Star Wars Episode VII: First Day on Set as a Jedi

It’s an actor’s first day on the set of Star Wars Episode VII. Will it be everything he hopes and dreams of or the dark return of the prequels menace?

You might be able to guess but this short by Owyn & Co, a British comedy collective based in London has a surprise up its sleeve for those who day to mess with the Star Wars legacy.

NASA Astronauts as Jedi Knights

We had always suspected it and now this newly released photograph from NASA reveals that even back in 1964 there was a connection between US astronauts and the order of warrior monks who serve as the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy. Wishful thinking aside this picture features astronauts (left to right) Frank Borman, Neil Armstrong, John Young and Deke Slayton during their desert survival training.

This isn’t Tatooine, after all but the desert outside or Reno in Nevada.  The robes are made from parachutes, the silk of which would keep the astronauts cool in the day and warm in the evening.

So, they may not be about to confront the emperor and liberate the galaxy but for me these guys are just as good as a Jedi any day of the week.

Image Credit Flickr User NASA on the Commons

Lightsaber Over London

Image Credit Flickr User Eddie Lawrence

The lightsaber, perhaps the most efficient weapon ever created for the Jedi Order. This fine example shows in detail the fine craftsmanship that goes in to the peacekeeping saber. Or does it? In fact, this is London’s BT Tower which yesterday fired a high-powered Jedi lightsaber into the night sky. Let’s just hope that the Death Star didn’t pick it up on its radar system!

Image Credit Flickr User Eddie Lawrance

Image Credit Flickr User Eddie Lawrance

Designed to mimic the energy sword used to lethal effect by young Jedi Luke Sywalker, this extravaganza marked the launch of the release of all six Star Wars movies on Blu Ray for the first time. Sixty 4,500W lights were used to produce the laser beam effect, each more than a meter in height. The effect was, well, out of this world.

Image Credit Flickr User Eddie Lawrance

Image Credit Flickr User VerONIK@

As a footnote, we should mention that Lucasfilm didn’t actually get here first. In its first incarnation as the Post Office Tower, this much loved London edifice was used as the home of WOTAN a super intelligent computer featured in the 1966 Doctor Who story The War Machines (left).

It has also been featured in V for Vendetta, The Day of the Triffids, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets among many, many others.

It has never, though, to our knowledge, been made in to a lightsaber before!

The British Census Looms...

(Just in case you need an explanation – in the last British census, over one hundred thousand people stated on their form that their religion was Jedi.  This was a concerted campaign to complain, in a very British way, about the additional questions that had been placed on the form and were seen as an invasion of privacy.  Many did it just to poke fun at the government, however. The Jedi census phenomenon as it became known gave rise to a movement to establish "genuine" Jediism.)

3 Minutes

There is a little something for almost everyone in 3 Minutes, the latest short film by Ross Ching.  A young man is ordered by a mysterious older man to pursue another and fight to the death.  The victor must come out on top in under three minutes, otherwise there will be consequences.

If you find the young Asian lead familiar but can’t quite place him, he is none other than Harry Shum, Jr.  You may recognise him from his recurring roles as Cable on Step Up 2: The Streets and Step Up 3D.  More likely, though, you may have seen him in a weekly uber camp fest designed for teenagers but which has had crossover in to other demographics.  Shum is currently part of the musical-comedy television show, Glee as Mike Chang.

You will perhaps also recognise Katrina Law from Spartacus: Blood and Sand in a very small cameo at the end of the movie.  So, a fight to the death, actor(s) from Glee and Katrina Law.  Oh – did I mention lightsabers?  Like I said, a little something for everyone!