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Happy New Year!
New: Episode II section with Nat Reed's synopsis


Padme's ship arriving on Coruscant at the beginning of the movie

[December 31, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

I would like to wish you all a happy New Year. I hope 2001 will bring us lots of exciting Star Wars Prequel news! Before I'd leave home to celebrate the New Year with friends and collegues, I wanted to take some time to post a long awaited feature of this website: the illustrated plotline of Episode II.

You can now click on the link "Virtual Edition Ep. II" in the menu on the left to visit the Episode II section. I used Nat Reed's synopsis that he's currently compiling in the discussion section of this website (thanks Nat!). We'll have plenty of time next year to add many more details, but for now, this synopsis will give you a good overview of the main events in Episode II !

See you next year :)

Roderick.

 

Merry Christmas !
A short Star Wars Christmas story for you to read...


Click here to read the Christmas story

[December 24, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

I want to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. Enjoy the Holidays! A few years ago, I've written a small Star Wars Christmas story with some illustrations. You can read it by clicking on the link below:

Star Wars - Christmas story

Enjoy!

Roderick.


Coruscant on fire!
Count Dooku's forces cause mass-destruction on Coruscant!


Coruscant on fire! Click here for HQ version (940x400)

[December 4, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

The picture above shows the huge attack of Count Dooku's forces on Coruscant. Several sources report that the confrontation in space between Count Dooku's ships and the Republic's defense-force also devastates large parts of Coruscant's global city.

Apparently, Anakin, Captain Typho and Artoo are also involved in this battle that takes place at the beginning of the movie. Since we know that captain Typho and Artoo are present on the surface of the planet when Amidala's handmaiden is killed, it's not clear to me if this battle takes place before or after that dramatic assassination. If you consider that each Star Wars movie starts in space, I'd speculate that the sequence of events is like this:

  • the movie kicks off with Dooku's forces gathering above the planet;
  • we then switch to the scene with the attack on Amidala,
  • after which we see the Senate discussing the creation of a clone army in her absence (she's thought to be killed).
  • The space/ground battle then breaks loose, which gives Palpatine enough support in the senate to win the vote and start building his clone army (the 'good' clones).
  • However, Palpatine/Darth Sidious, is secretely the one who is behind count Dooku's attack on Coruscant, which we only discover much later on in the movie.

I'm not sure I've got all the pieces of the puzzle in the right order here, but if you have more insight into these scenes, don't hesitate to share it in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick

PS: the rendering of the Federation fighters in the picture was originally found on Episode2 no Tetujin, a Japanese website for Star Wars and Episode II.

 

Did Ben Burtt turn things upside down?
Look again: now here's a ship that could actually land!


A mysterious vessel enters hyperspace...

[November 24, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

The latest Select picture keeps intriguing me. In the latest update of the article about the Select Picture on the Force.net, a reader makes a very good point: the long vertical spine underneath the ship would make it very hard to land anywhere. So what if... the Select picture was actually posted upside down?

Most of the select pictures have been chosen to give us glimpses of Episode II, without giving too much away. Could it be that starwars.com deliberately turned the picture upside down to throw us off track? While fans are making renderings and fan-art of what the ship could look like, LFL is smiling because they know that the actual ship will still surprise us.

I've rotated the image 180 degrees to see what happens. The ship now has a much more logical construction: the main part of the vessel below, and the vertical part on top of the ship. This is a ship that could actually land on the ground!

Actually, once rotated, the construction looks a bit like a sailing vessel. A spacecraft that reminds us of a sail ship, flying through hyperspace? Hmm.... perhaps some inside sources could shed some light on this...

Share your thoughts about these scenes in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick


Whose ship is that?
Is this Count Dooku's vessel flying through hyperspace?

A mysterious vessel enters hyperspace...
A mysterious vessel enters hyperspace...

[November 23, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

The Official Star Wars website posted a stunning picture of a ship entering hyperspace. Great to see an actual rendering from post-production rather than pictures from the sets. Of course, the big question is: WHOSE ship is it we see?

I've enhanced the picture a bit to get rid of the square in the middle. One thing is certain: it's unlike any other ship we've seen so far in the Star Wars universe. The three green engines and the long vertical part of the ship underneath them give the ship a very distinct look.

It's not the ship we saw in the spy photos from the set (as seen here - I believe that ship is the rumored Federation Fighter), because that ship only had two engines, whereas this one has three. It looks like a big vessel to me, so perhaps it belongs to an important character in Episode II. Count Dooku perhaps?

Darth Maul's vessel also had green engine-lightsI'll tell you why I think of Count Dooku as the possible owner of the ship. Look at the color of the engines: green. Now who else had a ship with green engine lights in the Prequel Trilogy? Exactly, Lord Maul. Now we know that Count Dooku is rumored to be actually a Sith Lord by the name of Darth Tyranus. And a Sith Lord deserves his own vessel, don't you think? So could we be looking at Darth Tyranus' spaceship entering hyperspace? I somehow have the feeling that this could be the case...

Share your thoughts about these scenes in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick


The chase sequence on Coruscant
American Graffiti in another universe?

The Chase on Coruscant
Anakin and Obi-Wan chase through Coruscant. Click here for HQ version (940x400)

[November 23, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

Here's a picture of the rumored chase that takes place on Coruscant. It is assumed that Obi-Wan and Anakin are pursuing female bounty hunter Zam Wesell, who tries to get away after a failed assassination attempt on Padme Amidala.

In this picture, I assume that Obi-Wan and Anakin are driving in the yellow vehicle we saw in one of the Select Pictures, and that Zam Wesell rides a speederbike. I imagine this to be one of the fast 'race' like sequences that Lucas puts in every movie. Since the Select Picture with the yellow vehicle refers to 'American Graffiti', the chase itself might even be a homage to the race in that particular movie. Time to rent 'American Graffiti' again, don't you think?

I made a High Quality version of the above picture, that you can watch when you click on it. Enjoy!

Share your thoughts about these scenes in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick


Jango's fight with Obi-Wan
Boba's presence might give us a clue as to where this scene takes place

Jango Fett returns to his ship
Jango Fett returns to his ship. Click here for HQ version (940x400)

[November 21, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

The picture I made today represents one of the last scenes of the big fight between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi. As you know, this fight was shown in detail on a couple of storyboards that leaked out some time ago. At the end of an intense fight in the pouring rain, Jango has thrown Obi-Wan off the landing platform and hurries back to the cockpit of the Slave 1 from which his son Boba has been watching the terrifying fight.

The confrontation between Obi-Wan and Boba Fett must be one of the most exciting sequences in Episode II. Where and when exactly does this fight take place? Hard to tell. Some people suggest that it's in the first half of the movie, and opinion is divided as to where the fight takes place: some think on Coruscant, others suggest that it'll happen on one of the new planets. Personally, I think the scene will take place on one of the new planets, mainly because of the wheather conditions (does it ever rain on Coruscant? I'm not sure) and because little Boba is present. Unless Jango takes his son with him on his trips, I think it's more likely that this scene takes place near Fett's personal quarters, thus explaining the presence of Boba.

I made a High Quality version of the above picture, that you can watch when you click on it. Enjoy!

Share your thoughts about these scenes in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick


Jar-Jar in the Galactic Senate?
"Dis is nutsen!"

Anakin and Shmi talk at the Lars Homestead...
Jar Jar in the Galactic Senate

[November 19, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

According to a recent spy-report on the Force.net, Jar Jar's role in Episode II will be quite different from the one he played in The Phantom Menace.

Here's what the report says: "I can tell you Jar Jar's right in the thick of things rubbing shoulders with the galaxies most powerful individuals. I believe he will be a Senator for the Gungans and his antics will be less flamboyant. Prepare to see a different side to Jar Jar."

According to another report, Jar Jar will wear different clothes as well. "If you thought Jar Jar looked great in TPM, wait til you see him now. Gone are the leather clothes and gangly ears, he wears something more like the leader of the Gungans from Episode I, Boss Nass."

Could this indicate that we'll see Jar Jar in one of the scenes that take place in the Galactic Senate on Coruscant? The picture above shows you Jar Jar in his new role as Senator for the Gungans.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Discussion Forums!

Roderick


uh.. everything's perfectly all right now.
Uh... had a slight computer malfunction. We're all fine here now, thank you..
.
How are you?

Anakin and Shmi talk at the Lars Homestead...

[November 19, 2000 - posted by Roderick]

Hi everybody! I'm glad to tell you that I'm back in business again. Thanks for al of you who wrote me to tell me they missed the regular updates of the Virtual Edition.

I think I owe you an explanation. About two months ago, I was happily working on various projects on the web, updating the Virtual Edition every now and then, when suddenly my computer started to act strange. Applications didn't work anymore, the computer started freezing all the time... the whole system had become as unstable as a Death Star that has been visited by Luke Skywalker's X-wingfighter.

I was forced to reinstall Windows several times, but nothing seemed to help. Apparently it wasn't a problem I could fix myself, so I brought my computer to a repair-center. Unfortunately, it took quite a while before they got back to me with the cause of all the misery: a broken memory chip. Argh! Amazing how a defect so simple can cripple you for weeks!

Anyway, it took me quite a while to get everything installed again, and I had to catch up on a lot of work I wasn't able to do without my computer. But here we are: back on the Internet, back in business. You can look forward to lots of updates!

Roderick



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All original content © 2000, Roderick Vonhögen - The Netherlands