To round off this Friday nice and easy, I thought I’d post a little something to get you laughing (or hopefully at least chuckling). Family Guy has become a household name at this point, but the show managed to out do itself back in 2007 with its season 6 premiere, “Blue Harvest”, an hour-long parody of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

Well, today we have the trailer for Family Guy’s follow up to “Blue Harvest”, which could only be an equally hilarious skewering of the next film in the Star Wars canon, The Empire Strikes Back.

So a rumor recently popped up online stating that there’s a new Star Wars Trilogy in the pipeline that is going to be filmed in stereoscopic 3D. The rumor originated from Market Saw, who attributed the news to a source close to the Lucasfilm camp who was feeding them this exclusive info. This new 3D Star Wars would NOT be a conversion of the existing trilogy (or those prequels we do not speak of), but rather an entirely new three-part chapter in the Star Wars canon!

Another part of the rumor was that George Lucas would NOT be directing this new trilogy, but would instead produce them, handing the helming duties off to more able other seasoned directors, such as Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola, who are both friends of Lucas.

Sci-fi fans, are your heads still attached to your necks?

We all remember the scene from The Empire Strikes Back: Luke Skywalker and Han Solo trying to survive the sub-zero temperatures of planet Hoth by finding shelter in the stomach of a Tauntaun. For you Star Wars enthusiasts out there, your reenactment sessions are about to get a little more “authentic,” as you too can now find shelter from the frozen wastelands (your front yard in winter) inside your very own Tauntaun stomach!

What started out as an April Fools joke has now became a reality for sale; Think Geek is offering Tauntaun sleeping bags to those who want, starting this November.

I love the classic Star Wars movies and I can’t see myself ever getting over that passion.

On that note, we have for you an awesome video spoof featuring Darth Vader in an alternate version of the events surrounding the Death Star and its inhabitants (pre-destruction) from the first Star Wars movie.

SCI FI Wire picked up on a tweet from actress Ming-Na who linked to the following video from two years ago. It’s based on a scene from A New Hope, re-created perfectly with one major exception…

Though news is limited on the live action Star Wars show, there is some news about the project stemming from the “Future of Star Wars“  Dragon*Con panel.

First off, pre-production (Writing) will start up soon and run through until “the new year.”

Rumors are saying that since Daniel Logan (Who played Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones) would probably be interested in reprising his role, he might be involved in the project.  During the panel, it was stated that we should “… expect news from Daniel’s camp in the not-too-distant future.“  Whatever that might mean.

The words “Clone Wars” were only mentioned once in the original Star Wars trilogy, while the three “prequel” films (during which the Clone Wars are set) are the generator of all kinds of feelings and mental images that are often hard for me to describe.

What isn’t hard for me to describe is the tone, quality and vision of George Lucas’s most recent animated offering, The Clone Wars – an ongoing series of CGI cartoons that recently received a second season green-light on Cartoon Network. The series will continue to offer literal filler of the years, events, and goings-on which occurred between the feature-film events of the Star Wars prequels.

While surfing the always-growing expanse of the Interweb during Comic-Con weekend, we stumbled upon this video of (now 20-years-old) Jake Lloyd who played “Anny” Skywalker from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

It seems that Hollywood has created yet another child actor that in general, has benefited from being a “child actor” but still clearly has issues. Check out what I mean:

Do we still have some rabid Star Wars fans out there?  Semi-rabid?  Tepid?  I know Niall is, as shown when he first talked about a live-action Star Wars show back in March.

If you’re an animation fan, you’ve probably been watching the animated series on Cartoon Network titled Star Wars: Clone Wars that was airing on Friday nights.

Now, “inside sources” are stating that a live action Star Wars series will start shooting soon.

The interesting angle on this is that they’re using Australian-based talent to pump out what they consider to be scripts of the highest quality.  They’re also going outside the Sci-Fi industry to find their writers.

Remember when Star Wars was awesome? When it owned the sci-fi genre and had the most devoted fans in the world, including its own legion of real storm troopers?

And then came the prequels… and then The Clone Wars…

This is where a big portion of the fans of old lost interest, where many became angry at George Lucas for what happened with Star Wars and more recently with Indiana Jones. While there were a billion different overpriced toys to buy from for the franchise from a million different Star Wars toy lines, the franchise was heading in the wrong direction.

Did you see the new Star Trek movie that opened this past weekend? If you have, you no doubt also saw that little movie called Star Wars that came out back in 1977. Did you notice any similarities?

J.J. Abrams has been openly honest all along that he was a fan of Star Wars growing up and not so much Star Trek. It’s no secret that he guided his new Star Trek movie in a more Star Wars-like fashion because of it.

As Admiral Ackbar would say, “It’s a trap!” And, it’s an admittedly cheap headline.

There isn’t a new Star Wars movie in production if that’s what you’re thinking. And, the live-action series Lucas is planning is still in the writing and pre-production phase.

What’s really going on then?

A live action Star Wars television series has been talked about since 2005 when George Lucas first mentioned the show and the Clone War animated series while doing promotion for Star Wars Episode III Revenge of The Sith.

Lucas and a group of writers started writing scripts for the 100 episode series way back in 2007, but now comes the first news that casting for the series is underway.

3D.  I remember the 1D headaches from watching some older 3D movies.  Yet the entertainment industry thinks 3D is the new tech that will help sales.  Not only is it coming to a theater near you, it’s coming to computer games and some TVs that are already set up for 3D movies.  Or will this newest effort end up in the warehouse with the massive unsold collection of 10,000 Segways?

The Oscars attempt (emphasis on the word, “attempt”) to recognize cinemas greatest achievements each year. The Razzies, on the other hand,  recognize cinema’s greatest underachievements each year.

After seeing the nominees for this year’s Razzie Awards, I’m beginning to think that the Razzie judges need to be given jobs on the Oscar selection committee. Maybe then the Oscar noms would be a little bit more spot-on.

Here are the 2008 Razzie Award nominees for your viewing displeasure.

If for some reason you just can’t get enough of “The Force,” well, “The Force” is with you! Lucasfilm Animation is presenting a 22-episode series called Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network.

The Clone Wars follows Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and other heroes as they deal with the troubles that come from the likes of Count Dooku, Asajj Ventress, Darth Sidious and other evil forces from the empire.

A pair of episodes will premiere Friday night on Cartoon Network, and the first one is titled Ambush.

Well since we do consider ourselves mainly a sci-fi, fantasy and superhero movie site, I guess we ought to post up the new full trailer for Star Wars: Clone Wars. If you haven’t heard, this will be a new ongoing CGI animated TV series, but Lucasfilm decided to launch it as a feature length animated film in theaters this summer.

You can check out the trailer for yourself below…

So tell me, seriously – does the image above make you excited to see a new Star Wars series about the Clone Wars?

In case you don’t know, there’s a new completely CGI animated series coming out in the Fall that picks up where Episode 3 left off. So what actually should have happened in Episodes 2 & 3 will take place in this animated TV show.

The twist is that Lucasfilm will kick off the series with a theatrical movie which will be released on August 15th.

The new Star Wars: Clone Wars animated feature film will premiere theatrically August 15, 2008, then it will air on Cartoon Network and TNT. This one is from Lucasfilm Animation, not from Genndy Tartakovsky, who oversaw the original Clone Wars series in 2004/05. He’s attached to the new Dark Crystal movie.

This is cool, because I was just thinking that it’s been three years since the last Star Wars movie, and we’re not getting one this year. There were new Star Wars movies in 1999, 2002 and 2005.

Find out more at starwars.com.

Anyone recognize this little fella? It’s Salacious Crumb, the creepy little guy that sat at the foot of Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi. If you’re a big Star Wars collector this is a pretty cool piece since it’s a 1:1 reproduction of the character from the film.

As unbelievable as it sounds, it’s true: According to several reports, George Lucas can’t find a network willing to air his new, self-financed Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series. Lucas says this is a PG-13 style show that doesn’t follow the model of the first animated Clone Wars series.

I first heard these rumors from my sci fi fan friends, and when I checked out IMDb, there it was. Lucas is financing 100 episodes of this new series (with animation, this could be at least two to four years worth of episodes). So what will Lucas do to get the animated series on the air?

You’ll notice I don’t post a lot of Star Wars related news here at Screen Rant. The reason is basically that George Lucas murdered the saga for me with his three prequel movies. That’s it, plain and simple. I think the man became:

A. Too full of himself (understandable I suppose considering the money and power he wields).

B. Too enamored of the VFX/CGI at the expense of the story and characters.

Having said that, I did enjoy the mini-episode animated Clone Wars saga that was broadcast on Cartoon Network. Lucas was pretty much hands-off on these and they were created by Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Click to continue "Star Wars: The Clone Wars Trailer… Meh"

By Brian Rentschler

The short version: There aren’t a ton of extras here, and purists will be annoyed by George Lucas’ changes, but picture and audio is excellent and you’ll finally have these on DVD.

Well, after all my bellyaching about how Lucas went and ruined a good thing by fixing what wasn’t broke, I decided to make the plunge and buy the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. Overall, I am very happy with the movies (hey, it’s Star Wars after all!), but I have quite a few “nitpicky” things I want to point out here. This review is not so much of the movies themselves, since the movies have been reviewed to death elsewhere. This is more of a commentary on what’s there and what’s not there. Since I never saw the “Special Editions” of the movies that were released in 1997, I may be giving commentary on content that has existed for years without realizing it, so bear with me.

The first thing that surprised me about this DVD set was the lack of extras. Compare this to the collector’s edition DVD’s of Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown, or the Extreme DVD version of Terminator 2, and you’ll see what I mean. There is commentary on each movie disc, but that’s it. There is a fourth “extras” DVD that has a fairly lengthy behind-the-scenes documentary and some old trailers, but nearly everything else appears to be a plug for an upcoming movie or video game. Nearly every featurette on the “extras” DVD shows either a bunch of losers dressed up as Star Wars characters or a bunch of directors talking about how George Lucas is bigger than God. Ultimately, the extras were a bit of a letdown.

Now for the movies themselves…