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Chris Knight's avatar

Call it “Walt Disney Galaxy”.

What’s not widely known among even die-hard fans of the saga is that around 1990, Michael Eisner was seriously putting a bug into George
Lucas’ ear about Disney being the distributor of any future Star Wars
movies.  Especially the prequels.  Which would have been an absolute perfect storm of FUBAR.  But then, that was when Eisner was running Disney…

Today?  I’m thinking… this might be the best thing that has happened to Star Wars in a long, long time.

The news busting the Intertubes wide open this afternoon is that Disney is purchasing Lucasfilm!  The deal is for $4 billion.

But that’s NOT all.  Because along with the acqusition… 2015 will see the release of Star Wars Episode VII!

Feel free to pick your jaw from the floor after reading that.  When I was sent the news of it a short while ...

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So yesterday evening, my lifelong best friend Chad and I met up in Durham to do something we had never done before. For all the things we’ve done together, we had yet to see a Star Wars movie together in the theater.

Okay, we’ve done that now. I’m thankful that we got to fix that. But that’s the only good thing that came out of last night’s screening of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3D(?!?).

Yeah, a Star Wars movie in 3D. I know, it looks good on paper, buuuuut…

Now I have to be honest: there are some parts of the movie that look far better in 3D than they deserve to be. The podrace sequence, f’rinstance. But I’m inclined to believe that’s only because it’s already moving so fast that your eyeballs are being vicariously assaulted before your gray matter gets time to register ...

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I haven’t seen Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace in 3-D yet (which came out this past Friday). That no doubt comes as a shock to everyone who knows me as being perhaps too much of a Star Wars fan for one’s own good. Perhaps this coming week or so is when I’ll finally check it out. In the meantime…

A few days ago Timothy Sexton authored this intriguing – and no doubt controversial – essay in which he argues that the “prequel trilogy” of the Star Wars saga is better than the three originals which George Lucas produced between 1977 and 1983. It is Sexton’s contention that Episodes I, II and III “are deeper, better structured, and more politically astute than the final three. Not only is that why the prequel is superior, it is also a pretty decent elucidation of the original trilogy’s greater popularity.”

In the ...

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George, George, George… I love your movies. I still love your movies, no matter what you do to them. I can’t wait to share them with my children someday. But how do I put this?

Ummmm… who do you think you’re kidding?!?

George Lucas is now claiming that Han Solo did NOT shoot first, and NEVER did, in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

So in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past fifteen years: in the original version of the first Star Wars movie that we had for twenty years from 1977 on, Han Solo clearly shoots bounty hunter Greedo at (nearly) point-blank range in the Mos Eisley cantina.

Here’s the original scene…

Then when Lucas rolled out the “Special Editions” in 1997, the scene was edited so it looks like Greedo shot first, then Han returns fire. Apparently Han shooting first made ...

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But I got to see it last month at a/perture cinema in Winston-Salem, along with Forcery co-producer Ed Woody and star Chad Austin, who appears a LOT throughout The People vs. George Lucas as, well… George Lucas!

The screening was on September 12th. Why didn’t I write about it sooner? Because it still hasn’t sunk in yet: that was my film Forcery, the idea for which hit just over ten years ago (I began writing the script on the night before 9/11), and my most life-long best friend playing George Lucas on the big screen as part of this multi-award winning documentary that has played at film festivals all around the world!

But as surreal as the experience was, that was mild compared to watching Melody Hallman Daniel‘s performance as Frannie Filks from Forcery, which The People vs. George Lucas is exceptionally peppered with! In fact, ...

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All good things must come to an end. Which as more than one person has noted, means that my jokes are cursed to live forever! 😛

You know what I like most about April Fools Day? It’s that my birthday is March 31st. So for me it’s like a two-day long extravaganza of hilarity and thanks to this blog, I get to share that good-natured nuttiness with a wide audience!

Okay well anyhoo, obviously this year’s April Fools Day on The Knight Shift was nothing like last year’s infamous “Johnny Robertson arrested at the Vatican” stunt that saw this blog slammed with visits from such places as the U.S. State Department and Vatican City itself. This time, I wanted to do something a bit quieter, but no less funny. And as things turned out I wound up running three prank stories on this blog.

Let’s count ’em off…

1. “Governor ...

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I remember a few years ago when Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith came out, and one of many interviewers asked George Lucas “Will you make any more Star Wars movies?” And the Flanneled One said “no”. He remarked that he wanted to make “smaller, more personal, more intimate films” for a bit, as opposed to big-budget blockbusters. You know: “art-house movies”.

Well, we’ve known for quite awhile that after he was done with Star Wars movies that Lucas wanted to proceed on Red Tails, his long, long, LONG-awaited film about black aviators during World War II. But what would Lucas possibly want to do after Red Tails is in the can?

As of yesterday evening, now we know. GeekTyrant was the first to break the news that George Lucas will – of all the things that he could afford to spend his time and effort ...

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So sayeth Harrison Ford, adding that he’s already getting in shape and that work on a new Indy movie has progressed further than most of us have suspected…

“The story for the new ‘Indiana Jones’ is in the process of taking form,” Ford told France’s Le Figaro. “Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and myself are agreed on what the fifth adventure will concern, and George is actively at work. If the script is good, I’ll be very happy to put the costume on again.”

Others may disagree, but I thought last year’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a fine addition to the Indy mythos. That and that it was as good a homage to Fifties B-movies as Raiders of the Lost Ark was a tribute to the Saturday serials of yesteryear. With that in mind, I’ll gladly welcome another Indiana Jones movie (and maybe even ...

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Awright, I’ve been sitting on this for the past week or so, eagerly looking forward to when that e-mail would arrive with the official announcement and now… it’s here!

Alexandre Philippe is a filmmaker who is currently working on an ambitious project called The People vs. George Lucas (here’s the official website: PeopleVsGeorge.com). Tonight, Alexandre and his crew released the first trailer for their film.

Behold!

Want to see it drastically embiggened and high-deffed? Mash down here!

And at 1:29 into the trailer, there’s a black and white clip showing “George Lucas” furiously typing. No, your eyes ain’t deceiving you: that is Chad Austin from my first film Forcery (click here to watch THAT movie)! Alexandre contacted me about using Forcery awhile back, and all of us at KWerky Productions are thrilled to have been invited to take part in this project.

The People vs. George ...

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Today marks an extraordinarily dubious anniversary for the Star Wars saga. Because it was thirty years ago tonight, on November 17th, 1978, that CBS aired the first and last broadcast of The Star Wars Holiday Special.

The two-hour schlockfest is now widely considered by many to be the absolutely worst block of television in the history of anything…

“One of these things is not like the others…”

I’m not even going to try to pretend to make sense of this… thing. If you want to see it, you’ll be able to find it all over the ‘net and if you don’t want to see it well, that’s two hours of your life that’re your own to spend how you wish. I remember watching this as a way wee lad on the night that it aired, and even then I thought it was pretty terrible. I mean, Harvey Korman as ...

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