star wars

With Star Wars: Episode 7 less than a year away, Disney and Lucasfilm are facing a conundrum: just how many billions do they want to make from ancillary merchandise? Get ready for Star Wars bedsheets and Star Wars lunch boxes and, of course, countless new Star Wars action figures. You will be able to fight other adults in the toy aisle at Target like never before! However, Star Wars aficionados hoping to celebrate their fandom in a quieter way will also have their fair share of options, namely 20 new books bridging the 30-year gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

The new Star Wars: Episode 7 lightsaber was the most hotly debated topic that came out of the first teaser trailer. What is this thing? Where did it come from? It turns out those answers might come from a very unlikely source: Apple.

Star Wars illustrator and designer Ralph McQuarrie is responsible for some of the most iconic imagery in the pop culture and the history of movies. McQuarrie designed the look of many of the Star Wars characters including Darth Vader, C-3PO, R2-D2 and the Stormtroopers, as well as locations like the Death Star and Tattooine. In fact, it was McQuarrie's artwork that eventually sold 20th Century Fox on the idea of letting George Lucas actually make a Star Wars movie.

Remember how so many Star Wars fans lost their minds when we first saw Kylo Ren’s bizarre hilted lightsaber in the trailer for Star Wars: Episode 7? Well, they’re about to lose ‘em all over again. Hasbro is introducing a new line of toys that will allow children (and their parents) to customize their own Jedi weapons. If you should a little hilt was crazy, then you probably aren’t prepared for what people will soon be able to create in their homes.

I think the song from Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass has become the most parodied song I've ever heard! It has versions dedicated to cake, turkey basting, Bass (fish), hunting, clothes, Pokemon, and more. There was even a great one for Star Wars...but up until now there wasn't one for the Trekkies.

If you’re one of those people who can’t get enough ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ spoilers, first, might we recommend our weekly Wookieepedia ‘Star Wars’ round up? With that shameless plug out of the way, let us now offer you ‘Star Wars’ spoiler addicts some advice from Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill. CHILL OUT.

Nicolas Cage is, when he wants to be, one of the best and most inventive actors of his generation. But Nicolas Cage is, always, a man of questionable taste. While out doing press for his new movie ‘Outcast,’ Cage showcased that remarkably detachment from reality by having plenty of nice things to say about the work his co-star, Hayden Christensen, contributed to George Lucas’ ‘Star Wars’ prequels.

Before he was a CGI creation, Jedi master Yoda was a puppet. Before green screens became the norm, the Dagobah set for ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ was built elevated off the ground to accommodate Yoda’s puppeteers. And before he brought Yoda to life, puppeteer and voice actor Frank Oz was best known as the man behind Miss Piggy. In a weird way, that makes the most wizened character in the ‘Star Wars’ universe a distant relative of the extended Muppet family.

The first ‘Star Wars’ standalone film is set to hit theaters in 2016, and although it’s currently seeking a replacement screenwriter, it looks as though production is gearing up on the Gareth Edwards project. Both Rooney Mara and ‘Orphan Black’ star Tatiana Maslany are testing for a leading role in the untitled film, which has been rumored as a heist film involving Boba Fett.

When Disney bought George Lucas’ company, they got more than the buildings, computers, droids, and the ‘Star Wars’ intellectual property. They also got George Lucas’ unused ideas for future ‘Star Wars’ movies. Though Lucas had insisted for years that ‘Revenge of the Sith’ was his final ‘Star Wars’ film, that didn’t stop him from brainstorming a few other potential stories that could be set after the events of ‘Return of the Jedi’ (and, I assume, mostly involve Jar-Jar Binks wandering the universe and getting into “hilarious” misadventures).

Watch the epic battle between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker as you've never seen before! Well, actually you have seen it...but you've never heard it like this before!

Last month, George Lucas was asked if he had seen the ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’ trailer, and what his reaction was. He said he hadn’t watched the ‘Force Awakens’ trailer, had no plans to and was “not really” interested in the movie. We made him sad, we wrote at the time. But, maybe it wasn’t us that made him sad. While out promoting his new animated movie ‘Strange Magic’, Lucas reveals that he himself wanted to direct ‘Star Wars: Episode 7’.