The original “Star Wars” (sans “A New Hope”) returns to the cinema next year for its 50th anniversary…

At the recent D23 Disney convention in Anaheim, the seemingly inevitable news finally dropped; Disney/Lucasfilm is finally releasing the original, unaltered “Star Wars” (1977) to theaters next year (without the “A New Hope” subtitle added to the film in 1981 for rerelease) for the movie’s 50th anniversary in a limited release beginning February 19th. Lucasfilm…

How 1973’s “American Graffiti” created a ripple effect still felt over 50 years later…

*****TWIN BARREL-CARB SPOILERS!***** After the arguably unjust box office failure of his arthouse-dystopian sci-fi film “THX-1138” (1971), George Lucas was challenged by his mentor and American Zoetrope producing partner Francis Ford Coppola (“The Godfather” trilogy, “Apocalypse Now”) to do something challenging to his own avant-garde sensibilities, which, for young George Lucas, meant creating a warm,…

The final few episodes of “The Clone Wars” brought me back…

Return to the Jedi. I know that “May the Fourth” has now passed (if you don’t know the meaning of that, you might want to stop reading now), as has “Revenge of the Fifth” (I never got that one; wouldn’t a better title be “Revenge of the Sixth”?).  Nevertheless, I decided to throw out a…