I did something at the recent Dragon*con that I have never done before, and that was to attend a Space Track panel.  Why did I leave the world of Tusken Raiders and Kowakian monkey lizards for this?  Well, Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta have teamed with the Challenger Centers to create a new trilogy of books for young adults.

And I—as an avid reader and proponent of education—wanted to learn more.  I realize it’s terribly geeky of me, but encouraging kids to read is important.  Not only that, but getting them to LEARN in the process is even better.

So, here is how the books came to be:  in 1986, the Space Shuttle Challenger met an untimely end, and the “Teacher in Space” program was cancelled.  This program was to have encouraged interest in science, math, and space exploration.  In the spirit of this program, the family members of the crew joined forces and founded the Challenger Centers.

The Challenger Centers turned the tragedy into something positive.  At any of the fifty Centers, students experience simulated space missions and educational programs.  June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Commander Dick Scobee, spoke at the Dragon*con panel about her desire to teach the next generation engineering, science, and mathematics and thought books created for young adults might be a good way to accomplish that.

That goal led to a collaboration involving authors Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta.  I had the opportunity to ask Anderson a few questions about the books, so I wanted to know what the best part of working on the series was for him.  He replied:

“The support we’ve gotten from the space community, and all kinds of major celebrities, has been amazing. Receiving sincere testimonials from Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride, Leonard Nimoy, and Neil deGrasse Tyson has been unbelievable. This could be one of the most important things we’ve done in our careers, and we’re glad we could help.”

Many of us remember that terrible day when the shuttle explosion occurred.  We all watched it on TV and on the news rebroadcasts.  When asked to recall his activities on that day, Anderson replied that “I was working at a large government research lab, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, just driving into work, listening to the radio. . . . Everybody in the facility was dazed, gathering around radios and TVs.”

The Star Challengers series is about a group of students chosen to travel to the future and visit a moonbase.  Lessons in math and science are sprinkled throughout the story so that readers “accidentally” learn concepts they may otherwise find dull, particularly if taught in a typical classroom setting.  The idea is that, as the main characters learn scientific concepts, young readers are learning as well.

Anderson’s favorite character is JJ, “someone who really reflects the charm and drive of June Scobee Rodgers,” he says.

The first book in the series, Moonbase Crisis, will be released in October.  The second is scheduled for January 2011, to coincide with the 25^th anniversary of the Challenger disaster.  The third book should be out in May, and additional books may follow.

The set up for “Supply Lines” is quite simple. In the first third of the show, we learn that Jedi Master Di is besieged on Ryloth and in order to fend off the attack and feed the civilians so they can continue their resistance. Unfortunately for the Republic, the staging grounds for their blockade runners for resupply are too far away, so they suggest to Bail Organa that if he can convince the King of Toydaria to allow them to stage the resupply there, the people of Ryloth will have a shot at survival. The problem is that Toydaria is a neutral planet and the Trade Federation has representatives on planet that will consider it an act of war if they aid the Republic.

To make matters worse, Bail Organa’s diplomatic wingman is Jar Jar Binks, and with him around, anything is liable to happen.

The story is split between Jedi Master Di and his clone troops on Ryloth and Organa and Jar Jar working on Toydaria.

This episode had its bright points for me, to be sure. The action sequences on Ryloth looked as good as the battle of Geonosis in Attack of the Clones, and it had a lot of great moments in there that added to it. One of my favorite moments was when Master Di, who seemed very much like Kambei from Seven Samurai actually knelt down on the ground and laid out his very elegant plan in the dirt. The animation and lighting in these sequences was second to none.

The sections of the episode that were on Toydaria were done well and added comedy and suspense to the episode in a way I was a little surprised to see. The King of Toydaria rules that because of their neutrality, they can’t help the Republic. However, he tells Bail Organa on the sly that he can supply the ships he has on him, as long as the Trade Federation doesn’t see.

Unfortunately, they all have a diplomatic dinner in a circular room with windows for walls overlooking the staging area. Organa leaves Jar Jar to distract them while he organizes the ship supplies.

It’s a very clever episode, but the scenes in the dining room didn’t work as well for me as anything else. It wasn’t Jar Jar, it was really the lighting, to be honest. It was very dark and seemed pretty disconnected from the rest of the episode.

Jar Jar is used incredibly well in this episode. He’s grown significantly as a character and I actually really, really like him on this show. In fact, I watched Bombad Jedi over again this evening before this episode, and was impressed by how great it was. In fact, I have to say I liked Bombad Jedi more than this episode, at least from a comedy standpoint. As far as animation goes, this new episode is light years ahead of Bombad Jedi. But Jar Jar works as a character because everyone around him seems to be walking on pins and needles, waiting for him to screw something up.

The thing that might have struck me the most about this episode, though, was that this was essentially a defeat for the Republic. Jedi Master Di and his troops lose. They all sacrifice themselves in order to buy the Twi-lek’s time to escape and the Separatists march over their corpses. This is actually pretty exciting. At Celebration V, Filoni mentioned that his favorite part of the classic trilogy was that the Republic was always on the run from the enemy. Every battle was a defeat, and if it wasn’t a defeat, it was a hard earned win with plenty of sacrifice. He also said we’d be seeing more of that in Season 3 and I think this episode marks the beginning of that.

I also want to put in a complaint to whatever the guilty party was for the audio on this episode. After hearing the way an episode should sound at The Presidio, my guess is that it wasn’t Lucas Animation’s fault. Comcast or Cartoon Network should be ashamed of themselves. Did anyone else feel like they were watching the episode through an echo chamber? The audio presentation was horrible, and it wasn’t user error. It was just the show, my TV was fine, the commercials were fine, the shows before and after were fine. I might redownload this episode on iTunes because the presentation on television was so bad.

Overall, this was a pretty good episode. I’m excited for next week. Greedo, Jabba, and Baron Papanoida? Sign me up.

Click on the links to catch up on Season 1 and Season 2.

Big Shiny Robot! has a regular weekly column in Utah’s alt-weekly IN This Week dedicated to spreading the gospel of comics and geekery to the masses who might otherwise ignore it or pass it up.

If you live in the Greater Salt Lake area, you can pick a copy up off of the news stands.  You can read the online version of the article here.

Or, you can read it the way it is in the magazine, by clicking on the image below.

This week, we’re talking about reading comics digitally and the Comixology ap.

I know we’re all excited about the new Captain America movie and for those super geeks in us, some random stuff has been leaked included some sexy photos of Chris Evans including him in some rubber feet, and some stills of Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter and even a couple of fan made videos of scenes being shot in Manchester England. Bleeding Cool has an article up of those pictures and videos here.

But as I watched the videos I saw that there are even more videos they didn’t post, and this video is probably the coolest of all of the scenes so far:

If you’re really interested there seem to be another 10 or so clips so check them out and let us know what you think.

AMC has given us another Behind the Scenes look at The Walking Dead!

There’s moments in this piece that gave me the chills.  Particularly a moment between Shane and Lori.  Man… Robert Kirkman and Frank Darabont look like they’ve knocked this one out of the park.

The Walking Dead seems like it’s already MUST-SEE television and the first show hasn’t even aired yet.

It looks amazing, and I can’t wait to see it with all of you guys on Halloween Night.

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s multi-award wining 12 issue comic book series All-Star Superman is joining DC’s animated movie catalog, and the trailer looks promising. Written by Dwayne McDuffie (Ben 10) and based on Quitely’s art, The short clip doesn’t show a few plot points and characters I hope to see ,including Dr. Leo Quintum, and the most amusing version of Bizarrro, Zibarro. I know you cant fit every aspect in an adaptation and DC’s animated movies have all been great, I just hope it doesn’t turn into another Lex VS Superman story and loose the creative fun that made the books so enjoyable.

We here at Big Shiny Robot! are committed to the artists, writers, and craftspeople that make comics and the geek community great. And we wondered what better way could there be for us to support artists we like than to offer a small corner of our website for them to sell their wares to you.

Each of these artists has provided one item for the store, and we hope that in doing so you’ll go seek out other work from them and help support them in this way.

Some of it is art prints, others are licensed products featuring our mascot, The Big Shiny Robot. Take a look at all of it, check out the artists, and if you like what you see, buy some of it.

The Big Shiny Store! (Or click the link in the masthead)

Featured artists at launch: Derek Hunter (Pirate Club), Elias Pate (He draws all of the Big Shiny Robot!s on the site), Dave Styer (Geekleetist), JJ Harrison (Bampop, and our own “Previously on Lost“), Grimmleighs Fiends (Grimmleighs and Geek Show Podcast), Kylee Lane (Luxury Lane Soap), Ryan Ottley (Invincible), and Kira Chaney (Sneaky Fetus Productions).

We’ll be adding and rotating different artists and items regularly, so be sure to check back often and buy what you want quickly, because there are no guarantees how long it will be in the store. We’ll also be doing regular features on the artists in the store, highlighting their work.

If you would like to submit any of your work for consideration, please feel free to send us an email at bigshinyrobot@gmail.com.

Click here to watch the newly posted Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on their Facebook page

As far as trailers being miniature movies… this one is pushing the limits of exploration and presentation. The trailer itself is a generic cutting together of imagery set to epic music with the vocals driving the plost underneath- but what it tells me is that the film itself is pushing its universe to the maximum of special fx and… dare I say it… magic.

I’ve loved seeing the technology and the artistry advance with these movies… sure- you may or may not be in love with, or even a fan of the Harry Potter series as films, but one thing is for certain: the imagination behind bringing Rowling’s world to life has been well fed.

Not only have we grown up with the actors, and watched their careers and talents bloom(or not) we’ve seen a world of magic (and budget) evolve and grow-

If you watch every trailer for the HP series in succession, you can see the story progress in only a way that trailer editors can do… these guys… whoever they are… are sometimes better story tellers than the people making the film… and even if you don’t like these movies- you have to admit the trailers (when watched back to back to back) make it seem like ‘the boy who lived’ is greatest epic to ever have graced the silver screen…

This trailer is a MONSTER of a trailer… showing us new styles of film making- cleaner CGI than I’ve seen in a VERY long time-  bold new directions for the actors- bold new directions for the telling of the story- even a bold new direction in the art design (including costume, sets, etc)

They’ve sufficiently fooled me into thinking that we are going to see a whole new (incredibly large budgeted) twist on a VERY familiar world.  Something I was almost fooled into on the last film after its trailer…

Anyway- in the short of it: this trailer did its job, and it did its job well. (what can I say- I’m a sucker for theatrics… when well executed of course)

Lucasfilm has been kind enough to provide us once more with an advanced look at Friday’s episode of Clone Wars. It’s called “Supply Lines.”
I have to say, the battle sequences in this clip look every bit as good as they do in Attack of the Clones on Geonosis, though these take place on Ryloth.

From their press release:

Joined by familiar faces – from the live-action Saga, previous seasons of The Clone Wars and even the expanded universe – the heroes of the Republic are leading the charge into extended storylines examining the backstory of the Star Wars galaxy. In the series’ third season, The Clone Wars expands and explores stories beyond the front lines – revealing new insights and fresh revelations about the characters, the conflict and even some of the stories we’ve seen so far. “Supply Lines” takes the narrative back before the series’ very first episode. It’s an all-new facet to a fan-favorite storyline – airing at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT Friday, September 24 on Cartoon Network.

Ryloth is under siege. Trapped on the surface, Jedi Master Di rallies the local forces with the help of rebel leader Cham Syndulla. Desperate to save them, Senator Bail Organa and Representative Jar Jar Binks are dispatched to the planet of Toydaria, where they must convince the King Katuunko to send aid to Ryloth – before it’s too late.

“This is one of the fun aspects of being this deep into the series,” says Dave Filoni, supervising director of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. “Now that we have two seasons already under our belt, we can go back and look at some different aspects of key moments from the Clone Wars; we can jump around in the timeline. We can explore different aspects and different stories. We have a neat opportunity to blow out stories that we’ve seen already, and look at them from a different perspective, a different point of view – and that’s been an important aspect of Star Wars since the original trilogy.”

Taking place before Yoda’s fateful meeting with King Katuunko on the moon of Rugosa – chronicled in the series premiere episode, “Ambush” – “Supply Lines” sheds light on some of the dramatic events that forged The Clone Wars. It also explores the origins of the Ryloth occupation and the subjugation of the Twi’lek people occupation, explored in the first season’s two-part season finale.

“This conflict is vast, to say the least,” says Filoni. “It’s a big galaxy, and there’s a lot going on at all times. Even two seasons in, we’re only seeing a fraction of the war – key moments that are really focused on the primary heroes from the films. But those moments are framed by heroism and villainy, too, just as there are important events happening concurrently with the key scenes we’ve explored.

We’ve got 22 minutes per episode and 22 episodes per season, and we’re still only scratching the surface of the Clone Wars.”

Serving to support existing stories and to build on the overall mythology of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, “Supply Lines” nonetheless promises its own action and surprises.

Featuring the return of some fan-favorite characters from the live-action films, the episode also introduces some brand new characters – such as Jedi Master Di.

“We’re going to meet Jedi Master Di,” says Filoni. “I like him a lot; he’s cool and I’d like to be able to do more with him. But you should remember that this is a prequel, and that it takes place before the episodes we’ve seen already. There may be a reason we haven’t seen him after the events of this episode. Here’s a hint: Star Wars characters have a history of suggestive names. Greedo was a greedy bounty hunter. Lobot’s a guy with a computer implanted in his brain, like a lobotomy. General Grievous and Darth Maul are both intent on causing pain and suffering. Han Solo’s a loner.

So I’m just saying that maybe Jedi Master Di should watch his back.”

I just read this article over at Cinema Blend and wasn’t sure if it was worthy of the Big Shiny, but I’m posting it anyway- Apparently, nerd and geek favorite: Sarah Silverman has decided to do a full frontal scene in the upcoming film Take this Waltz, she’s also quoted as saying that we as viewers won’t like it at all…

“I go totally naked… Full frontal. It’s going to be awful. It’s so not pretty.”

You can read the entire article here to gain some more insight into WHY she’s doing it…

Also- I thought I’d put this up here and let you, the readers, decide whether or not you even want to hear about this kind of news… and if you want to hear more in the future- Comment and vote!