Category: Star Wars (franchise)

Star Wars: Clone Wars: Chapter 20

Clone WarsBridging the gap between Star Wars Episode II and Episode III, Cartoon Network premieres the 20th mini-episode of Genndy Tartakovsky’s The Clone Wars animated shorts. The Clone Wars shorts return – in a slightly less short format – in the spring of 2005, running up to the theatrical release of Episode III; on DVD, this is also the end of Volume One. This installment marks the first appearance of General Grievous. Read more Hear about it on the Sci-Fi 5 podcast

2004 Robot Hall Of Fame inductees

C-3PORobbyCarnie Mellon University inducts five new members to its Robot Hall Of Fame at a press event promoting the movie adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot. The 2004 inductees, again split almost evenly between fictional and real robots, are:

  1. Astro Boy (1951, manga/anime character)
  2. Robby The Robot (1956, from Forbidden Planet)
  3. Shakey (1966, Stanford Research Institute – first robot capable of autonomous tasks)
  4. C-3PO (1977, from Star Wars)
  5. ASIMO (2000, Honda – humanoid robot capable of navigating uneven terrain)

Judges for the 2004 Hall include SimCity creator Wil Wright, roboticist Ruzena Bajcsy and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Phil Brown, Star Wars actor, dies

Phil BrownActor Phil Brown, who secured a permanent place in SF lore with the role of Uncle Owen in Star Wars, dies at the age of 89. After spending the early years of his career working in stage productions in New York, he moved to Hollywood and co-founded the Actors’ Laboratory. He was only one film into a directing career when he was blacklisted during the McCarthy hearings, and left America to work in London in 1952 as both an actor and director, not to move back to the US until 1993. He found that his Star Wars role, even as brief as it was, won him a place of honor at many SF conventions, and he spent recent years making the rounds and meeting his fans. He also appeared in Superman, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, Twilight’s Last Gleaming, the TV miniseries The Martian Chronicles, and played a brief part in a trailer assembled by Richard Hatch to pitch a revival of the original Battlestar Galactica series.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone WarsWarner Bros. releases the CGI animated movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars, set during the Clone Wars between Star Wars Episode II and Episode III, and featuring the voice talents of Matt Lanter, Ashley Eckstein, and James Arnold Taylor. Samuel L. Jackson, Anthony Daniels, and Christopher Lee reprise the voices of their live action characters. This is also the launching point for the upcoming Clone Wars television series, animated in the same style. Read more