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.

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.

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

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

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 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