As I posted earlier, I am a fan of the game The Force Unleashed and am excited about the new game.  This brilliant story for the first game takes place in some of the gaps of the original Star Wars movies.  One year after Count Dooku and his Separatist army were defeated, Darth Vader is hunting the last of the Jedi.  On the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk, Vader discovers a child so strong in the Force that he chooses to hide him away and train him as his secret apprentice.  Vader plans to use this secret apprentice to overthrow the Emperor, but he is discovered and the Emperor orders Vader to Kill his apprentice.

So Vader stabs the apprentice in the back, uses a force grip to throw him around the room, and then tosses him through a window into the vacuum of space.  Umm, I think he’s pretty dead.  Qui Gon Jin was stabbed through the gut by Darth Maul and died from that singular saber wound.  So the idea of surviving the stabbing, AND the hurling about the room, AND the vacuum of space is pretty incredible.  But in the game you see a Droid come flying in and take away the body of the apprentice.

Six months later the apprentice awakes aboard Vader’s personal science vessel.  I didn’t really get this from the game, but this ship is supposed to be Vader’s secret lab for all kinds of experiments and tinkering.  The apprentice (code named Starkiller) awakes and he’s, well, he’s pretty upset.  He yells at Vader, “YOU KILLED ME!”  To which Vader replied, “NO!  The Emperor wanted you dead.  I salvaged your body and brought you here to be rebuilt.”  (italics added for emphasis).  Starkiller is ordered to help build the rebel alliance so that he and Vader will have an army to take down the Emperor.  As he is escaping from Vader’s ship, some of the troopers try and stop him and shout that “Experiment 1138 has escaped.”

Now we fast forward to the end of the story for this first game and “SPOILER ALERT”, Starkiller is betrayed and killed… again.  In the advertisements for the second game we see that Starkiller is alive, but how is this possible?  Wait, how did he survive the first time around?  Well, through the website for the new game we learn that the main character in the Force Unleashed II is a clone designated subject 1157.

So here’s the theory, Starkiller died and was cloned IN THE FIRST GAME!  In an the video interview below, LucasArts Exec. Producer Haden Blackman tells G4 that Vader tells Starkiller that he’s a clone, but very early on in the game the cast doubts on that statement.  I can’t wait to find out the rest of the story! The second game takes place 6 months after the ending of the first game, so I think that the “SIX MONTHS” also plays and important part of this story.

Here are some more of the sketch cards.

Somewhere along the road I forgot to mention that I drew 100 sketch cards for the Empire Strikes Back trading card set.  I’ve stumbled upon the idea of making the card sets a bit more collectible by making a bit of a puzzle out of them.  So I drew a boarder around each card and then drew 9 versions of each characters.  I did 11 characters, making for 99 cards, with 1 little Yoda card left over.  I also have my 6 return cards that I have yet to draw anything on at all!  I’ll probably make a shadow box out of them and have them for sale at the Star Wars Celebration V in August.

The art of video editing has come to the masses and they’re using this new found power for GOOD!  Here’s a mashup of the nonsensical yet popular song Tic Toc by KE$HA with classic Star Trek.

I was first introduced to the band through their video for “Here we go again” where they were Dancing on treadmills. The video has been viewed over 51 million times. After it was released and started to gain in popularity, the band’s record label, EMI, disabled YouTube’s embedding feature for the video. I suppose they were trying to regain some sort of control over their property. It used to be a big deal to get your song onto the radio station. Having a super creative video is the new radio airtime.

They broke ties with EMI over this issue and formed their own label called Paracadute Recordings. Under this new label and with the sponsorship of State Farm Insurance, they created a gigantic rube goldberg machine for their video “This Too Shall Pass“.

Well they’re at it again for their new video “End Love” that I have EMBEDDED below!  If you really like the video, you can even go and download it. So creative videos + the internet = independence.

I am taking a bit of a leap, but here it goes.  I have been invited to create my third officially licensed Lucasfilm art print.  It will be available at the Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando Florida.  The convention will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back August the 12th-15.  This print will be 12″ x 24″ matching my previous prints and will thematically fit to complete the series.

Now that I’ve said that I’ve been invited to the show I have to explain what I mean by the title of this post.  I have decided to move out of the art show and take up a booth space at the convention.  I will be at a corner booth across from the Jedi Stage next to Matt Busch, The Art of Ralph McQuarrie, Tsuneo Sanda, Tom Hodges and right down the way from LEGO!  I’m not sure where they will all be set up, but my friends Jason Palmer,  Monte Moore, and Dave Dorman will be also be out on the exhibitors floor.  (I hope I haven’t missed anyone).  You can see a fantastic interactive map from the Star Wars Celebration site.

I currently have 2 extra exhibitors badges for the show and some fabulous hotel arrangements.  If you are interested in working at my booth or would like to sponsor me please use the contact button on my website to send me a message. I would hate to see the badges go unused.

I was first introduced to the Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (LXD) on season 5 of “So you think you can dance”.  I was pretty impressed with their dance and equally impressed with their Geek Chic name.  Well, it looks like they are taking the name of the group to a whole new level.  In association with Paramount digital entertainment the LXD will be releasing a web series in early July.

According to the groups creator Jon M. Chu, the series tells the story of superheroes extending their powers through dance.  Each episode will feature different styles and themes as each hero chooses a path to fulfill his destiny.  You can check out the trailer for the series in the video below.

I don’t get involved in the online gaming scene, but the Star Wars massively multiplayer online game looks fantastic!  I wrote about it here when the game trailer premiered at the Electronics Entertainment Expo last year.  I guess these things take a long time to make, because here’s the new trailer from this year’s E3 convention.

After a terribly long break from blogging, I am back and posting!  Hopefully I can keep this up this time around.  I am a big fan of the game “The Force Unleashed” and am thrilled that there’s going to be a sequel.  I think that the thing that I enjoy the most about it is the way that it tells a new story that keeps bumping right up against the classic Star Wars story that I love.  Check out the video that was released over the weekend.