Speaking of great Star Wars videos, Michael Horn made this absolutely amazing video on Current featuring the Death Star and various Star Wars spacecraft flying around San Francisco during Imperial Fleet Week. Bonnie Burton interviewed Michael about his video over on The Official Star Wars Blog.

See Previously: Dad Makes Star Wars VII Sequel Starring His Kids

Tom Lucier turned us on to this awesome Star Wars VII sequel that his brother Mark Lucier made starring his kids Alex and Noah. It features some really great special effects, including an iPhone hologram device and lightsaber duel.

Worth 1000 recently ran a Star Wars Ren Photoshop contest challenging their community to re-create classic works of art using a Star Wars theme. There were some really great entries like the above “Yoda Borguereau” by Mandrak.

via Boing Boing

photoshop by Mandrak

Over the weekend our sys admin Michael Biven traveled to Baltimore to celebrate his brother Brian’s birthday, surprising him with a special birthday cake created in the shape of the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. The cake was made by Charm City Cakes, a Baltimore bakery owned by Duff Goldman that makes unique custom cakes and is featured in the Food Network reality television show Ace of Cakes. Keep an eye on for the cake’s appearance on an episode in September.

Here’s Mike’s write-up and gallery of Millennium Falcon Birthday Cake photos.

photos by Michael Biven

Star Wars Crawl is a fun little website where you can make your own custom Star Wars intro. Here’s an example of one by The Lardnanny.

UPDATE: Lucasfilm has forced them to shut down the site. Too bad.

This site has been closed.

LucasFilm has asked us to remove this site, as they felt it infringed on their properties. We have enjoyed seeing the tens of thousands of users over the past several days, and thank you for your interest.

via Kevin Evans

An unknown artist programed an old floppy disk to play the “The Imperial March” (Darth Vader’s Theme) from Star Wars.

UPDATE: Here’s a couple of DJ remixs of The Imperial March [via Joseph Pred].

via Neatorama

A hilarious AP story from 2002 is making the rounds about Jodee Berry, a Hooters waitress in Panama City FL, who thought that she had won a Toyota in a beer sales contest, not a toy Yoda. She ended up suing Hooters, who settled by giving her an actual Toyota. According to the manager of the Hooters, the contest was an April Fool’s Day joke.

via clusterflock

guest post by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)

According to local lore, George Lucas was inspired to create the AT-AT walkers in “The Empire Strikes Back” after looking at the container cranes at the Port of Oakland, California while driving across the Bay Bridge.

Is it true? I have no idea. But the folks at thegirlandrhino.com, a small business based in Oakland, turned the legend into one very brilliant graphic t-shirt. I met them recently at the Capsule Design Festival in Hayes Valley, and scooped up a shirt for me and one for our kid.

More Info: The Girl and Rhino

photo by Todd Lappin (Telstar Logistics)

Depressed Stormtrooper says “I had friends on that Death Star…”

via Super Punch

photo by unknown

“Star Wars vs. Saul Bass” is a wonderful school project that imagines what the opening credits for Star Wars would look like if they were animated in the distinctive style of legendary filmmaker Saul Bass.

via Nick Douglas

In order to organize his huge collection of Star Wars toys, Josh Budich created tiny pixelated illustrations of each toy, that can then be sorted by film, series, year, etc.

I’m a voracious collector, mostly of toys, and namely Star Wars action-figures. To commemorate the recent completion of my collection, I undertook this huge illustration project, not only to take stock in what I had, but also to share some of my joy of collecting with others.

via LCSV4

It’s the best of both worlds, Hasbro has created an awesome Darth Vader Star Wars Transformer that turns into a Death Star battle station.

ThinkGeek is selling a really cool R2-D2 trash can.

See Also: R2-D2 Mailbox

Gallery Scene has some wonderful Star Wars pop art silk screen paintings by Eelus.

Thanks to Rick Abruzzo for the tip!

Ok, I finally shot a photo of the R2-D2 mailbox at the SOMA Caltrain Station that has been taunting me every time I walk by it. It’s part of the the USPS Jedi Shipping & Mailing Master promotion for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

Robot Chicken, the stop-motion animation series on [adult swim] created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich, recently produced a hilarious tribute to Star Wars.

This year is the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars movie and to celebrate this occasion, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con are organizing Star Wars Celebration IV, which will be the largest Star Wars event ever. This 5 day event takes place May 24-28 at Los Angeles Convention Center.

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC will throw the largest party ever for fans of the saga, taking over the entire Los Angeles Convention Center in May 2007 for five days filled with live entertainment, celebrities from all six movies, special film and video presentations, an exhibit of movie props and costumes, exclusive merchandise sold at a 24-hour-a-day store, pop culture tributes, immersive events, costume contests, and scores of additional activities.

The US Postal Service will be releasing their new series of Star Wars postage stamps during the event on May 25th. The stamps will feature 15 different stamps on a single sheet and voting is currently open on Jedi Shipping and Mailing Master to decide which stamp will be issued on a single sheet.

Speaking of Star Wars, AFP recently published a piece on “Star Wars cast: where are they now?” and Mark de la Viña of The San Jose News Mercury News is reporting about “Storm troopers making their rounds in Bay Area” in reference to 501st Legion.

UPDATE: I finally shot a photo of the R2D2 mailbox near the SOMA Caltrain Station.

Somehow I missed this when it was posted a year ago, but mcmorran.org has a great write-up on “Star Wars toys that never made it”. My favorite one is “The Force” action figure, “It’s not an empty box, it’s the FORCE!” [via LinkSwarm]

Of course who can forget Gobler Toys’ line of “Star Wars Toys That Never Were”.

Speaking of Star Wars toys, a safe containing 70 unopened Star Wars toys was recently dropped off a truck in the middle of the road in Fremont, California.

Think Geek is selling an wonderful Yoda Backpack. Yes, now you can carry around your own diminutive Jedi Master who will keep your stuff safe while training you in the ways of The Force. Carry me, you will, yes.

UPDATE: Ah, I’m almost a year late on this, OhGizmo wrote about it last June.

via » Neatorama

Canadian actor Charles Ross is currently in town performing his One Man Star Wars Trilogy at Post Street Theatre in San Francisco through March 11th. Several people I know went to the opening last night and said it was a really hilarious show.

One Man Star Wars Trilogy is a hilarious, high energy, nonstop blast through the original Star Wars trilogy, but with one catch: there’s only one cast member, Charles Ross. This writer and solo performer spent way too much of his childhood in a galaxy far, far away and continues to spend his adulthood there. Ross plays all the characters, recreates the effects, sings the music, flies the ships, and fights both sides of the light saber battles, making for a side-splitting evening.

Here’s a video demo from a live show.

Charles also performs a “One Man Lord of the Rings”, doing 40 characters from 3 masterworks in 3600 seconds.