Only because I watched Star Wars: The Clone Wars yesterday and need a video to accurately sum up how this one fits in with the rest of the franchise. Ahem. Not that I thought Clone Wars was horrific, pointless or catastrophic -- I just thought there were some choices that might, um, upset a few Star Wars fans ... and we'll leave it at that ... "Punky muffin." Okay, I'm done -- saving it for the review later this week.

In honor of the lighter side of Star Wars returning to theaters this Friday, check out this pretty impressive stop-motion video above featuring everyone's favorite bounty hunter Boba Fett (in action figure form) as he reenacts that classic scene from the film Flashdance. That is, until he has some jet pack issues (foreshadowing??) and, well, I won't spoil it for you. Gotta love The Fett!

Oh, and don't forget to participate in our Are You Excited About New Star Wars Poll. Unfortunately, as of now, it seems the majority isn't very excited. Get excited people!

[via JoBlo]

If the '80s left us anything, it was a melange of bad fashion that made us all wonder what we were thinking. Crimped hair. Lace gloves. Blue eye makeup. I wish I could say that we've never revisited the clothing atrocities of that era, but lately, some nuts have put on the leggings, leg warmers, and off-the-shoulder tops. Crazy kids! Many of us, however, still consider the '80s to be a decade of bad taste and temporary, wide-spread insanity.

That being said, the mistakes of the '80s also hold a heck of a lot of nostalgia. We love replicating those times at Halloween, and we talk fondly, if not embarrassingly, about our fashion forays. Many of the decade's disasters came from music and videos, but cinema also added its two cents (especially in 1985), whipping up its own fashion frenzies and regrettable outfits. With the Flashdance Collector's Edition DVD out today, here's a list of cinematic trendsetters that helped feed the fires of bad fashion.

Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985)

One of the big trendsetting characters of the eighties was, believe it or not, Helen Hunt. As Lynne Stone, she taught young girls everywhere about the splendor of hair spray, and even more importantly -- Velcro. By day, she was the rabble-rousing student at the local Catholic girls' school. But once the bell rang, the rip of Velcro would echo, and Lynne would turn her uniform inside-out to reveal sleeveless shirts, vests, and black leather miniskirts. Man, I was so jealous of her. She might have been an absolute fashion train wreck, but she was oh, so cool.

Remember the '80s? Ah, those long-ago days when MTV actually showed music videos and had the occasional black screen when someone was changing a videotape, and the five original VJs (can you name them all without Googling it?) ruled our lives, spinning videos that were, in the beginning at least, mostly concert footage outtakes or whatever else they could get their hands on.

In 1983, MTV was two years old, a toddler tottering around on unsteady feet, but just starting to get the hang of it. I was a freshman in high school, and Joe Eszterhaus and Paul Verhoeven were still 12 years away from unleashing Showgirls on the world. We'd been inspired by Fame just three years earlier, the world was ripe for another dance musical -- and a film called Flashdance -- an unlikely Cinderella story about a blue collar girl who works as a welder by day and an exotic dancer (the kind who doesn't take her clothes off) by night, while dreaming of a better life as a ballerina -- took the world by storm.

Remember that movie Flashdance or, as it's known in Mexico, Electodanza? Oh what a feeling! Well, it was based on the life of a real live construction worker-turned-dancer named Maureen Marder, who sold her story to Paramount for a measly $2,300. The woman has been trying to sue the studio over copyright interests for years, including damages sought for the re-creation of scenes from the movie in Jennifer Lopez' I'm Glad music video. She just lost her most recent attempt at the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, but the panel of judges there weren't completely unmoved by her pight. They agreed that Marder's original deal was unfair, but added: "There is simply no evidence that her consent was obtained by fraud, deception, misrepresentation, duress or undue influence."

Basically, what the judges wanted to say is, "we see that you got royally screwed, but the fault was in your own stupidity." Hopefully this case will teach others to get smart or get a good lawyer before deciding to sell their life story to a producer. I hope to make at least six figures for my account of being a blogger-turned-International-Male-catalog-model. Once the story -- and my dream -- come true, that is.