Eric Geller's Blog

I'll be at Star Wars Celebration Anaheim (April 16-19) covering the convention for TheForce.Net , Rebelscum.com , and The ForceCast . I'll be splitting my time between public panels, press events, and activities at the ForceCast booth. I've posted my schedule below, in case you're interested in meeting up with me. You can also  follow me on Twitter  to see everything I'm doing at Celebration. Thursday, April 16 10 a.m:  Writer/Director/Producer J.J. Abrams and Producer Kathleen Kennedy  (Celebration Stage) 11:30 a.m.: ForceCast Booth (Details coming soon!) 12 p.m.: ForceCast Booth (Details coming soon!) 3:30 p.m.: The Untold Clone Wars with Dave Filoni and Pablo Hidalgo  (Digital Stage) 4:30 p.m.: ForceCast Booth (Details coming soon!) Friday, April 17 10:30 a.m.:  Bryan Young: Star Wars Journalism  (Fan Stage - 303ABCD) 12 p.m.:  The Clone Wars “Bad Batch” Screening and Panel Discussion   (Digital Stage)...

The ForceCast, the podcast that I've co-hosted for the past two years, unveiled a new format in this week's show . At the end of the episode, I made an announcement: Beginning next week, I will no longer be one of the voices welcoming you to the ForceCast. I'm not leaving the network, and you'll still hear me on the flagship program on a regular basis. But beginning with ForceCast #341, Justin Bolger will be the main host, with Erik Blythe as co-host, and I will assume a new role as a contributor. (More on that in a second.) I will continue to host the Rebels Roundtable, with Spencer Brinkerhoff III as my co-host. I will continue to appear as a regular panelist on Echo Base, hosted by Erik. I will continue to produce special reports for the ForceCast, including long-form interviews and convention coverage. (Celebration Anaheim approaches!) The only change will be on the main show. A lot has changed in my life since Erik and I released our first episode on F...

I appeared on the TouchVision network to discuss George Lucas' recent comments about having nothing to do with The Force Awakens and whether the movie is in good hands at Lucasfilm. Post by TouchVision . I had a great time talking to Ken, the producer of the segment, and hope we can connect again in the future. It was also nice to see Chris Seekell , a fellow podcaster, appear in the segment.

“We don’t reboot. We don’t start from scratch,” Leland Chee, Lucasfilm’s continuity database administrator, told Wired’s Chris Baker in a 2008 profile . “When Chewbacca died, he died.” What a difference six years  ––  and $4.05 billion  ––  makes. On Friday, April 25, Lucasfilm announced that it was restarting its tie-in literature program. The Expanded Universe of books, comics, short stories, and other material was declared an alternate universe, although EU titles will continue to be sold under the “Legends” banner. As of today, only the six films and  The Clone Wars  movie and TV series are canon. The Disney animated series  Star Wars Rebels  will be canon when it premieres, as will  the four new books  that Lucasfilm announced. Let’s get this out of the way right now: I have been a big fan of the Expanded Universe for a long time. I own hundreds of books. I write for Suvudu, the science-fiction blog run by ...

I've been on a few BBC stations talking about the news that Star Wars Episode VII will hold open auditions in the United Kingdom and Ireland. If you want to listen to the interviews, I've embedded them below.

Last Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter published an article describing an internal dispute between Disney CEO Bob Iger and Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy regarding the appropriate time to release the most eagerly anticipated movie of this decade, Star Wars Episode VII.

When I was six years old, I drew a picture of a house. I wouldn’t call it a particularly magnificent house, but someone at Highlights for Children magazine evidently liked it, because my drawing appeared in a 1997 issue of the magazine. That was a pretty big deal for me. You never forget the first time your work appears in a commercial publication, especially if you didn’t get paid for it. (Curse you and your fine-print voluntary submission policy, Highlights !)

Hollywood.com’s Christian Blauvelt and I hosted our second “Get Thee to the Geek” Google Hangout last night, this time discussing the latest Star Trek movie. Anthony Pascale, editor-in-chief of TrekMovie.com, and Bonnie Burton, all-around geek extraordinaire, joined us to talk about the ups and downs (but mostly the downs).

I’m really excited to be starting a new project this summer along with my friend Christian Blauvelt of Hollywood.com. A few weeks ago, Christian asked me to co-host Hollywood.com’s summer Google Hangout series, “Get Thee to the Geek,” with him. Even if the subject matter -- weekly discussions about geek culture - hadn't appealed to me, I might have said yes for the punny title alone.

I put together a list of original and, dare I say it, clever Star Wars puns for The Official Star Wars Blog, as part of their pre-game festivities for May the Fourth, a.k.a. Star Wars Day. Anyone who knows me can tell you that puns are a specialty of mine, and since Star Wars is a passion of mine, I really enjoy it when I can mix the two.

Lucasfilm announced today that its animated TV series Star Wars: The Clone Wars is not getting a sixth season. It's not completely done and over with, because Lucasfilm Animation still plans to release "bonus content" based on the episodes they produced for Season 6. As a big fan of the series, I wanted to share my thoughts about what this means for me, for fans, and for the franchise in general.

Hello, mainstream media. It’s me, Eric. Since you’ve already started writing a lot of stories about Star Wars , I thought it would be a good idea for us to clarify a few things. Some of your reporters may have never seen a Star Wars movie, but they still ought to employ proper journalistic skills in covering developments pertaining to the franchise. Let’s review a few of the do’s and don’ts so that you don’t have to make embarrassing mistakes and I don’t have to go on Twitter and criticize and/or mock you (usually both).

The biggest news in Star Wars since Disney bought Lucasfilm broke early Saturday morning : J. J. Abrams, who directed the 2009 Star Trek film and this year’s sequel Star Trek Into Darkness , will direct Star Wars : Episode VII, based on a screenplay by Michael Arndt. Predictably, several people have asked me what I think of this development (including USA Today and MTV News ), so I thought I’d write a brief blog post to explain my reaction.