The Bearded Trio

J.W. RINZLER ANNOUNCES NEW BOOK ON THE CAREER OF PRODUCER HOWARD KAZANJIANWednesday afternoon, prolific Star Wars author J.W. Rinzler hosted a YouTube chat in which he promoted his forthcoming book "All Up" but also teased a new Star Wars-focused book project, announced for the first time.

A little more than 25 minutes into the chat, Rinzler announced he will pen a book that will chronicle the career of producer Howard Kazanjian.

Kazanjian is best known as the producer of both Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Return of the Jedi (1983). He attended USC Film School with George Lucas, and joined Lucasfilm in the wake of the success of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), leading the company's non-Star Wars film projects.

As part of that book, Rinzler revealed he conducted a four-hour interview with Marcia Lucas, the former wife of George Lucas and enormously valuable part of the editorial team during the original trilogy era. This can certainly qualify as a coup, since Marcia r…

Q&A with film director Ron Howard Wednesday, 1 July at 8.15pm Now's your chance to get your questions answered by director, Ron Howard thanks to the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the #EdFilmFestAtHome event.  It all takes place on YouTube and various social media platforms.  The Q&A is taking place tomorrow so make sure you get your questions in.  Details are below:
The event will be hosted on the Edinburgh International Film Festival’s YouTube channel& Facebook and will take place at 8:15pm BST. You can Ask questions via Twitter or Facebook by tagging @EdFilmFest or using #EdFilmFestAtHome. Follow @edfilmfest for links and live updates

The legendary film director brings his latest documentary, Rebuilding Paradise, to UK audiences for the very first time. The film, available now until 5 July on Curzon Home Cinema as part of Ed Film Fest at Home, chronicles the post-fire lives of the residents of Paradise, California, which was 95% razed to the ground by th…

Steven Spielberg Appears Briefly In Duel We all love the 1971 Steven Spielberg directed classic, Duel about a business commuter pursued and terrorized by the malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer across the empty deserted roads of America.  Some say Duel is a precursor to Steven Spielberg's other classic, the 1975 in-the-water thriller, Jaws.  Duel is one and a half hours of pure edge-of-your-seats entertainment and shows the early potential of Steven Spielberg even back in 1971.

The TV movie, originally 74 minutes in length was made for ABC's "Movie of the Week" and Spielberg was under pressure to complete the filming of the movie in just 10 days.  He did it in 13 much to the amazement of the crew who said it couldn't be done.  Insisting on using on-location shots rather than what would have ultimately been fake-looking studio shots, Spielberg can be forgiven for the odd blooper here and there due to the pressure he was under to complete the TV movie.

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Spock Talks Star Wars Yes, you read that right.  This is a 1983 documentary that I came across on Youtube and is has Star Trek's Leonard Nimoy presenting the show.  Well this makes perfect sense.  What next?  Billy Dee presenting the making of Star Trek Into Darkness?

The show was called Standby...Lights! Camera! Action! and aired on the Nickelodeon channel in the US.  This would have been filmed slap bang in between Wrath of Khan (1982) and Search for Spock (1984.)  Other movies covered in the show included E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, Cocoon and Back to the Future to name a few.

Michael Heather looks back At Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and why it deserves more love My favourite Indiana Jones film is Raiders Of The Lost Ark, probably not the opening statement you expected in a piece celebrating the (fortune and) glories of Indy's second celluloid adventure. However, Indiana Jones and the Temple Of Doom has somehow become the somewhat unloved sequel/prequel dismissed even by its own director who claims that “the only good thing to come out of it was meeting my wife”. The undeniably perfect pacing, framing, composing and overall genius of ‘Raiders’ is well documented but I just as often these days feel like I need to defend the movie or part of a minority (albeit strong) that needs to champion the many awesome aspects of Indy's darkest escapade.

No time for love? Far from it.

Every recollection like this seems to start with its own authors personal context and I have no intention of straying from that formula, unlike the film itself. I was 9 ye…

NOSTALGIA AND STAR WARSOne of the most powerful words in Star Wars fandom is Nostalgia.
A quick search for the definition of nostalgia states: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.

During my years observing Star Wars fandom, this word comes up in my mind over and over again, for both good and bad reasons.

One of my preferred Star Wars podcasts, Skytalkers, recently did a deep two-part dive on the concept of nostalgia within Star Wars, its place, and where its listeners feel Star Wars media and creators have hit and missed with nostalgia. It’s a great listen, I highly recommend it, and you should absolutely subscribe to that channel. You have time.

Inspired by that podcast, I decided to take a crack at nostalgia within Star Wars, a highly complex topic.

How should we define nostalgia within Star Wars films and publishing? Is nostalgia an attempt by the creators to devise a callback for the characters…

Lego Indiana Jones and Lara Croft Crossover Was Pitched To Lucasfilm Over on YouTube, there is a channel (GameHut) that has been created by founder of TT Games, Jon Burton.  Now, gamers will be familiar with TT Games as they have brought us the fantastic Lego games such as Lego Batman, Lego Star Wars and Lego Indiana Jones.

What is interesting is in the video below, TT Games pitched an idea of creating a Lara Croft game but thought that it needed a bit more to it so decided to approach Lucasfilm with the idea of a Lara Croft/Indiana Jones crossover Lego game.

Thinking Lucasfilm would be enthusiastic about the idea, they had the opposite reaction.  Apparently, Lucasfilm have never been happy with the creators of Lara Croft (Toby Gard/Eidos.)  In the video, Jon Burton said that Lucasfilm thought Lara was too similar to their hero with the whip and hat, Indiana Jones and going as far as claiming they "stole" their idea.  The concept was shot down immediately and we never got t…