Reconnaissance Officer
Report #71
8.10.2005 - FA Joe
Greetings everyone.
IRL has been rather harsh this past month. I'm in the middle of a possible career change which is taking up more time and more physical and emotional demand than I thought. Everything should be decided by next week. But I wont bore you with details.
While I haven't been fully active, I have been active none the less. I have emailed a few of our current Honorary Members for interviews to keep us up to date with their lives/careers. Look for that.. well when they get time to send me their responses. :P
I've taken Seven.. yes SEVEN IWATS courses over the course of a few days. If you knew about the past history between me and IWATS, you'd be as shocked as I am. All but 2 were 100%. Yay me :P
VA Ky Terrak has been busy with the RO site. We had unfortunately lost hosting awhile back, but he has emailed me a few days ago and stated that everything is up and running with a few kinks to work out. So far, it's looking good.
I still havent heard back from Nanili Krishan. She stated several times her agent was supposed to fwd me her responses. I'll give it another go, for Ast's sake.. >:P Hopefully we'll get something back.
Well, since you havent heard from me in a while, you get extra Star Wars News!! Yes, actually read it. You might find something you like. :P
STAR WARS NEWS:
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Lucasfilm Hires Cable TV Executive
Lucasfilm just made a bold move. It is now the age post-Star Wars movies, so the executive team should reflect that change in direction. We're pleased to let TFN readers know that Variety has given unlocked a subscribers-only article so we can read this big news. Here's a clip of their exclusive tonight, head there for the complete story:
Lucasfilm has hired Joshua Katz, an exec with experience in numerous cable network rebranding campaigns, as head of marketing. Katz, who'll relocate from St. Louis to San Francisco, will carry the title of vice president and report to senior VP Jim Ward.
He will head all global marketing initiatives, including games and the still-anticipated "Indiana Jones IV," and the 30th anniversaries of ILM and "Star Wars" in 2007. But Katz confirmed that his appointment is part of the company's ongoing shift toward TV production (Daily Variety, Aug. 2).
Katz said that while he expects there will still be Lucasfilm features, including "Indy IV" and Lucas' future projects, "We have to stop being just a movie studio and have to move to being a television and movie studio."
(I know the following isnt exactly SW News, but it needed to be known none the less.)
Final Kisses For Katie
Many were familiar with 501st founders Albin Johnson daughter Katie's battle with cancer. This from Kathy Johnson today:
Hi all,
This is Kathy. I'm writing to inform you all that Katie has beaten her battle with Cancer. Katie passed away at 5:20pm Today. Myself Al and Allie are trying to hold it together as best we can. We would appreciate no phone calls for a few days.
Katie's Funeral will be at 4:00pm on Friday at Riverland Hills Baptist Church here in Columbia.
On behalf of myself and the entire family thank you for all you support and prayers. Please keep Al and Allie in your prayers as well as Katie's mother and step father. Al will be intouch soon.
Our most heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the Johnsons.
You can read more about Katie here: Read more about it here: www.ForKatie.org and here www.Heartofanempire.com. You can also read Jay from Heart Of An Empire's blog
AMD Powers Lucasfilm Presidio
Digital Silence has a new article about AMD powering the new Lucasfilm Presidio offices. Here's a clip, head there for more geek heaven:
At the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge in the heart of San Francisco’s historic Presidio, Lucasfilm Ltd. is relocating Industrial Light & Magic, the world’s leading visual effects house, and LucasArts, the producer of some of the year’s top selling game titles to the new Letterman Digital Arts Center. Within the Letterman Digital Arts Center is a massive AMD64-based data center housing a render farm, file servers and storage systems, allowing computers to process data 24 hours a day, seven days a week to create astounding visual images for movies and games. The data center is capable of processing more than 150 terabytes of data per day.
4-based computer network at the Letterman Digital Arts Center takes advantage of the superior architecture and high 32- and 64-bit performance of the AMD Opteron processor. At the center, digital artists have the capability similar to working on a live movie set, only “virtually” and can collaborate internally throughout the campus as well as with movie and game creators anywhere in the world.
An excerpt from a George Lucas interview
With the successful release of Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, filmmaker George Lucas says that he hopes this extensive backstory of Anakin Skywalker's transformation to the iconic figure of Darth Vader will influence fans' future viewings of the original trilogy.
"When I finished with Return of the Jedi I thought that was the end of it," Lucas confesses. "I thought I was going to go and raise my kids, then I'll come back and direct little artsy movies that I always wanted to do. So by the time my kids were old enough where I could go back and direct, I realized that I could tell the story the way I wanted to. And I thought it might be interesting to tell a story that changes and influences the way the first three films are viewed because it really is about Darth Vader, and not about Luke and Leia. And that would be more apparent when you see what the backstory really was."
However, in telling the backstory the way he felt was best, Lucas had to take what he regards as risks with the prequels.
"The first trilogy -- Book One -- is about the father, while the second trilogy -- Book Two -- is about the children," Lucas says. "When you combine them together they become one big piece. When I told people that Episode I was about a ten-year-old boy, people panicked, and they said it wasn't going to work because everyone wanted to see Darth Vader going around and killing people. But I really wanted to be thorough about telling the story about where Darth Vader came from. When I did the second film, people were mortified that it was going to be a love story. But we got through both of those films, and people were excited for Episode III to see the rest of the story."
One of the larger issues that surfaced in the telling of Anakin's fall to the dark side and his rise to becoming a corrupt figure was that of the fall of democracy at the hands of the very people who initially fought oppression.
"You have the personal issue of Anakin and his turn to the dark side, but then the children later bring him back to being a human being," Lucas says. "But the larger issue is that you've given up your democracy, and that the bad guys never took it -- it was handed to them. That theme was there 30 years ago which came out of the Vietnam War and Nixon wanting to change the rules so he could get a third term."
"I'm a big history buff and I was really into Caesar at the time," Lucas recalls. "I always wanted to know why the Roman Senate gave Caesar's nephew a dictatorship after they had gotten rid of Caesar. Why after the revolution in France did they create an Emperor? Why did the Germans after they had a Democracy after World War I, turn it into a dictatorship? Those were my initial questions 30 years ago."
(Thanks to my CA:RO VA Ky Terrak for that peice!)
Portman Makes Young Talent List
Sky.com has a ranking of the most talented and powerful list of young talent in Hollywood. Aschton Kutcher rules the world at #1 ... but more importantly than the Punk'd star status is the Star Wars actress Natalie Portman landed at #6. (Obviously a misprint.. we will storm them until they put her on top.. where we like her.. :P )
Lucas Pushes AI Forward
Ferrago
Star Wars creator and "Father of Digital Cinema" George Lucas has been chatting away at a recent conference held in LA, waxing lyrical on gaming technology at the annual computer graphics and interactive entertainment expo, at which he delivered a keynote speech on game artificial intelligence. Lucas commented during the address that he hopes games can evolve "to a point where you can talk to the game and it will talk back." He spoke of the importance of voice recognition, and a vast leap looming in AI capabilities.
(Great.. so when you cuss at the came.. it's just going to turn itself off because you hurt it's feelings.. hehehe Seriously, who here has cussed at TIE or XWA or JO.. see? Scary time ahead.)
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That's it for me this week. If things continue to get better you might see me back on IRC soon. (shocking! :P )
Non-EH SOTW: Empire at War trailer
http://www.lucasarts.com/games/swempireatwar/indexFlash.html#Gallery.Trailers
I'll let the video speak for itself. :P
RO/FA Joe/CS-12/SSSD Sovereign
MoH/IC/GOE/GS/BSx3/PCx3/ISMx6/MoI/MoT-1gh/MoC-6BoC-7SoC-4GoC-27PoC-3DoC/CoLx3/CoB/LoA/OV-8E
[DRAG] {IWATS-AIM-M/1/2-MP-WM-WPN}
Omega Squadron Emeitus
TIE Guardeian "Anubis"