the-click-of-his-fingers, told someone somewhere:

“George Lucas sits down and seriously proceeds to talk for around 25 minutes about how he thinks the world is going to end in the year 2012, like, for real. He thinks it.

“He’s going on about the tectonic plates and all the time Spielberg is, like, rolling his eyes, like: “My nerdy friend won’t shut up, I’m sorry…”

“I first thought he was joking… and then I totally realised he was serious and then I started thinking: “If you’re George Lucas and you actually think the world is going to end in a year, there’s no way you haven’t built a spaceship for yourself… So I asked him: “Can I have a seat on it?”

“He claimed he didn’t have a spaceship, but there’s no doubt there’s a Millennium Falcon in a garage somewhere with a pilot just waiting to go… It’s going to be him and Steven Spielberg and I’ll be blown up like the rest of us.”

Presumably Spielberg has a far more optimistic view of what will happen. Involving spacious surburban neighbourhoods that contain friendly aliens but are hopefully light on killer sharks.

Of course this could all be bullshit.

It’s quite likely that Seth Rogan, having made such a valiant effort to ruin the reputation of visual genius Michel Gondry with The Green Hornet, is on some kind of evil mission to discredit every director in Hollywood. Not that George Lucas really requires Rogan’s assistance, admittedly.

Let’s just hope that if George Lucas’s next project to ruin movie history- to master the technology to insert dead screen stars into new films- won’t be ready until 2013.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS!

Hecklerspray is still waiting for a Howard the Duck prequel, but alas, it never arrives. What has George Lucas got against a cigar smoking Anatidae? We want to see the story where Tim Robbins cries at his agent for casting him in such a terrible, terrible film!

Anyway, it’s obvious that Lucas wants to suck the marrow right out of the bones of Star Wars and do very little else.

And we’re not talking about the new 3D versions of the Star Wars films either. Yes indeed! We’re all faced with the terrifying prospect of brand new films which will probably look entirely at the back story of Jar Jar Binks.

George Lucas can’t help but meddle with the Star Wars story can he? He edited all the funny stuff out of the old films as well as putting a freakishly tiny Jabba in a new old scene, as well as softening the image of lovable wanker, Han Solo, by saying “Hey! Greedo shot first!”

And so, to make everyone a little excited, but mostly worried, there’s a lot of rumours flying around that Lucas is going to make another Star Wars trilogy.

The mutterings are saying that Lucas is planning an entirely new series of films, although nothing has been confirmed of course. He has to finish mucking about with new 3D technology first doesn’t he?

Quite who the stories will revolve around isn’t clear.

He could grab a new character from the vast Star Wars history (by which we mean, someone who hasn’t really featured in the films but stars in the myriad of books, comics and games out there) or, with any luck, take a gander at Han Solo’s past by showing him shooting people for a laugh and getting more sex than a rabbit with nice aftershave on.

The chances of that feel rather remote though, especially in light of the fact that Lucas is willing to have his old characters do all manner of tawdry shit.

Just look at the way C3PO and R2D2 are selling washing machines for Curry’s at the minute. Best not mention that dreadful Wookie Christmas special either.

Feel free to speculate in the comments.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

Thank God for the entertainment industry. They keep making new formats to peddle old crap to us. The CD saw everyone buying albums they already owned on a perfectly good format and now, we’ve been given the dubious treat of 3D movies, so we can sit through things we’ve seen a million times already. BUT IN 3D!

And so, with crashing certainty, George Lucas looks like he’s going to be rereleasing the Star Wars back catalogue in new 3D conversions, kicking off in 2012. No word on whether he’s going to give Howard the Duck the same reverential treatment.

Of course, these 3D versions have been muttered about for ages, but it seems that Lucas is happy enough to go ahead with the project now that there will be enough screens available to make the reissues a sizable event.

The bad news in all this is that we’ll be getting the films in storyline order, which means that we’ll be expected to pay money to watch hideous camp Rastafarian newt, Jar Jar Binks in three disgusting dimensions in Episode I, The Phantom Menace.

Episode I will be out during early 2012 with each subsequent film getting released in order at the same time in consecutive years.

Of course, we can blame Avatar for all this. It’s all Avatar’s fault. James Cameron. Blame him. The git.

Hollywood Reporter reckon Lucasfilm are looking to use higher-end conversion houses to work on the franchise and, by the time they’re completed, theatres should have enough 3D screens to meet demand.

Ever the merchandiser, Lucas will no doubt be eyeing-up the home market as well, hoping to release the 3D versions of Star Wars to homes which, if things go according to George Lucas’ mind, will have enough 3D television sets to make him lots and lots of money indeed.

In the meantime, there’ll be a shit load of Blu-Ray releases which will no doubt be ignored for the most part and the stalling of a proposed TV show. As yet, there’s no rumours of George Lucas looking to make a decent film again, preferring to rest on his intergalactic laurels and twiddle his Wookie-esque beard while reading disparaging comments from Star Wars fanboys on various message-boards under the pseudonym Tattooweiner.

Honestly. Have a look for yourself. That’s the name he uses on all the boards.

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or join our Facebook group

What do you do if you’ve created Star Wars, made loads of money, disappointed everyone with Jar Jar Binks, tied up all the loose-ends of the Skywalker family and tried to forget all about Howard the Duck?

Well, if you’re George Lucas- which you’re not – you decide to make a Star Wars TV show…  no, not ’80s cartoon Droids or recent effort, Clone Wars, but a proper live-action thing with loads of CGI.

Lucas announced his intention to produce a programme set between the events of Revenge Of The Sith and A New Hope back in 2005. However, things aren’t quite going to plan.

The future of the project is now uncertain.

Lucas says:

“The live action TV show is kind of on hold because we have scripts, but we don’t know how to do them.”

Lucas, as ever, has a very big idea and concept behind the stories and naturally, budget restraints are making it difficult to realise what he has in that head of his.

“They literally are Star Wars, only we’re going to have to try to do them a tenth the cost.”

“It’s a huge challenge, a lot bigger than what we thought it was gonna be.”

Still, it isn’t all holding fire at Lucasfilm.

There’s great news that Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, who brought us Robot Chicken, are developing an animated Star Wars comedy with Lucasfilm.

If you haven’t seen the Robot Chicken Star Wars specials, take a gander here…

Follow hecklerspray on Twitter

For once it would appear that there’s some good news about Shia LaBeouf – both with regards to his mangled hand and his movie career.

In news sure to bring a smile to The Beef’s little face, it turns out that his recent car accident will not result in the amputation of his little finger, as has been reported all over the world of the superstars these last couple of days. While the rumours were rampant that Shia himself had told producers on Transformers 2 that he would have to have his Beef pinky removed, these have been greeted by his rep as being ‘fabricated’ and ‘totally untrue’.

Which is good for him.

What’s good for everyone else in the world, though, is the news that George Lucas has seemingly gone back on his original statement that Shiny McBeef would be the new Indiana Jones. For the first time in what would appear to be an absolute age, Lucas seems to have made ‘the right decision’.

Obviously he followed it up with another bad decision immediately thereafter, but you have to really learn to love those small victories.

Shia must have been happy to know he doesn’t need an amputation, and hecklerspray was certainly happy to discover that the young one of the red-meaty name wouldn’t be taking over as the lead in a new Indiana Jones cash-in/adventure (delete as appropriate). Speaking to MTV, Lucas let loose this pearl:

“Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones. If it was Mutt Williams it would be Mutt Williams And The Search For Elvis or something.”

It’s nice to know George Lucas is a reader of hecklerspray. He must be, coming up with movie titles like that.

But then we realised this meant one thing and one thing only. While Shia LaBeouf won’t be taking the fedora from Indy just yet, it will be staying in the hands of Harrison Ford.

Who is fast approaching 70.

While his turn as the archaeological commie buster in Indy 4 wasn’t the best of outings, it was still verging on believable. In fact, the only truly awful part of the film came from The Beef and his Tarzan impression.

Seriously – why was that considered a good idea?

Anyway – the thought of a 70-year-old kicking arse and making wisecracks is probably pushing things that little bit too far away from hecklerspray‘s ability to suspend disbelief, but this doesn’t matter to George Lucas. Speaking about the storyline/artifact possibilities for Indiana Jones 5: Indy Goes to Mecca Bingo, the man who just can’t leave things alone said:

“We are looking for something for him to go after. They are very hard to find. It’s like archeology. It takes a huge amount of research to come up with something that will fit.”

Yes, they’re trying to think of something believable for a 70-year-old adventuring archaeologist to get involved in. Museum curation? Archivist at the local Land Registry? That drunk old bloke down the pub who you will listen to but don’t believe a word of what he says?

The possibilities are endless.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull was nobody’s idea of a good film – something that could be said of any movie featuring a man in a fridge in a nuclear explosion.

So the received wisdom would be for George Lucas to just quietly retire Indiana Jones; to let him remain in our minds as the star of one good film, two mediocre films and one really terrible film. But this is George Lucas we’re talking about, so that obviously isn’t going to happen.

In a recent interview with The Times, George Lucas discussed various options for Indiana Jones 5 – a movie that looks certain to be made. Our favourite option? The one where George Lucas takes a knock to the head, forgets what Indiana Jones even is and never makes another film ever again. Please.

It’s clear that George Lucas isn’t done with Indiana Jones yet – four movies and a televised prequel? That’s a bit rubbish by George Lucas’ standards. There are wheels that still desperately need to be ridden off that particular cash cow.

Where are the disco-themed Indiana Jones Christmas specials? Where are all the kid’s TV shows about peripheral Indiana Jones characters? Where, goddamn it, is the crappy-looking cartoon Indiana Jones movie set between Indiana Jones 3 and Indiana Jones 4?

They’re coming, we’re sure. But first George Lucas has to get Indiana Jones 5 out of the way. Seriously. Here’s what George Lucas told The Times:

“If I can come up with another idea that they like, we’ll do another. Really, with the last one, Steven wasn’t that enthusiastic. I was trying to persuade him. But now Steve is more amenable to doing another one. Yet we still have the issues about the direction we’d like to take. I’m in the future; Steven’s in the past. He’s trying to drag it back to the way they were, I’m trying to push it to a whole different place. So, still we have a sort of tension.”

But, hey, you know what they say – great art comes from tension. For example, if the tension between Lucas and Spielberg hadn’t been there during Indiana Jones 4, would we have seen legendary moments like Cate Blanchett being intimidated by a glass bong with an angry face? Or that bit about the ants that didn’t really make a lot of sense? Or the bloke from Scrubs inexplicably playing an FBI agent? No. No we wouldn’t.

However, despite being frighteningly hell-bent on making Indiana Jones 5, George Lucas didn’t answer the biggest question of all – will Harrison Ford return for the movie? If it only takes two years to get into production, Harrison Ford will be getting on for 70 years old by the time Indiana Jones 5 comes out.

That’s undoubtedly a bad thing – there are only so many old man jokes in the world, and we used them all up writing about Indiana Jones 4. Plus if Harrison Ford is in it, Indiana Jones 5 will have to be called Indiana Jones And The Upsetting Public Incontinence Episode or something. Because he’s so old. Ha ha, we are funny.

The alternative, of course, would be to make Shia LaBeouf the new Indiana Jones. And that would mean that Indiana Jones 5 would be less of a sequel and more of an imminent sign of humanity’s collapse.

And, George, why so keen on Indiana Jones 5 already? We’ve been waiting for Howard The Duck 2 for 22 years. Get on that instead, you beardy old fool.

George Lucas has come up yet with another plan to convince you to hand over your hard earned money to him.

After he made millions with Indiana Jones 1, he sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 2. It worked. But what next? He sat down for a while, thought about what to do next and came up with Indiana Jones 3. Incredible.

How was he to beat that? It wasn’t easy. For twenty years he brooded, furrowing his brow and scratching his little beard, and finally his eureka moment came: Indiana Jones 4.

But, people asked, what about the fact that Indiana Jones will be far too old? Don’t worry, said George, if we make jokey references to it throughout the film no one will care. Wow, he’s good. What next? George says ‘how about Indiana Jones…5, with Shia Labeouf as the lead?’

Time to retire George.

Old man Lucas doesn’t scoff though. He told Fox News:

I haven’t even told Steven or Harrison this, but I have an idea to make Shia the lead character next time and have Harrison come back like Sean Connery did in the last movie. I can see it working out.

Before we jump to the conclusion that the corrupting culmination of his success, wealth and age is turning George prematurely senile, it is worth remembering that he is also responsible for the casting of Jar Jar Binks.

Rumours suggest Shia LaBeouf has stipulations in his contract which lock him into a sequel/spin-off if Paramount want to make one, and Shia (a distant cousin of French footballer Frank LeBeouf) told MTV he would be interested:

I don’t think a Mutt spinoff would be as big as Indiana Jones, but fingers crossed!

Mutt Williams and the Temple of Doom. Mutt Williams and the Last Crusade. Mutt Williams and Another Piss-Poor Offering from Lucas and Spielberg That Makes Us All Wish They’d Retire. He’s right – probably wouldn’t be as big as Indiana Jones.

But what about Harrison Ford – won’t he be dead by then? Not so, according to Lucas:

It’s not like Harrison is even old, I mean, he’s 65 and he did everything in this movie. The old chemistry is there, and it’s not like he’s an old man. He’s incredibly agile; he looks even better than he did 20 years ago, if you ask me.

Harrison himself has said he’d consider playing a part should the fifth installment happen, and even Steven Spielberg won’t rule it out. Ages ago he told the Chicago Sun Times:

Oh, I don’t know. Of course, I said the third Indy would be the last one. And obviously it’s not. So I can’t even comment whether the fourth will be the last one or not. I’m not looking to redesign the wheel. I just want to continue the saga.

Bless him. We bet for a moment there he thought back to the days when selling out on his principles seemed a cheap thing to do.

Read More – George Lucas: Indiana Jones 5 a possibility, The Celebrity Truth

If The Empire Strikes Back had culminated with Luke Skywalker suing in a court of law to get his hand back, then that movie would have been more of a legal drama than a sci-fi fantasy. That’s just something we’ve been thinking about.

The jury could have been made up of those blue guys that play the flute and maybe a cute banana with eyeballs that roll back in his head when he’s hungry or scared. Now picture that banana on a lunch pale. Money. That’s money right there.

We’re 90% sure that’s going to be the premise for the upcoming live action Star Wars TV series. Luke finally gets his hand back in the second season and from then on he stores it safely in a split-open tauntaun. We just ruined the season-one cliff-hanger finale for you. A thousand apologies.

A cliff-hanger we won’t ruin for you is that George Lucas is currently suing some guy for making Storm-trooper armour and selling it without permission – and that guy ends up being George’s father.

Sorry. 1,000 apologies.

In the Star Wars universe, the Evil Emperor pays heed to no man. Except for maybe the Green Goblin. We heard the two of them may be dating, and with a nag like that it’s safe to assume the Emp-a-demp-a-ding-dong is paying heed all over the place. Other than that though, he pays heed to no man! He does as he will, sculpting the law to suit his evil purposes! Raising up armies and then cloning them, and then cloning the clones of them as many times as he wants to because nobody can ever stop him!

In this universe, however, things work differently. For instance, our clones here are only retarded sheep with no ability to fire lasers. Another difference is that to obtain legal ramifications on Earth we often have to endure a lengthy court process. George Lucas is learning this now. Again.

He sued Andrew Ainsworth in California a few years ago and won millions. You see Ainsworth was hired onto the original Star Wars movie to make the Stormtrooper armour. He felt it his due to continue using the molds for personal profit once the shoot was over. He also apparently thought it his due to be able to hide from California law in England, and not pay Lucas a dime. CNN fills in the details:

“Lucasfilm claims violation of copyright and trademarks by prop designer Andrew Ainsworth, who sculpted the Stormtrooper helmets for the first “Star Wars” movie in 1977. London-based Ainsworth sells replicas of the helmets and armour, which he says are made from the original molds, on his Web site for up to £1,000 ($2,000; €1,300). Lucasfilm won a $20 million (€25 million) judgement against Ainsworth in a California court in 2006, and is seeking to have it enforced in Britain.”

Ainsworth isn’t paying. He says the copyright is his.

Now you may be thinking to yourself that surely Ainsworth can’t be all that bad. You may also be thinking that the man should be allowed to enjoy the benefits of still having an original mold after all these years, and that this whole lawsuit is ridiculous. If so, perhaps you will change your mind then, when we tell you so far he’s sold to Iran, North Korea, and the raping bully from the Kite Runner.

Now you see the danger. We must keep such technology out of the hands of the nefarious.

There’s no telling what could happen should we fail.

Read More:

Brit Designer Being Sued By George Lucas Over Star Wars’ Helmets – Mirror.UK

People love Star Wars and Indiana Jones so much that George Lucas never has to have another original thought for the rest of his life.

And it's an offer he's been keen to exploit. This year George Lucas has a new Indiana Jones movie coming out and a new Star Wars movie coming out, plus he's got a 100-episode Star Wars TV show in the pipeline. And the time has come for George Lucas to spout off about all of this at once.

In a nutshell, then – George Lucas expects everyone to hate Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, doesn't really seem too fussed with the new Star Wars movie and has compared the TV show to The Wire. Yay! Possibly.

We get the impression that George Lucas has never heard the terms 'leave them wanting more' and 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it'. Or perhaps he has, but he misheard them as 'leave them feeling uncomfortably bloated' and 'if it ain't broke, stick a bunch of sodding CGI aliens in it or something anyway'. 

It's this ethos that's made George Lucas make a new Indiana Jones film after almost 20 years, while constantly adding enough peripheral crap to Star Wars that people start forgetting what they liked about it in the first place. Prequels, cartoon spin-offs, holiday specials. more cartoon spin-offs, books, videogames – George Lucas isn't going to stop until you've spent so much money on Star Wars that you have to live in a bivouac made out of damp Special Edition DVDs.

Coming up this summer is Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a cartoon all about that stuff that happened in the other Clone Wars cartoon done in a different way that George Lucas is determined not to call a movie even though it's the same length as a movie and will be released in movie theatres to movie audiences.

And following that is the long-awaited Star Wars TV show, where none of the characters you know or love will do a bunch of stuff you don't care about on the cheap for 100 hours. Exciting, huh? George Lucas seems to think so.

To big-up Star Wars: The Clone Wars, George Lucas appeared at the ShoWest convention and spoke to Entertainment Weekly all about these upcoming projects. Check the full interview for his detailed thoughts, but for now here's a taster.

George Lucas on Star Wars: The Clone Wars:

I sat down and said, ''Okay, the Luke Skywalker story'' — or the Anakin Skywalker story, actually — ''is done.'' But whenever you create a universe, there's just vast areas you've never touched, and part of that was this. Which is to say, ''Well, gee, I did the movies about everything but the Clone Wars, so wouldn't it be fun to do a TV series that is nothing but the Clone Wars, and we could just have all the adventures?''

George Lucas on the Star Wars TV show:

Some of the characters from the features find their way in there, so it's not completely divorced. It's as if we just went down the street and told a different story. You know, we were doing, I don't know, 24, and now we're going to move down the street here and do The Wire. Same thing, it's just different people doing the same thing in the same city.

George Lucas on Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull:

We know that for the fans it won't be the movie that they have been making in their minds for the last 19 years, so they all get bent out of shape. A lot of the critics forget that they didn't like the first three, and so they get off on this one, too — or it's not the Second Coming.

Happily, though, once Indiana Jones is done and Star Wars: The Clone Wars is done and the Star Wars TV show has got to the 100 episode mark and all the Star Wars movies have been made 3D, George Lucas wants to turn his back on those and start making his own movies again.

First on the list is George Lucas' much-anticipated WWII movie Red Tails. And then once he's made that, made a few sequels, done some cartoon spin-offs, brought out computer-enhanced versions of all of these things, made a bunch of prequels, a cartoon movie about the stuff that happened between the sequels and the prequels and then done a Red Tails TV show that hasn't got much to do with anything else, he might even go and make another one.

Read more:

George Lucas on 'Star Wars,' Indiana Jones – EW 

We're going to need two helpers – one to tape up George Lucas while we hold him down, and another one to force a snooker ball into his mouth.

We're not violent people, but it looks like this might be the only way to stop George Lucas from making Star Wars movies. Three years after he promised that Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge Of The Sith would be the last Star Wars film, George Lucas has announced that an animated movie called Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be released in August.

Rubbish, we know – but at least Star Wars: The Clone Wars won't have Ewan McGregor in it, so you won't feel the urge to stand up, run down the aisle of the cinema and start smacking at the screens with your fists this time. Oh, who are we kidding, yes you will.

2008 promises to be a big year for George Lucas, because between now and Christmas he looks set to run more of his good ideas into the dirt than ever before.

First comes Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, a kind of follow-up to the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles subtitled the Really Really Stupidly Sodding Old Indiana Jones Chronicles. And now George Lucas has announced the imminent arrival of another Star Wars movie, too. If he gets a wriggle on, Lucas might also be able to churn out a Willow sequel starring a trio of rapping carrots just to get the hat-trick.

But anyway, back to Star Wars – the scab that George Lucas can't stop clawing at. Even though the last three Star Wars prequels served no real purpose other than to destroy people's happy memories of the original Star Wars movies, explain the trade issues of a made-up planet in excruciating detail and introduce the word "Nooooooo!" into people's vocabulary, George Lucas is back for more.

Yes, more. George Lucas has looked at Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return Of The Jedi, The Phantom Menace, Attack Of The Clones, Revenge Of The Sith, The Star Wars Holiday Special, Caravan Of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, Ewoks: Battle For Endor, Droids, Ewoks, the Clone Wars cartoon, the 219 Star Wars novels, the 96 Star Wars videogames and the Darth Tater Star Wars Mr Potato Head and inexplicably decided that he'd somehow missed a bit.  

Even though George Lucas quit the movie game in 2006 and Lucasfilms last year officially announced that there'd never be another Star Wars movie made, it turns out those were great big fibs – according to the Los Angeles Times, George Lucas has the Star Wars: The Clone Wars movie ready for theatrical release in August:

"Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a new stylized, computer-animated feature film, will open Aug. 15 in theaters… The film and series will center on the wartime tales of Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi and feature Padme Amidala, Mace Windu, Count Dooku and the other characters introduced in the second trilogy of live-action "Star Wars" films that began in 1999. "I felt like there were a lot more 'Star Wars' stories left to tell," Lucas said in a Tuesday press release. "I was eager to start telling some of them through animation and, at the same time, push the art of the animation forward."

Add to this the fact that George Lucas still seems weirdly determined to make that Star Wars TV show and we can draw a couple of conclusions here – either George Lucas has decided that he hasn't quite managed to wring enough cash out of Star Wars yet or he's realised that the only way to make The Phantom Menace look like the masterpiece he wanted it to be is by making stuff that's even worse in comparison.

So what's Star Wars: The Clone Wars going to be like? Apparently it'll differ from the previous Clone Wars cartoon visually – we're promised that it'll have photo-realistic graphics and characters that look like puppets.

So identical to Revenge Of The Sith, then.

Read more:

'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' due Aug. 15 – LA Times