New Star Wars: The Force Awakens Japenese international trailer --- WOW

Wow. You thought you were done with new Star Wars trailers after therecent, amazing one we just had? Think again. Disney has released an international cut of the trailer—one that is packed with new shots and dialogue.

The trailer, which you can see below, follows a similar thematic path as the recent teaser, but we get to hear more from Rey and how she’s waiting for her family. We get to see Kylo Ren’s controversial new lightsaber in action. There’s a glimpse of Leia and C-3PO, of gorgeous vistas and alien suns—and then Lupita Nyong’o’s Maz Kanata ends the trailer by saying “Hope is not lost today... it is found.” See for yourself!

There is a surprising amount of extra stuff in here, especially considering J.J. Abrams was very insistent on the previous trailer being the last new footage we’d see before the movie released. Naturally, we’ve broken down some of that new content for you into glorious gifs!

Rey checks out the wreckage of a ship on Jakku.

And enquires as to where BB-8—who is owned by Poe Dameron—came from, and teasingly mentions that she knows what it’s like to wait for her family. The question is... who’s the family? Han and Leia, like everyone thinks it is?

The shot of Rey speeding across Jakku is very Luke-and-the-binary-sunset-y, and we love it.

A busy Jakku market, and BB-8 dashes off as it spots something that gets the attention of Rey... and Finn, who’s joined her now! Presumably, BB-8’s seen the First Order making their arrival, as we’ve seen images of Finn and Rey being chased through a similar environment by Stormtroopers.

Speaking of gorgeous shots of alien suns, this one is also spectacular. TIEs at sunset!

Finn and Rey introduce themselves to each other on the Falcon. Wait, they go through all that without knowing each other’s names first?

It’s the Resistance Base! There’s Poe in the background, a brief shot of C-3PO, and PRINCESS GODDAMN LEIA. They look pretty concerned by something.

Leia’s not the only old face we get to see in the trailer. Chewbacca is here, and he’s here to BLOW SHIT UP. Presumably the exploding First Order bridge, which was in the last trailer, is just cut here for effect rather than being Chewie’s actual handiwork, but still.

On a forest world we’ve seen only glimpses of, Rey gets a close encounter with Kylo Ren’s flickering, spitting lightsaber. Careful Kylo, you’ll have someone’s eye out with that thing! There’s a few shots of his lightsaber in this trailer, and we have to say, this crossguard thing has grown on us. It looks menacing and awesome.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is out December 18th.

How the Phantom Menace 3D Trailer Really Improves Episode I

From: http://gizmodo.com/

Watching the official trailer, I get the feeling that not even Lucasfilm is convinced that a third dimension is going to improve The Phantom Menace. So they've instead they've opted for Plan B in the trailer for the 3D re-release: the eradication of Jar Jar Binks.

Can we finally agree that likes 3D? The effect doesn't enhance the moviegoing experience even when originally shot with fancy 3D technology, but the Phantom Menace was released well before the 3D fad ruined our Friday nights. So it has to be manually converted to leap from the screen, with results that Ebert has lambasted far more eloquently than we could.

But we see through you, Lucasfilm! You can hide Jar Jar Binks in this trailer all you want, and the movie actually looks kind of decent without him. But you and I both know know he's still out there, lurking, waiting to shove his particularly awful brand of terribleness that even more in our faces, floppy ears jangling wildly as he jumps out of the screen and into our nightmares. [YouTube via TheForce.net]

Star Wars Bass Solo

From:http://furiousfanboys.com/

What do you do with a Kenner Millennium Falcon toy when you grow up? Turn it into the most epic bass guitar ever to make the Kessel run!

The Episode I -- 3D Poster

From: http://furiousfanboys.com/

R2D2 Upgrades to HDMI and Xbox 360

By Erik Hyrkas
From http://walyou.com/

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Major League Mods has just unleashed every Star Wars geek’s wet dream, for lack of a better description.

A life-size model of R2D2 bears a striking resemblance to the projector/dvd-player/sound system made by Nikko, as seen here. The difference is that Major League Mods appears to have spliced the internals of an Xbox 360 of all things, with a similar product. That’s right; you can now play Star Wars Battlefront III with R2 projecting on your wall.

It’s hard to believe, but no 360 ports appear to have been sacrificed in this George Lucas/Microsoft-effigy. The HDMI and RCA ports are in back along with power input, two USBs up front with the power button, and, of course, R2’s glowing eye is right where is should be.

R2 also lights up, but does not appear to move on its own. We’re not exactly sure if it makes sounds, but the well-known high-pitched chirps are definitely evident in the video. Check it out yourself below.

While we cannot confirm or deny the validity of this Mod, the splash screen of Xbox 360’s menu does appear on the wall in this video, and the ports do appear to be that of the Xbox as well. If you’d like to learn more, we suggest you contact Mark Bongo, the owner of Major League Mods and custom-modification guru who brought this gamer droid to life. You can also check out his Free eBooks to learn how to do this mod yourself. May the force be with you.

In love with the little bleeping R2D2? Bleep your way to a R2D2 specs poster or a cool R2D2 steampunk project.

Star Wars AT-AT Dog

The gorgeous Italian Star Wars movie you never knew you wanted

From: http://io9.com/

From You Tube:

Uploaded by Atilak on Sep 8, 2011

Full movie hd 1080p di "Dark Resurrection vol.0" di Angelo Licata - info: http://www.darkresurrection.com
Un omaggio a Star Wars privo di fini di lucro. Un esperimento creativo che cerca la risposta alla domanda. Si può fare cinema di genere in italia? Al pubblico che lo vedrà il compito di giudicare.

This film is a creative, non profit experiment. It's goal is to be a tribute to Star Wars.
It was co-produced by hundreds of associate producers from all over the world..
You could be one of them:
http://www.darkresurrection.com/portal/index.php/en/features/style-variations...

Lovingly made Star Wars fan films, they're growing on trees these days. The latest not-for-profit Star flick is the atmospheric Italian film, Dark Resurrection: Volume 0. In this film, a group of Jedis discover a derelict spaceship with a nasty secret. Don't worry, it's nothing like Turkish Star Wars.

Director Angelo Licata tipped us to his latest production, and we're certainly gosh-darned impressed. It's the prequel to his 2007 movie Dark Resurrection: Volume 1, which cost £7,000. Here's the synopsis:

Master Sorran, is obsessed by his search for an ancient civilization which, according to legend, holds the secret of immortality. After many years he lights upon the wreck of the civilisation's most powerful starship: the Resurrection.

Sorran ignores the dangers and orders his crew to dock. The explorers and Sorran himself will face the mysteries of the Resurrection and the secret of the origins of the dark side.

Volume 0, Volume 0, in the original script written by Angelo Licata and Fabrizio Rizzolo, was only the prologue of Volume 2. After months of post-production, we realised that the material deserved to be properly developed as it tells interesting stories about the past of evil Lord Sorran and the mythology of Eron; fulcrum of the entire story.

There's a lot of good stuff going on here, from the creepy, Gigeresque set design to the young Jedi fiddling with his lightsaber to that holographic Vigo the Carpathian barking a whole bunch of dire craziness. Hats off to Licata and his team for putting together a handsome homemade movie. You can read more about the Dark Resurrection films here.

Watch two floppy drives play Star Wars’ Imperial March

From: http://www.digitaltrends.com/
By: Andrew Couts

Floppy drives have made a musical return from the pages of history with the help of a Polish hobbyist and some open-source gadgetry in this super-dork rendition of Darth Vader's Imperial March.

Polish gadget hobbyist “Silent” has created what is quite possibly the nerdiest thing we’ve every encountered: the “Imperial March” – a.k.a. Darth Vader’s theme song – played by two floppy drives. That’s right, this obsolete technology has now returned as a musical instrument.

Now, some of you are probably asking, “What the heck is a floppy drive?” A floppy drive is what us geezers used back in olden times before CDs, DVDs, flash drives and the Internet became the standard technology for storing data externally. (Granted, CDs and DVDs are quickly on their way to obsolescence as well.) They only store 1.44 MB – yes, megabytes – of data, which now isn’t even enough to hold a single high-resolution photograph, let alone anything else. And, as you can see from the video below, the were extremely noisy.

Well, with the help of an open-source ATMega microcontroller board, Silent has managed to program two floppy drives to clatter away at the exact pitches necessary to send fear into the hearts of a Jedi. But how, exactly, does it work? Silent explains on his blog:

The sound comes from a magnetic head moved by stepper motor. To make a specific sound, head must be moved with appropriate frequency…

To move the head you need to activate the drive by pulling the DRVSB0 or 1 (depends on the cable you have and the connector – notice the crossover on the FDD ribbon cable) pin low and then falling edge on STEP pin makes the head move one step in direction dependent on DIR pin state.

An ATMega microcontroller is generating those frequencies and it makes the drives play music.

In plain English, that means the microcontroller is sending electrical frequencies to the drives in a specific pattern to make them recreated the desired tone.

However it works, this is awesome. Watch and listen below:

Star Wars Cardboard Millennium Falcon

By Nayla Khan 

From http://walyou.com/

 

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Creativity, designs and art work involve use of the computer in some or the other form. In this scenario there still exists a group of artists who love handcrafting objects. The sheer joy of seeing something take shape right before ones eyes is immeasurable. One such artist is Matheson Harris. He describes himself as a father, husband, surgeon and photographer with no mention of artist. But if you happen to see his cardboard Star Wars collection you would take him to be an excellent artist.

The cardboard collection of Star Wars was created by Harris a couple of months ago. His Star Wars fleet consists of the Millennium Falcon, AT-AT, the Star Destroyer and the Tie Fighter. Amazingly handcrafted each piece bears a striking resemblance to the original ones that you would have seen in the movies.



When the computer had not invaded every home one could see more examples of such creativity flowing in from all corners. Children and grown ups both found out varied ways to occupy themselves and in this process exercised their grey cells to a great extent. Day-to-day objects were transformed and given a new identity. This exercise led to the creation of fantastic objects and ideas. Now with every other person glued to the television or the computer handcrafted objects are becoming a rarity. Forget making use of small insignificant objects.



The Star Wars fleet created by Harris is an amazing example of handwork. If you take a look at them you will realize that the entire project is free of any fancy object. The main article used in the making of these starships is cardboard, a very inexpensive and easy to find product. Apart from this the list includes hot glue, sharpie, a couple of sucker sticks, and ping pong balls. Put all these items together and you end up getting an entire range of the Star Wars armada.

What is extraordinary about this project is not only the simplicity it bears with it but the fact that one can see a great degree of excellence in this simplicity. Every little bit is well crafted. Look at the measurement of every piece, its proportion with relation to the others and the finesse with which the whole thing has been put together. All that one can see here is excellence in every area.

Projects involving fancy objects do catch one’s attention. Designs and objects created using the computer have a very different look but the ones created by hand are unique in themselves. And to top it all if it is made of very simple objects the value increases by leaps and bounds.

For those of you who are impressed with this, take a look at Captain America Shield, Ghostbuster Ghost Trap and District 9 Art Gun Papercraft.

Dad Helps Kids Go Ewok-Spotting

By Ken Denmead
From http://www.wired.com/

Spot the Ewok! (Photo by Anthony Herrera)

Anthony Herrera is a geeky dad, and handy with his camera. So, when he took his kids out in a somewhat-famous forest in Northern California, it was the chance to instill some Star Wars wonder in his children:

A year ago we took a trip to Sequoia National Park. I wanted to excite my daughter while being in such amazing surroundings. Being the Star Wars geek that I am (so is she), I told her that this is where the Ewoks live. She spent a good chunk of our time hiking keeping a lookout for any Ewoks. Coming home I can’t say that she wasn’t disappointed that we didn’t find any. I had to explain that they are extremely shy and hardly ever let anyone see them. After we got home, and after I had a little time alone with the photos, I told her I thought I saw something strange in a few pictures. We viewed them on the TV to get a larger image. You can imagine how surprised and excited she was when we discovered that we didn’t see any Ewoks, but they saw us, and had certainly taken an interest in her and her little brother. Maybe I’m a little wrong for lying to her and falsifying the pictures, but I don’t care. She’ll never forget the time she spent in the big woods with Ewoks.

Check out the rest of the “sightings” after the break, and check out his website.

Spot the Ewok! (Photo by Anthony Herrera)

Spot the Ewok! (Photo by Anthony Herrera)

Spot the Ewok! (Photo by Anthony Herrera)

Ken is a husband and father from the San Francisco Bay Area, where he works as a civil engineer. He also wrote the NYT bestselling book "Geek Dad: Awesomely Geeky Projects for Dads and Kids to Share."
Follow @fitzwillie and @wiredgeekdad on Twitter.

Jedi Kittens

Is this the best thing to happen to Youtube since someone rediscovered Rick Astley? The videos are short, but really cute. It’s a pair of kittens with lightsabers, and so far they’ve done two. The first just has the kittens dueling each other, while the other has them flying an X-Wing and TIE Fighter around before hopping out and dueling.

The makers of the videos are hoping to get enough views of these little guys to make it to the Youtube front page, and for something this cool; they deserve to. So check out both current installments of Jedi Kittens below.

9 Actors You Didn’t Know Were in Star Wars Movies

From: http://www.movieline.com/
by Louis Virtel

The crowded backdrops of Star Wars movies aren’t just populated by Frank Oz puppets, interns, and robots in Rick Baker makeup: There are genuine stars (and famous directors) running around there! We’ve pinpointed nine folks who made cameos in Star Wars films, and I’m willing to bet you couldn’t catch most of these players upon first viewing. Sofia Coppola is practically hiding.

1. Keira Knightley
Movie: The Phantom Menace
Role: Sabe, the decoy queen
Hired thanks to her resemblance to Natalie Portman, future Oscar nominee Knightley played Amidala’s doppelganger decoy and bodyguard. It’s the kind of fronting that could drive a woman mad. Talk about A Dangerous Method.

2. Rose Byrne
Movie: Attack of the Clones
Role: Dormé
Long before she sneered and scoffed at Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids, Damages star Rose Byrne wasn’t so cocky as Padmé Amidala’s handmaiden Dormé. That expressionless mug served her well in Patty Hewes’s firm.

3. Joel Edgerton
Movie: Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith
Role: Owen Lars
As Anakin Skywalker’s stepbrother Owen, Edgerton eventually takes custody of Luke Skywalker in Revenge of the Sith. He’s killed by stormtroopers in A New Hope, but it’s clear that Owen here has the fire of an Animal Kingdom/Warrior alum. Joel Edgerton is the brother of Ewan McGregor’s stunt double Nash Edgerton, and coincidentally, Owen Lars is named as Obi-Wan Kenobi’s brother in the novelization of Return of the Jedi.

4. Marton Csokas
Movie: Attack of the Clones
Role: Poggle the Lesser
Looks like Celebron from The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King has a sexy past with other fantastical franchises. In Attack of the Clones, Csokas voices Poggle the Lesser, the separatist Archduke of Geonosis who is gunned down by Darth Vader on Mustafar. Wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happened to him in The Debt.

5. Keisha Castle-Hughes
Movie: Revenge of the Sith
Role: Queen Apailana of Naboo
Soon after the august New Zealand actress scored an Oscar nomination for her unforgettable work in Whale Rider, she played a forgettable queen in Revenge of the Sith’s funeral scene. Looking kind of Thai for a Kiwi!

6. Sofia Coppola
Movie: The Phantom Menace
Role: Saché
The oldest of Amidala’s five handmaidens, Saché donned a red-orange robe and stared off like a downtrodden protagonist in a Sofia Coppola movie.

7. John Ratzenberger
Movie: The Empire Strikes Back
Role: Major Bren Derlin
A few years prior to landing Cheers, the Pixar mainstay bundled up to play the deck officer Bren Derlin in The Empire Strikes Back. Even when he’s starring in a sci-fi classic, you just want to hand him a stein.

8. Joe Johnston
Movie: Star Wars
Role: Stormtrooper
In an additional insert scene shot for the original Star Wars, the Captain America: The First Avenger director (and Oscar-winner for Best Visual Effects on Raiders of the Lost Ark) stands out on the Death Star surface looking over at the captured Millennium Falcon. Still a fetching costume to this day.

9. George Lucas
Movie: Revenge of the Sith
Role: Baron Papanoida
The blue-skinned Baron Papanoida, who lingers outside Palpatine’s private box at the Galaxies Opera House, is your austere auteur, Mr. George Lucas! He’s glowering like Orson Welles in The Muppet Movie, but I’m sure he’s having a fine time.

Star Wars Talk to Your Kids PSA

Uploaded by asylumchannel on Nov 17, 2010

Star Wars fan dads discuss how they will talk to their kids about Star Wars.

This 43000 LEGO Part Venator Class Star Destroyer is Freakin' Amazing

Sylvain Ballivet's massive Venator Class Star Destroyer is now 100% COMPLETE. This badass LEGO behemoth weighs in at a approximately 180lbs, exactly 8 feet long and yep... 43000 individual LEGO pieces. Insane. Read on to see more detail pics and a video where you can imagine this sucker flying through the vasts of outter space.

more pics here: http://www.mocpages.com/moc.php/286828

Most impressive.

[ flickr source ] and [ iomedes.blogspot.com ]

Most impressive.

[ flickr source ] and [ iomedes.blogspot.com ]

Gallery: Empire Invades AT&T Park for San Francisco Giants’ Star Wars Day

• By Angela Watercutter
• From http://www.wired.com/

SAN FRANCISCO — A steady stream of Darth Vaders, Princess Leias, Boba Fetts and, of course, Stormtroopers descended on AT&T Park here Sunday as the world-champion San Francisco Giants played host to the Empire for Star Wars Day.

In a city known for its geek fascinations, seeing Jedi mix with hard-core baseball fans is not an uncommon occurrence, but the Giants' game against the Arizona Diamondbacks was the first-ever Star Wars Day for the franchise.

And the team went all-out. Fans got a pre-game costume contest, a post-game screening of Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back in the stadium, Stormtroopers guarding the field during the "Star-Spangled Banner," giveaway statues of Giants closing pitcher Brian Wilson — frozen in carbonite, Han Solo-style — and the opportunity to generally geek out throughout the game.

"We don't even know what the score is," said 33-year-old Ryan Flores, above right, who came in a Giants bounty hunter uniform. Flores told Wired.com that he and his Boba-Fett-meets-Giants-costumed friend, Robin Lopez, 31 (above left), were distracted from the game's play-by-play due to fans wanting pictures with the pair.

Not that Flores minded. He noted that he and Lopez had been happy to take pictures, making them each a Star for the day.

"I'm a geek and if I can make a little kid smile, that makes my day," Flores said.

During the game, Giants players were shown in Jedi garb in their photos on the stadium's giant screen. Between innings, the park showed Star Wars clips, including one featuring the team's mascot, Lou Seal, inserted into key scenes from the film franchise — changes that went over better with fans than last week's addition of Darth Vader screaming "No!" in the upcoming Blu-ray version of Return of the Jedi.

In the end, though, the Force was stronger with Star Wars fans than with the Giants, who lost to the Diamondbacks 4-1 after an 8th-inning rally by the Arizona team.

Click through the gallery above to get a taste of San Francisco baseball's geekiest day, and, as one fan's sign said, "May the SForce be with you."