Star Wars: The Adjusted Numbers

Yes, yes, yes. We can all agree that "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has broken all box office records and stands firmly atop the franchise in terms of first-run (raw) box office dollars. Yay for Force Awakens!

But let's get serious here.  People who trash "The Phantom Menace" continue to live in some sort of weird fantasy dream state because they not only say "Phantom Menace" was bad, they claim "The Empire Strikes Back" was good.  Well, if it was so good, why didn't anyone want to watch it at the theater?

More Star Wars Bloggery as Force Awakens Fever Takes Hold of the Web

It's really hard to NOT get swept up in "Star Wars Fever". I've already purchased tickets for Friday and we're looking forward to having a great time at the cinema.  But as a blogger and as a science fiction fan I could not resist the temptation to write as much about Star Wars this week as I could squeeze in time for (and that wasn't much).  In between client projects and other work I managed to create the new Star Wars Movies section on Xenite.Org but I had already started that earlier this year.  I wanted something fresh, unplanned, and spontaneous.  So last night I came up with a couple of ideas and it didn't take very long to write them.

Star Wars from Flash Gordon to Fan Films

Star Wars is upon us and we are all excited to be seeing the new Disney movie.  But after dragging my feet for many years I have decided to set the record straight on a few Star Warsian things.  I am sick and tired of seeing every media Website drag "The Phantom Menace" through the mud as if it is a bad movie.  The truth is that "The Phantom Menace" is the most popular of all the Star Wars films, but apparently the people who like to trash-talk and bad-movies have cowed all the real fans into silence.  So we have added a new Star Wars movies section to Xenite.Org's Movies Portal and we pull no punches in deflating the nonsense that has been circulating around which movies are best and most popular.

November 2015 Science Fiction and Fantasy Stuff

If you have not dropped by the SF Fandom forums in the last week or two, you might want to check out this discussion on Tolkien's views on Nazism, Socialism, and Communism. I thought it was an interesting question from user badlands and I took a stab at explaining what I think Tolkien might have thought of these political ideologies. In fact, I could not rule out any possible connection to Tolkien's fiction. What do you think? Might Morgoth and Sauron have represented something more than just "dark lords"?

SciFi Happenings in October

Although I haven't yet confirmed it with my friend Dutch Stacy, I am hoping to get up to HallowCon 2015 in Dalton, GA this Halloween. I really need to call him. If you're looking for something to do at the end of the month and you're close to the Chattanooga/north Georgia area, check out HallowCon. The convention will be held at the EconoLodge and Convention Center right off I-75. That's where we used to hold Magic Carpet Con in the 1990s.

In other news, Andre Norton fans will be delighted (or dismayed) to hear that three Witch World movies are going into production.  A small company called Kirin Media Ventures has acquired the film rights and they have retained film/documentary producer George Paige to get the ball rolling on the first movie.  The three films will be based on the first two Witch World novels, Witch World and Web of the Witch World.  A Chinese production company, Kylin Network (Beijing) Movie & Culture Media Co. Ltd., is also involved in the project.