Renew THE ACOLYTE...Now!

So a few hours ago, I watched the season finale of The Acolyte on Disney+...and all I can say is— Screw the haters. Renew The Acolyte for a second season immediately!

After viewing Episode 8, titled "The Acolyte," it made me that much eager to see the story of Osha (Amandla Stenberg) continue as (SPOILERS AHEAD) her journey down the path of the Dark Side quickly unfolded once she killed her former Jedi mentor, Master Sol (Lee Jung-jae), upon finding out that he murdered her mother on Brendok 16 years earlier. I want to see what awaits Osha and her cortosis-welding teacher Qimir (Manny Jacinto) after the would-be Sith spared the life of Mae (also played by Stenberg) in exchange for her sister Osha becoming his apprentice instead.

And of course, as shown in the screenshot at the top of this Blog entry, I want to see how Darth Plagueis plays a role in the future trials and tribulations of Qimir and Osha. I expected Darth Tenebrous to show up in tonight's finale instead (I definitely wouldn't be surprised if he made an appearance in Season 2), but it's still awesome that Darth Sidious' former master appeared in this Star Wars streaming series.

And let's not forget the final scene of today's episode...with Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) meeting a certain green-eared Jedi Master at the Jedi Temple to seek his counsel following the discovery that her former Padawan was still alive after being seduced by the Dark Side of the Force a long time ago. That Padawan, of course, being none other than Qimir.

So yea— If Lucasfilm wants to politely give all the haters the middle finger for review-bombing The Acolyte, Season 1 on Rotten Tomatoes and other sites, as well as continuing the story of Qimir and Osha and revealing how Plagueis and Yoda factor into their tale, then giving The Acolyte at least one more season is the way to go!

We've seen the Old Republic in the Star Wars prequels, the reign of the Galactic Empire in Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, Rogue One and the original Star Wars trilogy, and the New Republic in the Star Wars sequel trilogy (as well as in The Mandalorian and Ahsoka)... Let's see more of the High Republic in live-action through the eyes of creator Leslye Headland!

The Dark Side also continues to beckon.

Images of the Day: Screenshots from AHSOKA...

With the 8-episode run of the Star Wars Disney+ series Ahsoka now complete as of today, just thought I'd post these random screenshots from some of the chapters in this exciting show!

It's so awesome that Grand Admiral Thrawn, who I first heard about from Timothy Zahn's Heir to the Empire book trilogy (which I read in 9th grade back in 1995), has finally been realized in live-action by Lars Mikkelsen (the brother of Rogue One's Mads Mikkelsen)! Well done.

I never watched the animated series Star Wars Rebels so I'm fairly indifferent to Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) returning to his home galaxy, heh. But I can't wait to see what's in store for him, Thrawn, Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo), Shin Hati (Ivanna Sahkno), Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen...showing how awesome he plays the role when he isn't given clunky dialogue like in the prequels) and of course, Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson) herself in the next Jon Favreau/Dave Filoni Star Wars project!

Rest In Peace to Ray Stevenson, who was awesome as Baylan Skoll. Carry on.

A Real-Life Mustafar from STAR WARS Has Been Found Orbiting a Red Dwarf 90 Light-Years Away...

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / Chris Smith (KRBwyle)

NASA’s Spitzer, TESS Find Potentially Volcano-Covered Earth-Size World (News Release)

Astronomers have discovered an Earth-size exoplanet, or world beyond our solar system, that may be carpeted with volcanoes. Called LP 791-18 d, the planet could undergo volcanic outbursts as often as Jupiter’s moon Io, the most volcanically-active body in our solar system.

They found and studied the planet using data from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and retired Spitzer Space Telescope, as well as a suite of ground-based observatories.

A paper about the planet – led by Merrin Peterson, a graduate of the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) based at the University of Montreal – appears in the May 17 edition of the scientific journal Nature.

“LP 791-18 d is tidally locked, which means the same side constantly faces its star,” said Björn Benneke, a co-author and astronomy professor at iREx who planned and supervised the study. “The day side would probably be too hot for liquid water to exist on the surface. But the amount of volcanic activity we suspect occurs all over the planet could sustain an atmosphere, which may allow water to condense on the night side.”

LP 791-18 d orbits a small red dwarf star about 90 light-years away in the southern constellation Crater. The team estimates it’s only slightly larger and more massive than Earth.

Astronomers already knew about two other worlds in the system before this discovery, called LP 791-18 b and c. The inner planet b is about 20% bigger than Earth.

The outer planet c is about 2.5 times Earth’s size and more than seven times its mass.

During each orbit, planets d and c pass very close to each other. Each close pass by the more massive planet c produces a gravitational tug on planet d, making its orbit somewhat elliptical.

On this elliptical path, planet d is slightly deformed every time it goes around the star. These deformations can create enough internal friction to substantially heat the planet’s interior and produce volcanic activity at its surface.

Jupiter and some of its moons affect Io in a similar way.

Planet d sits on the inner edge of the habitable zone, the traditional range of distances from a star where scientists hypothesize liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. If the planet is as geologically active as the research team suspects, it could maintain an atmosphere.

Temperatures could drop enough on the planet’s night side for water to condense on the surface.

Planet c has already been approved for observing time on the James Webb Space Telescope, and the team thinks planet d is also an exceptional candidate for atmospheric studies by the mission.

“A big question in astrobiology, the field that broadly studies the origins of life on Earth and beyond, is if tectonic or volcanic activity is necessary for life,” said co-author Jessie Christiansen, a research scientist at NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “In addition to potentially providing an atmosphere, these processes could churn up materials that would otherwise sink down and get trapped in the crust, including those we think are important for life, like carbon.”

Spitzer’s observations of the system were among the last the satellite collected before it was decommissioned in January 2020.

“It is incredible to read about the continuation of discoveries and publications years beyond Spitzer’s end of mission,” said Joseph Hunt, Spitzer project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “That really shows the success of our first-class engineers and scientists. Together they built not only a spacecraft but also a data set that continues to be an asset for the astrophysics community.”

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission led and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

More than a dozen universities, research institutes and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

The entire body of scientific data collected by Spitzer during its lifetime is available to the public via the Spitzer data archive, housed at the Infrared Science Archive at IPAC at Caltech in Pasadena, California. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech, managed Spitzer mission operations for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Science operations were conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at IPAC at Caltech. Spacecraft operations were based at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado.

Source: NASA.Gov

****


Lucasfilm Ltd.

On This Day in 2001: IMPORT_JEDI Is Born...

So today marks two decades since I created my Import_Jedi account for the Jedi Council Forums on the Star Wars fan site, TheForce.net.

I've actually been browsing the JC Forums since early 1999 (before The Phantom Menace was released in theaters...which was near the end of my first year of college at Cal State Long Beach), but Import_Jedi was born 13 days after Lucasfilm revealed that the official title for Star Wars: Episode II would be Attack of the Clones.

I've been going on the JC Forums regularly till after Revenge of the Sith came out in 2005—and then it was only sporadically that I would frequent threads, most of which had nothing to do with Star Wars.

I started logging on a bit more around the time The Force Awakens and Rogue One were theatrically released almost six and five years ago, respectively (but not as much for 2017's The Last Jedi, and not at all for 2018's Solo and 2019's The Rise of Skywalker), but other than that, I only visit the JC Forums if I'm feeling extremely nostalgic about my good ol' college days.

Click here to view the list of friends that I made on the JC Forums during my 20-year tenure—though I don't know how many of them still go to this message board. I miss the 3SA Sarcasm Knights! Happy Friday.

Photos of the Day: All Hail THE MANDALORIAN!

So surprisingly, despite the fact that I've been a huge Star Wars geek since 1995, this Blog entry is the very first time that I'm typing about the Disney+ masterpiece that is The Mandalorian! I'm not gonna recap the events of the show's first two seasons, but let me just say that showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni are friggin' awesome! To triumphantly bring Boba Fett back from the dead (and give him his own Web series, The Book of Boba Fett, next year; what a wonderful tribute to the late Jeremy Bulloch...who memorably played the bounty hunter in the original Star Wars trilogy), feature live-action incarnations of Bo-Katan and Ahsoka Tano (even though I didn't watch all episodes of The Clone Wars animated series), as well as Dark Troopers (which initially got me interested in Star Wars over 25 years ago), and now showing Luke Skywalker (still played by the venerable Mark Hamill) in all his Jedi Master glory, well... It remains to be seen how Favreau and Filoni will top this in Season 3, which premieres on Christmas Day, 2021.



So many other Star Wars titles will soon stream on Disney+...including the much-anticipated series about Obi-Wan Kenobi (with Ewan McGregor reprising the role and Hayden Christensen returning as Darth Vader once more), Cassian Andor (again featuring Diego Luna as the Rebel soldier from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Ahsoka Tano (Rosario Dawson will return as the former Jedi) and even Lando Calrissian (though it remains to be seen if Donald Glover will reprise this iconic role from Solo: A Star Wars Story, or Billy Dee Williams himself will don the cape in this limited series). Oh, and let's not forget that Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins will helm the next Star Wars feature film, Rogue Squadron—which gets released in theaters nationwide on December 25, 2023. Can't wait! So much Star Wars goodness at hand...

Artwork of the Day: Wrath of the Dark Trooper...

Contrary to what I wrote in this previous Blog entry, it isn't the Gundam Epyon that I drew after illustrating Valak from the 2018 horror flick The Nun, but a Dark Trooper from the 1995 Star Wars video game, Dark Forces. It was the ad below that got me to become a Star Wars fan 25 years ago (when I was in my second semester in 9th grade). This was because I initially thought that this was a character from the Star Wars prequels—which, of course, wouldn't start hitting theaters for another four years. The cool design of this Imperial villain captured my imagination, and it wouldn't be till 1997 (when I was a junior in high school) that I played against this antagonist on Dark Forces when it became available for Sony Playstation (which my family originally had; but I have no idea what happened to it). This Dark Trooper was the final boss in the game, and he was pretty easy to defeat, hah!

I originally tried to draw this artwork over a decade ago, but I found it a bit challenging coloring-wise (using Crayola markers to emulate a painting is pretty tricky work) so I abandoned the effort. Leave it to staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic to give me motivation to try drawing the Dark Trooper again! Anyways, next up: the Gundam Epyon. No seriously!


Lucasarts

A Random Thought To End This Month With...

Why are flying cars a DUMB IDEA? If people are generally too stupid or incapable of using their turn signals when changing lanes on the ground, what makes you think they'll be capable of safely flying a 2-ton machine hundreds to thousands of feet in the air?

That's my random thought for November. And no, I didn't type this entry as an excuse to post the cool screenshot from Blade Runner 2049 above, or an image of the Star Wars planet Coruscant below. I actually mean it. Speaking of Star Wars, The Last Jedi arrives in theaters two weeks from today! Can't wait to go to an advance screening of Episode VIII at 7 PM on December 14. Carry on.

May The Force (Friday) Be With You!

So earlier today, I spent more than two hours driving around to different Toys"R"Us, Walmart and Target stores looking for Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma action figures to buy as a way of participating in the much-hyped "Force Friday." I worked a night shift yesterday, and by the time I drove to the Toys"R"Us store that was right next to the freeway I used to head home early this morning, it had already closed following midnight festivities that only lasted an hour (stores selling The Force Awakens stuff opened at 12:01 AM; I didn't arrive at the Toys"R"Us till a couple of minutes after 1 AM). So right when I was about to head home empty-handed this afternoon since most of the new Star Wars merchandise at the three stores mentioned above were gone (yes— I went home, got some sleep and ate breakfast before I headed back out), I decided to visit the Disney Store at my local mall to see if they had the figures I was searching for. As the photo above shows, it did! Presumably, since the Disney Store didn't open at midnight (I didn't stumble upon anything online showing that Disney's own retail outlet would take part in the 12:01 AM activities), I assumed that it would have Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma figures in stock. And yep, I was right. The fact that this um, playset also comes with First Order Flametrooper, Finn, Rey and BB-8 figurines is an added bonus! Thanks Disney! Here's hoping Star Wars: Episode VII itself will deliver the goods like you did.

Lastly— If you wanna know just how big of a geek I am, open my closet door at home. Or just check out the pic below. Yes, that's a Pacific Rim Jaeger to screen right of my General Grievious figure from Revenge of the Sith. Have a nice weekend. Oh, and Happy Labor Day to my fellow Yanks!

Image of the Day: The Sith Live On!

Normally, I'd post this type of info on my Film Notes page, but since this Blog has been a haven for spoilerific Star Wars news since Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith almost a decade ago, just thought I'd share it here instead. To get more details on what you're looking at here, go to the Making Star Wars website. Known as the Sith Inquisitor, this villain will apparently be the main antagonist of Star Wars: Episode VII...which makes me even more stoked to see the film when it gets released in theaters nationwide on December 18, 2015. As excited as I am to see Stormtroopers grace the big screen again, I'm more eager to see a lightsaber-welding baddie wearing a black cloak wreaking havoc against Luke Skywalker and the rest of the Galaxy once more. This illustration, if legit, only validates my excitement. Sorry Jedi—but the Dark Side of the Force is much cooler!

Happy New Year, Everyone! Unlike 2012, this year won't be very action-packed in terms of what's happening in space exploration—with NASA's only deep-space robotic missions set for flight being LADEE (Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), which launches to the Moon this August...and the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) orbiter that lifts off for Mars in late November. Also, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is set to make its maiden flight from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California sometime this year (a specific launch date hasn't been set yet). And in a final milestone for NASA's retired space shuttle program, the orbiter Atlantis officially goes on public display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida this July.



In terms of movies, this May will see the third installments in The Hangover and Iron Man franchises being released in theaters, as well as the return of Star Wars prequels Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith (both in 3-D) to the big screen this fall. Oh, and this December will see the second (and originally the final) film in The Hobbit series, The Desolation of Smaug, coming to cinemas as well. Unlike An Unexpected Journey, I have absolutely NO intention whatsoever of seeing The Desolation of Smaug in the High Frame Rate (or 48 frames per second) format. Peter Jackson did a pretty good job on the 3-D, though. And lastly, Michael Bay should begin filming 2014's Transformers 4 sometime this year. Obvously... Carry on!



January 2013
-BCS National Championship Game in Miami Gardens, Florida: Notre Dame vs. Alabama (Jan 7)
-Gangster Squad (Jan 11)
-Zero Dark Thirty (Jan 11)
-70th Annual Golden Globe Awards (Jan 13)
-Broken City (Jan 18)
-U.S. presidential inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama (Jan 21)
-Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (Jan 25)
-Movie 43 (Jan 25)



February 2013
-Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans, Louisiana (Feb 3)
-Top Gun 3D (Feb 8)
-55th Annual Grammy Awards (Feb 10)
-A Good Day to Die Hard (Feb 14)
-Escape from Planet Earth (Feb 14)
-2013 NBA All-Star Game in Houston, Texas (Feb 17)
-55th annual Daytona 500 in Florida (Feb 24)
-85th Academy Awards (Feb 24)
- First flight of Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft atop an Antares rocket (TBD)



March 2013
-SpaceX's Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Mar 1)
-Jack the Giant Slayer (Mar 1)
-Oz: The Great and Powerful (Mar 8)
-2013 NCAA March Madness basketball tournament begins with Opening Round Game (Mar 19)
-Conclusion of the March Madness tournament prior to the 2013 Final Four games in Atlanta (Mar 24)
-G.I. Joe: Retaliation (Mar 29)



April 2013
-Jurassic Park 3D (Apr 5)
-Orbital Sciences' Cygnus freighter launches to the International Space Station (Apr 5)
-2013 NCAA Final Four basketball tournament in Atlanta, Georgia (Apr 6)
-NCAA Final Four Championship Game in Atlanta, Georgia (Apr 8)
-Oblivion (Apr 12)
-Launch of Europe's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle, Albert Einstein, to the International Space Station (Apr 18)
-A partial lunar eclipse will be visible over Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia (Apr 25)
-NFL Draft (Apr 25-27)
-Pain & Gain (Apr 26)



May 2013
-Iron Man 3 (May 3)
-The Great Gatsby (May 10)
-Annular solar eclipse over Northern Australia and South Pacific (May 10)
-Star Trek into Darkness (May 17)
-Fast and Furious 6 (May 24)
-The Hangover Part III (May 24)
-Start of the 2013 French Open tennis tournament (May 26)
-97th Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (May 26)
-After Earth (May 31)



June 2013
-Conclusion of the 2013 French Open (Jun 9)
-Man of Steel (Jun 14)
-This is the End (Jun 14)
-World War Z (Jun 21)
-Kick Ass 2 (Jun 28)
-White House Down (Jun 28)
-Start of the 2013 Tour de France (Jun 29)



July 2013
-Croatia set to join the European Union (Jul 1)
-The Lone Ranger (Jul 3)
-Pacific Rim (Jul 12)
-Launch of Japan's fourth H-2 Transfer Vehicle to the International Space Station (Jul 15)
-2013 Major League Baseball All-Star Game in Queens, New York City (Jul 16)
-R.I.P.D. (Jul 19)
-Conclusion of the Tour de France (Jul 21)
-The Wolverine (Jul 26)
-Retired space shuttle Atlantis goes on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida (TBD)



August 2013
-300: Rise of an Empire (Aug 2)
-RED 2 (Aug 2)
-Elysium (Aug 9)
-Launch of NASA's LADEE spacecraft to the Moon (Aug 12)
-2 Guns (Aug 16)
-Start of the 2013 World Rowing Championships in South Korea (Aug 25)



September 2013
-Conclusion of the World Rowing Championships (Sep 1)
-Riddick (Sep 6)
-I, Frankenstein (Sep 13)
-The Little Mermaid 3D (Sep 13)
-Rush (Sep 20)
-Star Wars – Episode II: Attack of the Clones 3D (Sep 20)
-SpaceX's Dragon ship launches cargo to the International Space Station (Sep 30)



October 2013
-Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Oct 4)
-Star Wars – Episode III: Revenge of the Sith 3D (Oct 4)
-NASA's Jupiter-bound Juno spacecraft to make first gravity assist flyby of Earth (Oct 9)
-A penumbral lunar eclipse over the Americas, Europe, Africa and most of Asia (Oct 18)
-Paranormal Activity 5 (Oct 25)



November 2013
-Ender's Game (Nov 1)
-Total solar eclipse over the Atlantic Ocean (Nov 3)
-Thor: The Dark World (Nov 8)
-Launch of NASA's MAVEN orbiter to Mars (Nov 18)
-The Hunger Game: Catching Fire (Nov 22)
-India to launch its first Mars probe, Mangalyaan (TBD)



December 2013
-The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Dec 13)
-Anchorman: The Legend Continues (Dec 20)
-47 Ronin (Dec 25)
-Jack Ryan (Dec 25)
-Comet C/2012 S1 to make close flyby of Earth (Dec 26)

Image of the Day... Just thought I'd share this iconic, Disney-fied shot from Star Wars: A New Hope, in anticipation of the fact that more movies about that Galaxy far, far away will be coming to a theater near you starting in 2015! In the past, I didn't become extremely obsessed about a new Star Wars flick till its title was officially revealed...which is usually almost a year before the film is released. (The Phantom Menace—I believe—had its title revealed to the public in September of 1998, Attack of the Clones was announced in August of 2001, and Revenge of the Sith was unveiled in July of 2004.)

With George Lucas most likely not helming any of the installments to the new trilogy, however, my excitement might start much earlier...as the prospect of awesome filmmakers like David Fincher, J.J. Abrams, Guillermo del Toro and (holy cow) Christopher Nolan directing Episodes VII, VIII and/or IX show up on the rumor mill. In the meantime, I'll kill time as additional news about the sequel trilogy leak out by once again listening to John Williams' amazing music score from the six current Star Wars movies on my MP3 player. Later.

Chronicle Books

HAPPY CYBER MONDAY, EVERYONE! Just thought I’d share these two cool Star Wars-related images with y’all. The illustration above is from the cover for The Art and Making of Star Wars: The Old Republic...which is a totally awesome publication that I stumbled upon at the local Barnes & Noble bookstore last Saturday. I’ll avoid making a comment about how there are much better characters (specifically Sith Lords) in the so-called Expanded Universe than there are in the Star Wars prequels themselves. In terms of Sith Lords, expect me to post artwork of such villains as Darth Malgus, Darth Malak and the really cool-looking Darth Revan in the near future.

The image below is a screenshot from a Star Wars video game whose title I don’t remember. (I found this pic online.) Ironically, the screenshot brings back memories of an enjoyable Star Wars video game I played back in um, the mid-1990s: X-Wing CD-ROM. I posted a Blog back in January of 2007 about how I wished that LucasArts would re-release this game for Windows XP. No dice. Oh well.

DARTH SIDIOUS GETS A JOB... This YouTube clip is more than 5-years-old, but oh well. "Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational invisible doggy fence."

Damn evil Sith Lords.

83rd ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS... It was worth watching the Oscar telecast in its entirety this year—obviously for the fact that all the movies and actors/actresses I rooted for won in their respective categories tonight. I rooted for Christian Bale to win Best Supporting Actor for The Fighter (this oughta’ earn The Dark Knight Rises an extra $75 million at the box office next year...for a total domestic gross of $675 million), hoped that Natalie Portman took home the Best Actress trophy for Black Swan (no, I never saw that movie. All hail Queen Amidala though), was expecting Inception to win for Best Visual FX (though it would’ve been a good consolation prize if Iron Man 2 won instead) and wasn’t surprised that The King’s Speech became the Best Picture of 2010. That was a great flick... Very inspirational.



I’m still annoyed that Revenge of the Sith wasn’t nominated for Best Visual FX in 2006, Transformers wasn’t nominated for the same award in 2008 and The Dark Knight wasn’t nominated for Best Picture in 2009, but at least the Academy got it right this time around... (Along with handing the late Heath Ledger the Best Supporting Actor trophy in 2009 for his role as The Joker in The Dark Knight, and crowning The Hurt Locker as Best Picture last year.)



By the way, I didn’t know Jeremy Renner got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for last year's bank heist movie, The Town. That movie was awesome. That is all.