Quite ironically, on Valentines day I heard about what Wired magazine called a “Really twisted love letter” to George Lucas.  The People vs. George Lucas is a documentary film about the love/hate relationship between George Lucas and his fans.  It was created by an open internet call to fans to submit their opinions, videos, or images.  Over 600 hours of footage has been narrowed down to 96 minutes for the premiere tomorrow at 6:30PM at the South by Southwest film festival in Austin Texas.

So here’s the root of the controversy.  In 1977 we were ALL introduced to Star Wars.  It had a huge impact on me and help to foster my imagination.  In one scene in particular a rogue smuggler is hired to transport the aged general Obi-Wan Kenobi and his knight-in-training as they seek to return the stolen plans to the princess Organa.  Before they could take off the smuggler was cornered by a bounty hunter.  With a gun pointed in his face, he decided to shoot first and ask questions later.  Well, that’s the way I remember it, but in the 1997 Special Edition re-release we see a version where the bounty hunter Greedo shoots first.  Then in the 2004 the scene is changed again so that the two fire at almost the same time.  These changes to the film really upset a lot of people.  This documentary film seems to be a way for people to express their love for Star Wars and their frustration for the changes made to it.

I first heard about this documentary film from it’s director Alexandre O. Philippe.  He contacted me asking for my permission to use my print depicting the showdown between Han Solo and Greedo.  The print was made for the Star Wars Celebration Japan and as such, Lucasfilm holds the rights to it and I couldn’t authorize him to use it in the film.  I was flattered to have been asked to have my artwork used in association with high-profile industry professionals and George Lucas collaborators, including the legendary Gary Kurtz, Sandy Lieberson (former Head of Production at 20th Century Fox), Dale Pollock (author of SKYWALKING), Producer Anthony Waye (JAMES BOND 007), David Prowse, and the great Neil Gaiman.XXXSo I came up with a solution and I made a new illustration.

Here’s the trailer for the documentary film.

When I was a kid I loved to read the “Choose your own adventure” formatted books.  Like the cliffhanger serial films of my father’s generation, these books would put the main characters into perilous situations and then pose a question to the reader.  Should the hero return to camp?  then turn to page 23.  It created an interactive experience that made me feel that I was part of the story.

I just watched a video advertising an new kind of interactive adventure. I’m not a fan of Horror movies, but this is how the adventure movie works. Audience members upload their phone numbers at the beginning of the movie, then during the movie the on screen character picks up their phone and calls one of them. The audience member then “helps” the person in the film by giving them directions. Watch the video and see how awesome this is!

So let’s say you own and operate your own video production company.  You may not be the biggest or the best, but in today’s new media you don’t have to be.  Rhett & Link are self-proclaimed “Internetainers”. They have created over 200 web videos to create a super web presence to show off their musical comedy filmmaking talents. They came to my attention as they teamed up with illustrator Billy Reid and Rush T-shirts to come up with this amazingly clever video.

It’s just like the Superbowl, we don’t mind being advertised to if we’re entertained. Check out the video below.

Sorry about the attention getting headlines, but I really would like to see this movie, and now I can… kinda.  I am big fan of the video game The Force Unleashed.  I liked it so much that I wanted to record every video and some of the gameplay and string it all together to make a movie (which is something that I actually did for the Star Wars Bounty Hunter game).

As I’ve been looking into these fan edits of movies, I came across a fan that had put together the scenes from the video game and made a DVD with chapters and intros and everything, but it’s in a PAL format.  I’ll have to figure something out so I can see how it looks.

The other thing that I really love about these fan edits it the DVD box art.  I’ve attached the image from the Force Unleashed movie and a different take on the original Star Wars movie.  You can explore this yourself over at FanEdit.org.

I really need to research this a bit more, but here’s what I know so far. After the release of the fan made version of Star Wars The Phantom Menace, (lovingly referred to as The Phantom Edit) there began to be more full movie and movie trailers being re-edited. Why edit the movie? Well, sometimes are memories of the movie experience are better than the movie, and sometimes simply because we think we could do better.

I saw a Facebook group dedicated to a guy calling himself Adywan who has re-edited Star Wars A New Hope. Incase you didn’t notice, I kinda love that movie, and think that it can stand the test of time, BUT, I was curious. I read a bit about how he re-edited scenes, added music, added planets and new special effects. Then I watched a bit of it and well, I liked it!

Here’s a YouTube Trailer for Star Wars: Revisited

Here’s a YouTube side by side comparison of the Attack on the Death Star

I wonder if Greedo shoots first in the cantina scene?

This wonderful 1949 recording is by Margaret Whiting And Johnny Mercer. It was released 3 months before the premiere of Neptune’s Daughter and the song reached the Billboard Best Seller chart on May 6, 1949, and lasted 19 weeks on the chart, peaking at number four.

In 2006, Capitol records released a 16-song expanded version of Dean Martin’s “Christmas With Dino” featuring a new duet with country music star Martina McBride. McBride recorded her part of the duet at the Capitol Recording studios where Dean Martin’s original version of the song was recorded in 1959. Tragically, Dean Martin died Christmas morning in 1995.

In another wonderful reversal of the role of the mouse and the wolf, Selma Blair & Rainn Wilson perform the song in a commercial for the Gap.

The duet was written by Frank Loesser Loesser in 1944 and premiered the song with his wife at their Navarro Hotel housewarming party. Then in 194 Loesser sold the song rights to MGM, which inserted the song into its 1949 motion picture, Neptune’s Daughter. The film featured two performances of the song: one by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. In the second version the roles of the mouse and the Wolf are reversed. These performances earned Loesser an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Ok I’m really writing this on Tuesday but I’m going to time travel and post it on Monday so that I can share a week’s worth of my favorite Christmas songs (oddly enough it gets lots of play time at Christmas, but the holiday is never mentioned in the song). The female voice in the song is called “The Mouse” and the male “The Wolf.” The lyrics consist of his attempts to convince her to stay with him at the end of a date; her indecisive protests reveal that although she feels obligated to go home, she is tempted to stay, partially because, as the title suggests, “it’s cold outside.”  I love it.  :D

 here’s a clip from the movie ELF

and from the movie’s soundtrack