wars

To the delight of many gamers at E3 on Monday, EA DICE showed off Star Wars Battlefront -- a next-generation "Star Wars" video game that uses the Frostbite 3 graphics engine. DICE uses the same graphics engine in Battlefield 4.

As the 30-second trailer kicks off, you can clearly see a snowy tundra on the ice planet Hoth, presumably set during the battle seen in "Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back," or perhaps a different time in the canon. … Read more

There's a whole world of fan-made "Star Wars" furniture out there. A lucky fluffball has anAT-AT cat condo. A fortunate child has an X-wing fighter bunk. A talented furniture maker created an X-wing coffee table. Now, a handy maker has built an AT-AT liquor cabinet that combines "Star Wars" love with steampunk aesthetics.

The Emperor's Cabinet was created by Colin Johnson, a Vancouver artist who crafted the piece from plywood, mahogany veneer, and glass. Artfully laid solid-brass trim lends a distinctly steampunk look to the cabinet. The side of the AT-AT opens up to reveal plenty of storage for bottles of Alderaanian brandy, Hedrett oil-rig whiskey, and Gralish liqueur.… Read more

You may have occasionally encountered a certain dead-eyed stare from a Transportation Security Administration operative.

He might not like your name, your shorts, or the odd bulge in your jaw. So he stops you and asks deep questions, such as: "What do you have in your pockets, sir?"

Peter Mayhew, the 7-foot-tall gentleman who played Chewbacca in "Star Wars," discovered the boys from TSA had a different preoccupation -- whether his lightsaber cane was a dangerous weapon.… Read more

Though steampunk tends to mind a retro vein, it goes surprisingly well with the aesthetics of the "Star Wars" universe. This was already proven with the marvelous steampunk AT-AT. Epbot reader May B. delves into the look for an unusual, and somewhat creepy, version of a Darth Vader costume.

May B.'s concept starts with a Victorian mourning dress, a shiny black number full of intricate patterns, topped off with a black hat with a veil running down the back. Steampunk goggles (a requirement pretty much) are integrated into a Darth Vader mask topped with a filigreed silver detail.… Read more

If you're a gamer and "Star Wars" fan, your day just got a little better: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) arrived on the iOS App Store for iPad.

Supported by Apple's iPad 2 (running iOS 6) and newer iterations, Knights of the Old Republic costs a stout $10, but the 1.98GB download (which unpacks to 2.5GB) represents many hours of entertaining "Star Wars" gameplay. Game developer Aspyr ported the classic game originally created by Bioware.… Read more

There's big, then there's really big, and then there's colossal, which might be a good word to use when describing a near 46,000-pound Lego X-Wing that made a triumphant debut Thursday in New York's Times Square.

The full-size replica, about 42 times the size of the Lego "Star Wars" X-Wing (#9493) set available on store shelves, celebrates the debut of Cartoon Network's "The Yoda Chronicles," which premieres on May 29 at 8 p.m. … Read more

Just as Syria recovers from last week's countrywide Internet outage, a number of government opposition groups are reportedly saying that their Facebook pages have been shuttered, according to Al Arabiya.

One of the pages that is no longer available is the profile page of the former brigadier general of the Syrian Republican Guard, Manaf Tlass, who defected from the government last year. According to Al Arabiya, his page was visited by tens of thousands of Syrians to discuss the country's civil war.

Tlass told Al Arabiya that he reached out to Facebook to get his page back online … Read more

Disney said today that it has begun production on "Star Wars Rebels," a new animated television series. It will air in 2014, first as a one-hour special, and then will continue as a regular series.

The special will be shown on the Disney Channel, while the series will air first on Disney XD channels globally, Disney said. It will be produced by LucasFilm Animation.

The announcement that production has commenced on "Star Wars Rebels" comes just two months after Disney shut down "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a popular and long-running cartoon series. What's unclear is whether the announcement of "Star Wars Rebels" will do anything to ease the enmity toward Disney that has sprung up in the wake of the "Clone Wars" shutdown, as well as the closure of LucasArts, the video game arm of LucasFilm. … Read more

Do you still have your original "Star Wars" action figures? Mine are tucked away in storage, but looking at Rob Burden's artwork makes me want to dig them out.

The San Francisco artist is so obsessed with his old "Star Wars" figures that he does 10-foot-tall oil paintings of them, like "The Birth of a Jedi," above. The works don't portray the characters from the series, but the actual action figures themselves.

Now he's taking his passion to new heights on Kickstarter with a $24,000 campaign to produce two enormous 10x14-foot "Star Wars" canvases. … Read more