Rogue One: A Star Wars Story has hit theatres and nearly his $300 million for its worldwide opening box office gross. Not bad for the first Star Wars spin-off of the Disney era. (Let’s pretend that the Clone Wars animated movie never happened and move on.) While there is a wide range of opinions about the film, it does show that there is a market for more Star Wars outside the Skywalker family saga. So where to next? Maybe this Star Wars travel guide can help us find some interesting places to focus future A Star Wars Stories on.
Lucasfilm
The Cost of Operating the Death Star (Infographic)
If there’s one way to create jobs, it’s through massive construction projects. Sure, the Imperial government spent scads of money to create those jobs but that might be nothing compared to the long-term costs of operating a Death Star. Maybe the Rebels were in cahoots with the Imperials to help them create construction jobs because X-Wings can’t melt main reactors. Anyway, with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story coming out today, here’s a look at the cost of running the Death Star.
The Logistics of the Death Star (Infographic)
I don’t know if you noticed but the first Star Wars anthology movie is coming out this week. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is hitting theatres on Thursday (or Friday depending on your location) and it’s a new telling of how the Rebels obtained the Death Star’s plans. But there’s more to the Death Star than a superlaser capable of exploding a planet nearly instantly. To find out more about the Death Star, we have this handy infographic for you.
The Cost of Building an AT-AT (Infographic)
We’ve brought you a lot of infographics pricing out the real world cost of some iconic pieces of movie worlds. Since this blog began, we’ve looked at the costs of the Millennium Falcon, Darth Vader’s suit, Yoda’s hut and Jabba’s Palace. Those are just a handful of countless great real world cost infographics that we’ve done. Today, we add to that with the real-world cost of building an AT-AT. Keep this in mind when prepping for Rogue One in three months.
How Much Would Darth Vader’s Suit Cost? (Infographic)
We all know that to build the Death Star would cost in the quadrillions of dollars. I don’t know what it would cost to convert a planet into a superweapon but I can’t imagine that Starkiller Base would be any cheaper to construct. One thing that few talk about is how much it would cost to build and maintain Darth Vader’s suit. Surprisingly, it’s fairly cheap compared to most Imperial construction projects.
Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars Prequel Reviews
During yesterday’s review podcast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I refer to the Mr. Plinkett reviews of the Star Wars prequels to explain what Abrams and company did right with Episode VII in comparison to George and company did with Episode I, II and III. Over the course of four hours, Red Letter Media’s Mr. Plinkett dissects what went wrong with the prequels and why the ended up being so disappointing. It sounds long but these make for incredibly easy viewing.
If you’re a Star Wars fan, you need to watch these. If you’re not a Star Wars fan, these will explain why your Star Wars loving friends hated the prequels.
What if the Star Wars Prequels Were Good?
When I was looking for content for the run up to The Force Awakens, I came across a couple of videos with hypothetical re-writes of the Star Wars prequels by Belated Media. Now that I’ve finally seen The Force Awakens and (spoilers) found out that the prequels really had no impact on the new trilogy so far, I think it would be fun to go back and reexamine the prequels.
So the suggested re-writes aren’t perfect but they’re a reasonably good summation of what went wrong with the prequels and what could be done better.
Star Wars Merchandise Fails of the Week
Instead of our normal Fails of the Week, since it’s Star Wars Week on the blog, it’s a special edition of the Star Wars Fails of the Week. While I’m sure we could have just put up Episodes I and II along with George’s changes to the original trilogy and called it a day, I thought I’d go for something more epic. Today is the weirdest, wackiest and failiest pieces of Star Wars merchandise. It’s not just Disney stuff either. LucasFilm had some odd merch too.
Star Wars: Battlefront Beta Impressions: Pray I Alter It Further
So we have a new Star Wars trailer and many, many people have tickets to an early showing of The Force Awakens. Exactly a month before the earliest showings of Episode VII, the next chapter in the Star Wars video game franchise will hit shelves.
Both the announcement of J.J. Abrams as director of Episode VII and the appointment of Electronic Arts as the publisher of Star Wars games were met with excitement. While EA did cause a bit of trepidation, the appointment of DICE, BioWare and Visceral, three of EA’s top guns, to develop the games got gamers excited. First up for EA and LucasFilm is DICE with their take on Battlefront. The early results aren’t exactly awe-inspiring.
The Meaning of Lightsaber Colours (Infographic)
Fans of the Star Wars movies know that there are four colours for lightsabers. The Jedi primarily use blue and green saber blades with Mace Windy rocking a purple saber. The Sith use their trademark red. If you’re fans of the Star Wars expanded universe of novels, comics and games, you could have another seven saber blade colours, each with their own meanings.
So as we continue our march to the December premiere of The Force Awakens, here’s a handy infographic that looks at the meaning of the colour of lightsabers.
The Lowdown 