Star Wars Rebels: The Rebellion Begins

When the popular series Star Wars: The Clone Wars was cancelled, recent LucasFilm purchaser Walt Disney Co. ("Disney") promised a new Star Wars animated series that would be set in an era as of yet unexplored by any previous Star Wars movie or TV series. Star Wars Rebels is Disney's attempt at fulfilling that promise.

Today, Disney announced that it had already commenced work on the upcoming new animated series Star Wars Rebels.  The new series will be set in the 20-year period between Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  This is the time when dread sith lord Darth Sidious ruled the Empire and his efforts were focused on securing the Empire's iron grip on the galaxy by hunting down the remaining Jedi knights.  This also the time when a fledgling rebellion against the Empire was born and began to take shape.

Simon Kinberg (X-Men First Class, Sherlock Homes, Mr. and Mrs. Smith) is writing the first episode and is also consulting on the new live action Star Wars movies.  He is also co-executive producer of Star Wars Rebels, along with Dave Filoni (supervising director Star Wars: The Clone Wars) and Greg Weisman (Gargoyles, Young Justice, The Spectacular Spider-Man).

Star Wars Rebels will be produced by a team from LucasFilm Animation formed by many of the talents that made Star Wars: The Clone Wars.  Among them are former design lead and now art director Killian Plunket; and Joel Aron, CG Supervisor for the Clone Wars series who will also be CG Supervisor for Rebels.

The 1-hour premiere of Star Wars Rebels will be in fall 2004 in the Disney Channel.  It will be followed by a regular half-hour animated series on the Disney XD channel.

Guardians Chronicles, by IELLO

I am trying to scale back on my Kickstarter related contributions (or expenditures, if you ask my accountant).  However, since I just received my rewards from one of the Kickstarter projects I helped fund (Kickstarter: The Dice Tower), I decided to fund another one.  The lucky receiver of my money is Guardians Chronicles, by IELLO.

Guardians Chronicles is a 2 to 5 player semi-cooperative game.  One player assumes the role of evil Super Villian Pr. Skarov.  The remaining players assume the role of one of several superheroes, each with unique powers.  There are a different number of scenarios.  Each scenario poses different objectives and challenges for the Superheroes.  For example, a particular scenario may require that the Superheroes defeat three of Pr. Skarov minions and also stop the Super Villian from launching nuclear missiles that will reign destruction upon civilians.

The concept of Guardians Chronicles is not new.  In fact, it immediately brought to mind my experience playing Descent 2.0.  I really liked Descent 2.0.  Seeing how the mechanics are similar, I decided to fund this Kickstarter project hoping it will be as much fun as Descent 2.0.

The Kickstarter page for Guardians Chronicles has a playthru video, where the developers play a round or so of the game.  The playing pieces shown therein are *not* the final production pieces, so don't let that scare you.  However, the video will give you a good enough idea of whether this looks like the type of game you may be interested in backing.  If you like superhero RPGs, CCGs, LCGs or board games, this Kickstarter project may right up your alley.

James Robinson Leaves DC Comics

DC Comics writer James Robinson announced that Earth 2 #16 will be his last effort with DC Comics.  The departure of the multiple Eisner Award-winning writer and creator of The Golden Age and Starman came as quite as a surprise.  During an interview with Comic Book Resources in WonderCon, Robinson hinted at big things for Earth 2, including the first New-52 era meeting of Earth 1 and 2.

Robinson is not the first writer to recently leave DC Comics.  Other recent departures have included Rob Liefeld, Andy Diggle, Joshua Hale Fiakov, and Tony Daniels.