StarWars.com

May 8, 2002 4:16 PM

StarWars.com redesigns. And Natalie Portman has... nice abs. In your face, Princess Leia!
posted by robbie01 (43 comments total)

i bet...7:30 eastern...this threads gone. 10$?
posted by clavdivs at 4:21 PM on May 8, 2002

I'll take that bet...

And yeah, those are very nice abs.
posted by SweetJesus at 4:27 PM on May 8, 2002

the front page is random. you should refresh if you must see the abs.
posted by o2b at 4:32 PM on May 8, 2002

At least tangentially related, there's a very interesting case study at joystick101.org on participatory design in the up coming multi-user game Star Wars Galaxies. I was never a huge fan of these types of games, but this article is a great read for anybody who is interested in community building on the web (or star wars for that matter - sounds like a fun game).
posted by willnot at 4:42 PM on May 8, 2002

In your face, Princess Leia!

Fun fact: Natalie Portman is older than Carrie Fisher was when Carrie Fisher made the Star Wars movies.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:51 PM on May 8, 2002

It is still here! And thank goodness; I am looking at some very nice abs right now.
posted by donkeymon at 4:54 PM on May 8, 2002

Hey! mefi:mefi doesn't work!
posted by rushmc at 4:55 PM on May 8, 2002

Holy good gravy...I don't know how many hours she did with the crunches, but they sure paid off.

Huh? Whuh? Star Wars? You mean there's more to this site than Natalie? No way!
posted by RakDaddy at 4:55 PM on May 8, 2002

Fun fact: Natalie Portman is older than Carrie Fisher was when Carrie Fisher made the Star Wars movies.

And probably using a lot less cocaine.
posted by ljromanoff at 5:05 PM on May 8, 2002

It looks to me like she has a nice ab.
posted by ericost at 5:09 PM on May 8, 2002

That pic of Christopher Lee looks like he's holding a strap-on light sabre thing. What's up with that?
posted by mikhail at 5:10 PM on May 8, 2002

Now I can't get the word 'drill' out of my head.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:39 PM on May 8, 2002

am i the only one who thinks that their new site looks... ridiculous?

it looks like its own badly airbrushed Franklin Mint collector's plate series.

Theaters audiences are sitting through the trailers silently now, early reviews refer to "infomercial-grade acting," this cheezy website... the unthinkable has finally happened: Lucas has tanked the franchise.
posted by anser at 6:14 PM on May 8, 2002

Here are the characters I've managed to "get" as the front page splash

-- Count Dooku (Christopher Lee)
-- Jango Fett
-- Amidala
-- Anakin
-- Some woman behind a veil
-- Obi-Wan and Mace Windu

Some dreadful airbrushing aside, it's as if Luke, Leia, Han and more importantly, Chewbacca, never existed.

Remember, it's all about the Chewbacca.
posted by John Shaft at 6:15 PM on May 8, 2002

Natalie Portman has a mustache. It's just waiting to grow in.

She's gorgeous, but you just know the mustache is there... lurking... waiting to strike...
posted by RylandDotNet at 6:53 PM on May 8, 2002

Some woman behind a veil

Her name is Zam Wesell. She is a bounty hunter who works with Jango Fett.

*cries upon realizing how pathetic I am*
posted by adampsyche at 7:11 PM on May 8, 2002

Am I the only one who thinks the site is entirely unusable?
posted by dogmatic at 7:27 PM on May 8, 2002

the unthinkable has finally happened: Lucas has tanked the franchise

Did you see The Phantom Menace?
posted by inpHilltr8r at 8:05 PM on May 8, 2002

She's a hottie, but the movie looks just awful. At least the trailers for episode one were promising (though it was a false promise). I think I'll be waiting for DVD, something I never could have imagined myself saying about a new star wars movie before episode one.
posted by bingo at 8:40 PM on May 8, 2002

*cries upon realizing how pathetic I am*

You know, adampsyche, you wouldn't be so pathetic if you smoked. Smoking makes you cool.

*ducking, running, running, tralalalalalala*

please forgive me, I was unable to resist. Really.
posted by WolfDaddy at 8:47 PM on May 8, 2002

There there, adampsyche - I know when I'm feeling down about being a SW geek, I let MJH make it all better.

da-na-na naaah NAAAAH na-na-na NAAA naaah...chain yourself to this, baby...
posted by obiwanwasabi at 9:02 PM on May 8, 2002

* passes pack of Luckys to WolfDaddy *

Very good.
posted by yhbc at 9:05 PM on May 8, 2002

And Natalie Portman has... nice abs

Oh, I thought you meant THESE abs.
posted by HTuttle at 9:05 PM on May 8, 2002

Deep link directly to abs. Screw randomness.
posted by smackfu at 9:41 PM on May 8, 2002

Holy cow, Natalie's gotten pretty damn hot. I still marvel at this, seeing as I tend to prefer the more curvy women.

Maybe it was a misunderstanding, but on Twisted Radio this morning they talked about the recent special Seattle-area- press screening they had. They said the new movie- which they were not fond of- has a scene with Yoda kung fu fighting. And that the press-screening audience here in Seattle outright laughed. Not good times. Bad times. Very bad times.

I'm absolutely refusing out of principle to see the movie in the opening week (even though despite the crummy reviews and the obscenely bloated hype machine that is Lucasfilms, I know I will see it eventually), and may even try to do my part to help "The New Guy" have a bigger second week than Episode II's opening weekend. C'mon, people- who's with me!?!
posted by hincandenza at 9:44 PM on May 8, 2002

Ehh. I wouldn't quite call it a redesign when all the inside pages are the same as before. Just a temporary cover facelift.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the old design, but I do think it was more distinctive and readable than the 'collector plate' (bwahaha!)
posted by fujikosmurf at 9:45 PM on May 8, 2002

I think the site is pretty good for a movie site. Usually movie sites go for extremely crappy Flash animations and giant images. This site has the images, but doesn't take long to load. In today's bloated times overrun by graphic designers on speed, this is pretty nice to use.

(Then again, I've never seen a single Star Wars film yet.. I'm planning to watch Ep 1 the day before I go to the theater, and then watch the other three on my return ;-))
posted by wackybrit at 10:48 PM on May 8, 2002

Could be a body double.

People will always laugh in embaresment if they're SW fans trying to act cool.
"Ha ha [drool] see the little green man fly ha ha"
We know that it's just covering a deep love.
posted by davidgentle at 10:50 PM on May 8, 2002

*cries upon realizing how pathetic I am*

you get no sympathy from me... none. that's what you get.

::pretends he doesn't know what an interphase generator from the star trek universe is::
posted by lotsofno at 11:11 PM on May 8, 2002

It was probably photoshopped for asymptotic perfection, of course, but I wouldn't say this woman has any problem looking good.
posted by dhartung at 11:41 PM on May 8, 2002

"These are not the abs you seek..."

that is all.
posted by nedrichards at 4:13 AM on May 9, 2002

You know, adampsyche, you wouldn't be so pathetic if you smoked. Smoking makes you cool.

Oh, boy. That's all I need. Hey, smoke 'em if you got 'em. I was wondering yesterday if crap from one thread usually permeates to another, and I guess I just got my answer.
posted by adampsyche at 5:37 AM on May 9, 2002

They may be nice abs, but she can't act her way out of a wet paper bag. Anybody catch her in the "The Seagull" at Shakespeare in the Park last summer? Awful.
posted by starvingartist at 6:49 AM on May 9, 2002

sets down 10$ in new pennies...ya, nice abs...but those troopers behind her look...eager.
posted by clavdivs at 7:41 AM on May 9, 2002

yeah, starvingartist, saw her in "the seagull." i actually felt bad for her, especially during the part where nina talks about being up onstage acting badly. and i thought "like right now?" poor thing. can't be easy to be on stage with meryl streep anyway. especially since the last good thing you did was when you were 12.

this is the first star wars movie i haven't been excited for. the trailer makes it look awful. i know i'll eventually go see it, but not in the first month. why is george lucas still directing? the biggest reason the "empire" and "return" were good is i think, because lucas was not directing.

and nitpicky star wars geek thing:

carrie fisher was 20 when star wars came out, 23 when empire came out and 26 when return came out.

natalie portman was 18 when menace came out, is 21 now, and will be 24 when ep. III comes out. so, she's older now that when carrie fisher made the first star wars film, but that's it.
posted by witchstone at 8:18 AM on May 9, 2002

The reviews are starting to come out. The negative ones say "it sucks for the following reasons." The positive ones mostly say "trust me, it's great." Hmm. Still, I'll see it at a digital theater first week... gotta keep it going through EpIII so Lucas can retire and let someone who knows what they're doing make VII-IX (which L. claims he won't).
posted by anser at 8:36 AM on May 9, 2002

They can't do episodes VII-IX because they all involved the episode IV-VI cast - Luke Skywalker et al. Unless they get new actors to play their parts -- which would be very, very bad if they did.

There's no reason why there couldn't be another movie set in the Star Wars universe though.

And yeah, Yoda does that some funky Jedi fighting in Ep2... as was previewed much more enthusiastically at Ain't it cool news.
posted by mkn at 10:28 AM on May 9, 2002

Unless they get new actors to play their parts -- which would be very, very bad if they did.

Not if those actors were completely perfect digital replicas of Hamill, Fisher, and Skywalker.

And if you don't think Lucas is shooting for that then you misunderstood the whole reason Jar-Jar Binks exists ;-)
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:02 AM on May 9, 2002

They can and probably will do VII-IX without any of the IV-VI characters except Yoda.

The whole idea from the beginning was that the *robots* (R2D2 and C3PO) were the unifying characters present throughout the saga, while humans come and go around them. Exactly like the two comic peasants in HIDDEN FORTRESS, but let's not get started on that :)
posted by anser at 11:04 AM on May 9, 2002

Hamill, Fisher, and Skywalker

Of course, I meant Hamill, Fisher, and Ford. Which sounds more like a law firm than a holy trinity.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:42 AM on May 9, 2002

They can and probably will do VII-IX without any of the IV-VI characters except Yoda.

Dude - Yoda died in Jedi. Floating around lecturing the Next Generation I don't think he will.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:50 PM on May 9, 2002

Obi-Wan died in Star Wars, but he saw fit to stick around anyways.
posted by John Shaft at 5:32 PM on May 9, 2002

yeah, that's what i meant - given the CGI ability to make Yoda when they need him, and the marketing tie-in, they'll probably drag his vaporous Jedi spirit out of the ether once or twice. But the droids will be in every flick.
posted by anser at 7:10 PM on May 9, 2002