Happy birthday Star Wars toys! 30 years ago, you came into our lives, and 30 years later, we're all kicking ourselves for not hoarding you away, keeping you in pristine condition and eventually getting rich by selling you to the highest bidder. Fortunately, there are more of you being made today and the London Times has declared which of you recently released, still-cheap items are likely to go up in value.

The spotlight is part of a list featured in today's Money Central section of the Times. Titled "The top 10 Star Wars collectibles," the list includes 30-year-old, super-rare action figures like Kenner's Darth Vader with double-telescoping light saber (currently valued at £5,000-plus, or almost $10,000 US) and this year's Lego version of the X-WIng Fighter (currently sold for £150, or $293 US). Coming in at #10 are the two-year old, "too cute" Galactic Heroes line of figures from Hasbro, which are currently only "the price of a rip-off sandwich" (£3, or $5.86 US).

Speaking of "too cute", I'm personally going for the plush SD Darth Vader (pictured) that the Times lists at #9. But I actually haven't learned anything from the past 30 years and so I'm going to actually play with it. Or use it as a stress reliever whenever I see articles telling us to invest in action figures. See, I believe toys are for playing with, comic books are for reading and collectibles made solely to be collectibles are a waste of space.

For images of all the toys listed in the Times article, check out the gallery below. I also included the unmentioned Galactic Heroes Darth Vader Unmasked toy, because it fits with the criticism that these toys are "too cute." What person who'd seen Jedi as a kid would have ever expected a cute version of the unmasked Vader/Anakin?



[via Fark.com]

This video is a little absurd; most of the re-dubbed dialogue makes little sense; and I can't help but feeling there could be more done with the idea, but isn't it the funniest Star Wars mash-up you've ever seen? A-ha! It's scenes from Star Wars with Darth Vader's lines replaced with those of King Jaffe Joffer from Coming to America. It works because James Earl Jones, who plays Joffer, was also the voice of Vader. But wouldn't it have been more logical to have the whole looking for his son thing to pertain to Luke Skywalker? Well, all mash-ups can't be perfect. Fortunately all the repetition of "A-ha!" and "and ... " makes Star Wars come across as a Monty Python movie, so it is at least hilarious. The only thing better would be if the "Yakkety Sax"-scored clips of Star Wars were combined with this video. That would be even sillier than this other favorite (and official) Star Wars video.

So, I guess there could be more of these mash-ups employing the dialogue of other James Earl Jones roles. Some that I would like to see would feature the lines of The Lion King's King Mufasa, The Sandlot's Mr. Mertle, Field of Dreams' Terrence Mann, Soul Man's Professor Banks and of course Conan the Barbarian's Thulsa Doom. Here's one that would be perfect for Leia's prison scene: "Next time you get arrested, use it to call me. I'll bring you your books. You can study in jail." And this would be appropriate for any old scene dealing with Vader and his minions: "I want them to stop looking to me for answers, begging me to speak again, write again, be a leader. I want them to start thinking for themselves. I want my privacy." OK, I've got the ball rolling; now someone get me those mash-ups. "I'm prepared to compensate you ... Shall we say one ... A-ha!"

Okay, 'fess up: How many of you have fond memories of running around the house in your Star Wars Underoos when you were a kid, with visions of Obi-Wan dancing in your head? But now you're an adult, and while you might wear your custom-made Star Wars outfit when you go to a Con, you can't just go schlepping off to your day job or that hot date with the cute chick from the coffee shop dressed up like a Stormtrooper, right? What you need is a way to pay homage to your Star Wars fanaticism while still looking cool. What to do?

For all you Star Wars fans (and those who love them) here's the perfect gift to give: Star Wars-inspired clothing -- for grownups. According to this piece in the Candadian Press, designer Marc Ecko has come up with a limited-edition line of Star Wars-inspired urban menswear for Macy's. Picture yourself stylin' in that rhinestone-studded Darth Vader hoodie ($78), or perhaps a nail-head Boba Fett tee ($32). My little brother (well, not so little anymore, now that he's 32) had probably every Star Wars action figure ever made before he sold them all off to finance the spendy equipment for his rock band. He would totally love that Darth Vader hoodie ... maybe Santa will leave one under his tree. He'd sure look way cooler wearing that hoodie onstage than one of these get-ups ...

[via Movie City News]

Imagine a villain who's like a female Darth Vader, only more evil, and she'll invoke the worst nightmares for children since the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This is how Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw has described Nicole Kidman as Mrs. Coulter in his review of The Golden Compass (aka His Dark Materials: Northern Lights, as it's titled in the UK), which he's given a rating of four stars. As if that's not appealing enough, he also claims the character is Kidman's "juiciest" role since To Die For. According to Bradshaw, it seems Kidman is the main reason to see the movie. His only other highlight is the look of the movie's universe, which he calls "wonderful" and "Gilliamesque." He also points out how it's obvious the movie is aiming for association with Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. Well, that isn't very surprising.

For a "four star" movie, The Golden Compass, according to Bradshaw, sounds like a mess plot-wise. Aside from looking nice, the movie's universe is apparently "crowded" and "alienating" and the audience is expected to get used to it as best it can, despite a lot of missing background material included in the book. Also, it's apparently more "absurd" than the source novel. Of course, confusing plots and universes aren't always a bad thing to audiences -- just look at the Pirates of the Caribbean series. What could be bad for the movie's box office is its violence; Bradshaw claims a significant polar bear battle could be too much for younger viewers. I have a good feeling that other critics will be less favorable considering the faults that this review seems to address, but of course even with terrible reviews, The Golden Compass could be a hit -- again, just look at the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Clearly this is a fan-created, photoshopped poster (click on it for a much larger and cooler version), but they did one helluva job on it, I must say. The poster, I believe, first appeared over on a site called MyConfindedSpace, and it includes characters, scenes and fighter ships from all six films. The only central characters I do not see (or, well, versions of those characters) are the older Obi-Wan (played by Alec Guinness) and the young Anakin (played by Jake Lloyd), from The Phantom Menace. All the others appear to be on there, including a pretty cool image of the older Anakin (Hayden Christensen) morphing into Darth Vader. Unfortunately, you won't be able to buy this in stores or online (unless the person who's selling them wants a visit from a slew of lawyers), but it's certainly pretty to look at. Other characters I would've liked to see make an appearance on this already stacked poster: Jawas, Sand People, Lando's Aide (the bald dude with a computer in his head) and, well, how can you leave off Greedo? Check out the poster, and let us know who you think shouldn't have been left off.

[via Slashfilm]

Oftentimes Hollywood's lack of originality leads to overexposed trends. Remember when every action movie seemed to be easily defined as 'Die Hard on a ...'? Remember when disaster movies were all the rage? And then twenty years later when they were all the rage again? Remember when there were like a hundred body-swapping comedies? Well, there appear to be fewer trends these days, or maybe it's just that Hollywood turns trends into full-blown practices, as in the case of sequels, comic book movies and fantasy films based on literary franchises. Nowadays even a promised trend, like the one involving religious Passion of the Christ copycats, isn't necessarily going to happen. But despite there being so few here-today-gone-tomorrow film fads, there's at least seven bad ideas currently in vogue in Tinsel Town, and all of them need to disappear soon, lest they too become permanent.

1. Torture Porn

I'm going to start with an easy, surely obvious one. Torture porn is the latest trend in horror, a genre that changes its predominant style every few years, and it may be the most despised -- at least by us non-horror junkies. I miss the days when a friend, an actual junkie, could drag me to a harmless scary movie that provided a few screams, a few laughs and afterward, at the most, a few silly nightmares. Now, with each new horror movie there's promise of a seriously depressing experience. After watching The Hills Have Eyes, I realized I hadn't been frightened at all. Instead I wanted to cry my heart out. I haven't been to a horror flick since, and my friend is going solo. Sure, I hear that Eli Roth's movies are a lot more enjoyable than watching a young woman raped while watching her father burned alive and her mother raped and then shot in the head, but I just haven't been in the mood to find out.

Apparently the torture porn trend is already on its way out. Hostel II performed poorly at the box office and Captivity may have peaked too soon, reaching maximum tastelessness before even opening in theaters. So what will be next? I'm rather looking forward to when slasher movies are in fashion again, when I can delight in seeing sinful human beings killed off quickly and deservedly by an implausible maniac. Which brings me to the next trend ...

Police in Hickory, North Carolina, are investigating a robbery that occured Thursday night, in which a Hickory man unwittingly allowed some strange burglars into his home. The victim initially opened his door to a woman requesting to use a telephone, and after showing the woman to a bedroom phone, the Good Samaritan exited the bedroom to find himself facing two robbers, one of them wearing a Darth Vader mask and brandishing a chrome-plated pistol. The victim was ordered to hand over his wallet, which contained about three-hundred dollars, and was then pistol-whipped. There was no serious injury. The victim also reports that the trio went through his home looking for something, but didn't take anything.

The Darth in question is reported to be only 5'7, which would make him considerably shorter than actor David Prowse, who played the character in the original Star Wars trilogy and stands 6'7. If nothing else, this Darth-mask robbery is a refreshing change from the never-ending string of Scream-mask robberies that have seemingly gone on since the Scream films first hit theaters. The most recent one, reported on February 19 in Mansfield, Massachusetts, saw a Scream-killer robbing the Rockland Federal Credit Union and making off with an undisclosed sum of cash.

Over the years, we've seen several lists that attempt to name the top movie villains of all time. From Hans Gruber (Alan Rickman) in Die Hard (my personal favorite) to Jack Nicholson's Joker, we could probably sit here, throw out a number of intimidating bad guys and debate all day long. But what about the least intimidating? Those baddies who were supposed to frighten us, but couldn't quite live up to their evil reputations?

Well, The Phat Phree has come up with a list of the 11 least intimidating movie villains of all time ... and I must say, they're pretty spot on ... except for two. Let's see, we have Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson) in Unbreakable, Madison Lane (Demi Moore) in Charlie's Angels 2, Chucky in Child's Play (c'mon, it's a doll!), The Goblin King Jareth (David Bowie) in Labyrinth, Darth Vader (the Hayden Christensen version), Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) in Superman IV and (perhaps their best pick) John Travolta in everything (Broken Arrow, Battlefield Earth, Face Off, The Punisher, Swordfish), among others. One of the villains I strongly disagree with is John Kreese (Martin Kove) in Karate Kid 1, 2 and 3. Talk about intimidating -- when I was growing up, that guy scared the crap out of me. I actually quit Karate lessons just so I didn't have to run into one of him down the line. Seriously.

Another bad pick (thrown in as an honorable mention) was Zod (Terrence Stamp) from Superman 2. No way! Zod was The Man! And certainly a very intimidating villain. Check out their list and let us know who should or shouldn't be on there. If you ask me, almost every Batman villain (Danny DeVito as The Penguin? Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze?) should've at least got a mention. What say you?

Normally I have a pretty low tolerance for the fan-made movie parodies that you find littered all over iFilm, YouTube, MySpace, and SheHulk. If I'm sitting at my computer, it probably means I'm working, and I don't always have an extra seven minutes to dedicate to someone's homemade Requiem for a Dream spoof.

But David Poland's Hot Blog just posted a downright hilarious clip called The Vader Sessions, which is hosted (of course) on YouTube, the world's breeding ground for funny video stuff. The clip is just under ten minutes long, and it's basically a bunch of Darth Vader scenes from the original Star Wars. But some clever kooks went and replaced all of the Sith Lord's dialogue with passages from other James Earl Jones performances. And since the actor's voice is so darn distinctive, you'll have no trouble buying Darth Vader as a stone-cold pimp with a stanky backhand.

And remember how I said I'm usually pretty busy in front of my computer? Well, I just got done watching The Vader Sessions twice. Freakin' hilarious!

The "new" Vader spouts dialogue from Field of Dreams, Coming to America, Soul Man, The Great White Hope, The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings, and (I believe) The Hunt for Red October. Can you name the other ones?

The "winners" have been announced for the 26th annual Razzie awards and, for once, I'm happy to say I haven't seen any of the horrible films mentioned. For those not aware, the Razzies (or Golden Raspberry's) are handed out the day before the Oscars each year and honor the worst of what Hollywood shoveled down our throats. With so many bad films to choose from, it always surprises me how, come Razzie time, it's usually pretty clear who deserves what.

This year, Jenny McCarthy's Dirty Love took home the Razzie for Worst Picture, while also scooping up the awards for Worst Actress (McCarthy), Worst Screenplay (McCarthy) and Worst Director (John Asher). After Asher won his award, Uwe Boll took a deep sigh of relief, if only because it grants him one more year full of directing high-priced crap. If there ever was an award for the D-list Celebrity That Should Have Disappeared Ten Years Ago, then I assume McCarthy would have picked that one up as well. Oh well, maybe next year.

In the Worst Actor category, Rob Schneider grabbed the Razzie for his performance in Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. This one seems about right since I'd rather get a root canal than watch Schneider in anything. Hayden Christensen won Worst Supporting Actor for his crappy Darth Vader impression and Paris Hilton took Worst Supporting Actress for House of Wax. The way I see it, if Paris keeps making movies, she'll keep winning this award. Finally, in the brand new category, Most Tiresome Tabloid Targets, our friends Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes beat out Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for the couple we wish would just vanish off the face of the earth right about now. Hurray for that! For a complete list of the "winners", click on the read link below.