Star Wars: The Old Republic is looking very good, as a newly released documentary shows. Check out the in-game footage and listen to some of the philosophy that went into the game’s development. It is the fabled KOTOR successor, to be sure, and a MMORPG in a sense. However, it is taking a little departure from the other run-of-the-mill competitors out there, for better or worse. I can’t wait to test this one out for myself.

Official Site

• www.swtor.com

If you’re going to be in the San Francisco area any time in the near future, be sure to check out Star Wars Live on stage at the Dark Room Theater. It shows on Fridays and Saturdays through December 27. What is it? It’s a stage adaptation of A New Hope with a $100 special effects budget. However, it’s a labor of love done by passionate fans of the classic Trilogy. If you’re still not convinced, SF Weekly posted a photo slideshow. Pretty cool.

For more details of the production and credits, check out the links.

Thanks to Tamara for the news!

Links

• SF Weekly: Star Wars Live Slideshow
• Star Wars Live on Stage! (Dark Room)

Note: mark your calendars for tomorrow (Friday, December 12) to visit the official website of Star Wars: The Old Republic and catch exclusive in-game footage. The anticipated online game is set in the KOTOR timeline.

photo credit: Official Star Wars Blog

Call for submissions: the Galactic Senate is holding a Clone Wars fan fiction competition right now. Deadline for entries is the end of January so dust off that thinking cap and start writing. There are fabulous prizes being offered, including: Clone Trooper helmet by Master Replicas; Clone Wars Senate Security action figure; die-cast AT-RT and Clonetrooper; and more! Rules generally are as follows:

• The stories must be about the Clone Wars, set in the CW and/or affected by it.
• Stories must be longer than 1200 words.
• Collaborative stories are allowed but are restricted to only two authors working on the story.
• The competion entries will be posted anonymously to ensure a fair competition. The winner will be decided by public poll.

Join in, or if you know someone who likes to dabble in fan fiction, by all means spread the word. The more the better! For complete details and prizes, check out the discussion thread at the Galactic Senate:

• GS: The Great Clone Wars Fan Fiction Competition (now with prizes!)

photo credit: Official Star Wars Blog

Alas, today I ran across unexpected and unfortunate news: Michael Heilemann’s Star Wars collection on Flickr was shut down due to a takedown notice from Lucasfilm. Sad. Lucasfilm has traditionally been fan friendly with things like this. I can’t imagine the rationale behind this, and Michael makes a good point that the popularity of his collection underscores the demand and need for an organized collection of production photos and related materials on the internet.

Perhaps this signals a move by Lucasfilm to make a similar collection available to the public in the very near future. That’s my theory. In the meantime, this will be missed.

Link

• Star Wars No More: Michael Heilemann’s Flickr Photostream