News on Disney's future plans for their new Star Wars franchise has leaked online, fresh from the Star Wars European Branding Expo and JediNews! Read on for a full list of upcoming projects Disney has in store for Star Wars fans, plus a rough release date zone for Star Wars Episode VII!

http://www.scified.com/news/1224

Attention fans of Star Wars: The Clone Wars: These are the box sets you're looking for.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Complete Season Five, the final season of the hit series, releases today on Blu-ray (2-disc, $59.97 MSRP) and DVD (3-disc, $49.98 MSRP). The collection delivers all 20 episodes, two as director's cuts never seen on TV, and supplements them with a host of behind the scenes bonus materials, cast and crew interviews, and deleted and alternate scenes, revealing the magic behind the making of the cutting-edge series.

In its Emmy-winning fifth season, the gripping Star Wars story moves closer to the grim events of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and several major players face their destinies as the galaxy plunges into darkness. Planets are rocked by revolution, ancient Jedi secrets are explored, and Ahsoka Tano -- the spirited Padawan so central to the series -- faces a major crisis that will change her forever.

For those wanting to relive every moment of the epic series from the beginning comes theStar Wars: The Clone Wars Seasons 1-5 Collector's Edition, is also released today, on Blu-ray (14-disc, $149.99 MSRP) and DVD (19-disc, $119.98 MSRP). All previous complete season sets have been collected here for the first time. With unique packaging, the Collector's Edition also includes a brand new 54-page Art of The Clone Wars booklet that showcases concept art from across all five seasons, with many pieces never before published.

http://starwars.com/news/new-star-wars-the-clone-wars-blu-ray-and-dvd-box-sets-now-available.html

I enjoyed Oblivion very much. It gets a good 5 on a  D6 from me (as the GM I get to cheat when rolling dice, so it always shows what I want it to show - no randomness there!)

It had a nice mix of actual sci-fi, some drama, a fair bit of action, plus lots of techno eye-candy. The plot twists were decent IMO. Not sure why the film has been called boring and confusing; perhaps because the average critic isn't smart enough to understand anything that isn't 100% action?

Tom Cruise did a soldi lead role. Andrea Riseborough did a very solid job as Vika. New face to me. Hope she does well in the future.

STAR WARS IS BEING KICK-STARTED WITH DYNAMITE J.J. ABRAMS TO DIRECT STAR WARS: EPISODE VII

 Could be good, could be bad. We'll just have to hope and trust in the Force.

http://starwars.com/news/star-wars-is-being-kick-started-with-dynamite-jj-abrams-to-direct-star-wars-episode-vii.html

Will the second of the rebooted ST movies be any good? Certainly hope so!

Ridley Scott...Aliens universe...sci-fi...evocative trailer...it COULD be good at least.

http://www.prometheus-movie.com/

Looking forward to it. Quite liked the reboot.

http://trekmovie.com/2012/01/14/paramount-officially-announces-star-trek-sequel-produciton-start/

I actually got around to watching the Mutant Chronicles movie the other day. It's been sitting on my self for a couple of weeks after I found it in a bargain bin (NOK 49). Expectations were not very great. This looked very much like a B-movie. But hey, it's a couple of hours of sci-fi and at a very low cost. I also know the Mutant Chronicles setting fairly well, although it's been quite a few years since last we met...

Overall I was rather pleasantly surprised. Sure, it was a B-movie. Big time. But I was never bored - at times I was well entertained. The special effects were decent and the action sequences not too bad. And although acting isn't high on the list of the film's strengths the band of unlikely heroes contained a rather interesting mix of characters (which any role-player would appreciate - I liked the Steiner fellow in particular).

Hot Asian Chick - she gets cut in two unfortunately

The story was pretty basic - Evil Machine lands on Earth 10.000 years ago sending forth mutant minions to destroy humanity. Heroic human tribes fight back and seal away Machine. Stupid humans forget about machine and wakes it up, letting monsters loose. End of the world imminent. Ancient religious order the has preserved lore about the Machine steps forth to gather unlikely heroes to make suicide raid to destroy machine and save humanity. Lots of quasi-religious stuff included. Faith and hope - that sort of thing. Not terribly good, but not incredibly bad either.

The films strongest point was atmosphere. It managed to convey a dark and gritty future pretty well. I think they overdid the steam-punk aspect a bit, but that's just me. I don't like steam-punk too much to begin with. But overall they had stayed consistent to a very bleak Sky Captain of Tomorrow/Steampunk imagery.

Where the movie didn't do so well was in the plot department. The basic story was basic and unimaginative, but the actual plot was so full of holes you could drive a car through them. My 'favorite' was near the end when the hero found his old army buddy who had been captured by the mutants six weeks before during their initial breakout...found him being dragged away by his captors to meet his mutating doom inside the Machine...presumably the muties had been dragging the mortally injured man around for six weeks. Rather inefficient...seeing as how they managed to overrun the entire world  - on foot  - during the course of those six weeks, including dragging back hordes of people to the Machine as to make new muties. But hey, maybe the one dragging 'old army bud' had gotten lost in the tunnels? That was daft enough to (almost) ruin the film for me (and it was a completely unnecessary scene too!).

Oh, and there is one more thing. The director took one look at the setting material, wiped his ass with it and then CAME UP WITH SOMETHING HARDLY RELATED TO MUTANT CHRONICLES AT ALL! That was something of a disappointment. It was like watching a 40K movie and have the God-Emperor alive and well and Chaos reduced to just some raving mutants. I suddenly understood why companies like GW protect their IP so vigorously...

In conclusion: If you know nothing about Mutant Chronicles to begin with and have a love of sci-fi/light action and can borrow the film from some one I'd recommend it.  Otherwise I won't recommend it - but I won't warn you NOT to see it. It wasn't all that bad and it's not like you get a lot of movies in that genre.

I fianlly found time to watch a couple of BSG epsiodes; season 3, epsiodes 13 and 14. The first one, Taking a Break From All Your Worries, was pretty good. The second, The Woman King, was more of a filler episode. It's saving grace was the apperance of Caprica-Six' imaginary friend, Dr. Baltar the mind-ghost. Very amusing.

Anything that has Baltar in it is usually well worth watching. He's by far the most interesting character on the show IMO. Yes, there is his ego and hubris, present on a level rarely seen since Gaius Julius Caesar, but more than anything it's his capacity for self-denial that impresses me. And the ability to always see himself as the victim, rather than the villain.

I think that's very human. Very few people go around seeing themselves as bad or evil. Not in big ways. Not in the small ways even. There is a always some external 'reason' why people do as they do. Always the claim of 'I had no choice' or 'you would have done the same'. Perhaps it's just human nature?

At any rate I find these themes quite interesting to explore in my games. Roleplaying gets infinitely more interesting once you start exploring the byways of the human mind, our morality, and whatnot.

I'll just conclude with a shot of Baltar from the happy Caprica days. It's just a coincident that Tri...Caprica-Six is also in it :-P

I have a plan. And it's a damned good one. I'm going to look at more footage of this blonde. Not that I have anything against non-blondes or blondes other than this one. Far from it. It's just that this particular blonde fits into my plan :-P

Very amusing. Am I. Tricia Helfer stars in Battlestar Galactica movie The Plan. And being a BSG fan it's a movie which I absolutely have to see...especially after watching a clip featuring Cylon Basestars nuking Caprica. Only I've yet to conclude watching Season 3 of BSG, let alone Season 4. And I feel I have to finish that before I commence with my Plan...

For those of you that have finished the series AND watched The Plan AND maybe even looked through the Caprica series, then I would suggest another featurette with Tricia in it (and she's not quite alone). Enjoy!