It's an important geek anniversary. 30 years ago on Friday, the film 'The Empire Strikes Back' was released. And 'Family Guy' (Sun., 9PM ET on Fox) chose to celebrate this event with its second 'Star Wars' parody.

[Spoiler alert.]

It's not what you think. It's much worse. Apparently, a Lucasfilm representative at C2E2 confirmed that the company will be making another 'Star Wars' animated series that will serve as a sequel to 'Return of the Jedi' and feature all the original characters from the first trilogy. It will be in the same computer animated format as the current 'Clone Wars' series on Cartoon Network.

Perhaps this will be the comedy series with the 'Robot Chicken' creators that he was referring to in the past. Or perhaps it's a variation of that live-action 'Star Wars' television show that is forthcoming. Or perhaps it's just Lucas messing with the heads of any fans of the franchise even further than he already has.

Anybody who reads the original novels that serve as a sequel to the original trilogy is in for a nasty shock. Lucas has a tendency to ignore concepts that he himself didn't originate that actually enhance his franchise. It's likely that any new series will render those novels as moot as 'Galactica 1980.'

You've been waiting for this your whole life, and it has finally happened: someone has mashed together the opening narration and music from The A-Team with scenes from the Star Wars movies. I love stuff like this. I want someone to put the theme to The Simpsons on to scenes from The Wire.

[via Boing Boing]

A long time ago (well, 31 years ago) in a galaxy far, far away (Television City isn't technically a different galaxy, unless you consider TV producers to be people who don't spend much time on planet Earth), an evil was unleashed upon the human race.

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, a Christmas not-so-spectacular roasted by critics including some here at TV Squad years after it hit the air and even some of the franchise's most ardent fans.

That also includes George Lucas who once remarked at an Australian convention that he wished he could buy up all of the world's remaining copies of the show and smash them into oblivion with a sledgehammer. I wonder if 31 years from now, he'll be saying the same thing about Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace?

This morning, the Today gang dressed up for Halloween like they do every year, and this year it was a Star Wars theme. Besides the characters mentioned above, we have Meredith as Princess Leia, Kathie Lee as C3P0, Natalie as Amidala, Al as Han Solo and many Storm Troopers.

There's an awkward silence a couple of minutes in as each character is introduced. Lauer gets off a funny line about why he was late.

The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between:

• The $3.50 surcharge for 3-D movies is annoying enough. I absolutely do not need designer 3-D glasses.
• Elisabeth Rappe talks about the dangerous allure of follwing celebrities on Twitter.
• Jennifer's Body doesn't look great, but I so badly want it to be. I don't know why, but something about teenage horror movies really appeals to me. You can read Cinematical's review of Jennifer's Body and see what they think.
• Food dropping from the sky just seems really gross to me, so I'm not sure how interested I am in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.
• Luke Skywalker is a white-trash hero? Interesting.

I haven't watched The Clone Wars. I'm officially done with that franchise and don't want to get into a new cartoon (or that live-action show that's coming up). Star Trek, yes. Star Wars, no. But it has its fans, and this video celebrates that fact ... or something. It will make kids chuckle (maybe) but older fans grit their teeth and say "maybe that Ewoks song wasn't that bad after all." The show returns October 2.

J-E-D-I!

First let me say that I loved the new big screen Star Trek movie. But I have to admit that this video below from CollegeHumor is rather accurate. Maybe it's just because of the genre and the characters and not lazy storytelling.

(S06E01) A long time ago, but somehow in the future . . .

Who would've thunk it? When Family Guy premiered back in 1999(!) many people tossed it away as a pale imitation of The Simpsons and kind of ignored it. Who knew that eight years later, at the start of the show's 6th season, Seth MacFarlane and his crew would be able to get the approval of George Lucas himself to air a spoof of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. It shows how far Family Guy has come since it returned to the prime-time airwaves.

Hey, all you Griffinites out there! I just wanted to remind you that the Family Guy tribute to Star Wars, in reality the sixth season premiere, airs tonight at 9 pm. Yes, I'm just as surprised as you that this show, as well as The Simpsons and King of the Hill, are actually airing during the official fall premiere week. Due to previous seasons chocked with baseball, football and American Idol's Tribute to Randy Johnson's Toenails, we usually didn't get to see the season premieres of these shows until election time. Maybe someone over at FOX finally has their head screwed on correctly.

I had a chance to review the episode ahead of time (you'll see my 'very special' post on it this evening) and all I have to say is this: if you like movie spoofs like Airplane and Spaceballs you'll like this Family Guy episode. While it actually sticks to the plot of Star Wars quite well, there are enough silly jokes in there to make the show quite enjoyable. Plus, it's interesting to see how each of the members of the Family Griffin are cast into Star Wars roles.

Details are finally being revealed today about the Robot Chicken: Star Wars special that is coming up on June 17th on Cartoon Network. We first heard about it last fall when Adam interviewed Morel Orel creator Dino Stamatopoulos, who shares a studio with Robot Chicken. The news today is that George Lucas and Mark Hamill are both participating. Lucas will play himself and Hamill will play Luke Skywalker. And, as Adam reported late last year, producers Seth Green and Matthew Senreich are actually working with LucasFilm Ltd. to create the 30-minute parody of the Star Wars series. Senreich says it's a dream come true and "How many people can say that George Lucas let them play with his entire Star Wars universe and do Robot Chicken-like things to it?"

I'm really looking forward to this episode. Green and Senreich have pretty much been obsessed with Star Wars and it has appeared in Robot Chicken many times. But- to be able to recreate the entire series with the blessing of The Godfather? Awesome!

By the way, this will be Mark Hamill's second visit to Robot Chicken. He voiced three characters, one of them was himself, in a 2005 episode. Other celebrity voices in the Star Wars special include Conan O'Brien, James van der Beek, Hulk Hogan, Abraham Benrubi, Breckin Meyer, Joey Fatone, and regular Seth MacFarlane.

Can you survive overnight in a blizzard by gutting a dead animal and getting into its carcass?

Could you survive a 50-foot fall into a snow bank like Luke Skywalker did?

Those are just a couple of the questions the MythBusters attempt to answer in this great piece at starwars.com. Many fans of the MythBusters show already know that at least four of the team worked at the famed Industrial Light & Magic studios before starting the show. I'd always dreamed of working at ILM or the Skywalker sound studios, so it's great to see them talk about old times.

[via Digg]