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Author Archives: J.R.
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Filed under Rant Alert
The Chosen: Rebirthing Part 1 Now Available!
This is it folks. Ten years of work, planning, rewrites, job losses, moving, and even a tragic death. It’s all built up to this. It’s still surreal that I’m even holding this book that I’ve worked so long on. To be honest it brings tears to my eyes, not just because it’s finally done, but because my best friend, my brother, couldn’t be here to share this moment with me. I was telling my girlfriend the other night that Mark and I had agreed we’d go out and get tattoos together when we finally got this thing published to commemorate the occasion. As soon as I have the money (being poor sucks) I plan on keeping my promise. Anyway, now it’s up to you. The ball is in your court. It’s your turn to experience this thing that has been such a significant part of our lives over the last decade and tell us whether or not we succeeded. I hope that you’ll enjoy it. I hope that you’ll want to see more of these characters and hear more of their story. If you do, please spread the word, tell your friends, post on Facebook, buy copies for Christmas gifts and stocking stuffers. Word of mouth is how this thing is going to get around, and I cannot express to you just how important it is to me that people get to experience just how incredibly talented Mark was. The digital version is now available for Kindle for $2.99. The paperback is available for $9.99. Both versions come with a bonus short story: Requiem. Please, pick up a copy and be sure to let us know what you think.
Description: There has been a war raging between Heaven and Hell for the fate of all creation, and the forces of Heaven are losing ground. The Enemy has discovered something that may tip the balance of the war in their favor, and now it’s up to Jude, the absentee leader of the warrior-priesthood known as the Chosen, and his new trainee Paul, to rally the disjointed forces of Heaven on Earth and find the source of this new threat. If they fail, it will mean that the forces of Hell will be free to run rampant across the Earth, ultimately leading to Armageddon and the end of all things. In the war between Heaven and Hell heroes are not made… they’re Chosen.
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Filed under Novels, The Chosen: Rebirthing
What a Day…
*sigh* What a day. The good news is Chosen should be finally available tomorrow in both digital and paperback formats. The bad news is some hack already used our series title (and I didn’t have that as the title when we copyrighted) so I had to change it. So now the series is called The Chronicles of Enoch and this first book is The Chosen: Rebirthing Part 1. It clocked in at 374 pages long and we included an exclusive bonus short story for both formats. Had I not divided the book into two parts the final draft would have been close to 800 pages long and cost the price of a black market kidney to print. I’ve talked before about how important this book is to me, so I won’t go into that all again, but needless to say it would mean a great deal to me if all of you could please not only pick up a copy in the format of your choice, but that you would also help to promote it and get the word out. reading over it again as I went over the final edits last night I was once again struck buy just how ridiculously brilliant a writer Mark was. He was just extremely talented, and the last 4 chapters of this book is pretty much all him. This was the only book he got to actually finish. Sure, we had a ton of stuff where his fingerprints are all over it, but this was the only project with his actual writing, and as such it means the world to me that as many people as possible get a chance to experience just how incredible this young man really was. So please, pick up a copy, tell your friends, and get the word out. If not for me, please do it for Mark.
The paperback version will be priced at $9.99 and includes a bonus short story which sheds a lot of light on Jude and his background. The digital copy is priced at $2.99 and likewise includes the short. Both should be available tomorrow. I’ll post again once they’re confirmed as available in the stores. I really hope you all enjoy it. It’s been a passion project a decade in the making, and it is, by far, the best thing either of us have written.
Filed under Novels, The Chosen: Rebirthing
Rant Alert: The Chosen Chronicles: Rebirthing Part 1
How do you sum up a creative journey over ten years long? I had just had to leave school and move back home because of finances when a job working for a church fell through. I was depressed, more than a little ticked off, and mostly just confused about how I felt towards religion in general, and Christianity in particular. That’s not to say that I blamed God, nor did I ever question my beliefs as far as God was concerned, but I was certainly questioning everything else. At the time I was in a funk both creatively and in my personal reading. Mark and I were in the middle of working on this sci-fi novel that ended up being scrapped, elements of which were used in You Only Die Twice. It was Mark’s turn to work on the novel so I sat down and decided I would just free write as a side project. I didn’t do an outline or plot anything out. I just sat down and started writing the kind of story that I would want to read at that specific time. About three days and seventy or so pages later I had the very rough draft of what would become The Chosen Chronicles: Rebirthing. It was a story about Heaven and Hell, the power of God and the Human spirit. It was about flawed individuals, belief, and the essence about what it meant to really “work for God”. It was a lot of stuff that I had boiling inside of me that just needed to get out. When I was done I sent it to Mark. He read it over and said the last thing I was expecting- “This is the best thing you’ve ever written. This is inspired. I think this should be our first book.”
Now this surprised me for several reasons. First, I was surprised that Mark would be so willing to abandon the novel we’d been working on for almost a year so quickly. Second, at the time Mark had a lot of issues with religion. He’d had some bad experiences when he was younger with the church (I won’t go into specifics or start name dropping denominations) and I think it would be fair to say he was a bit bitter about it. Being the Holy-Rolling-Bible-Thumper I was at the time, we’d had our share of lively discussions on the subject up until that point, so to have Mark say that not only did he love what I’d written but that he wanted to help me make it into a real novel, it blew me away.
Well, it didn’t just become a novel- it became a whole series. Over the course of the next decade we not only wrote the rough draft of the novel that you’ll hopefully be reading very soon, but we also mapped out a full trilogy of main novels, with several spin off novels, short stories, and concepts. It was our first real novel and we were being perfectionists with it (I lost count of how many versions and drafts we ended up with). It didn’t help that we had work, school, our personal lives, and over 1000 miles of distance between us to complicate things.
We finally had the thing done and Mark was going through and putting his final touches on the last few sections I’d written to end the novel when he died. Needless to say I was devastated and it took me a couple of years to get to the point where I could seriously work on the thing again. I had already shopped it around to tons of agents before, but once Mark died I decided that the best thing to do would be to self publish it. I was worried that if it did get picked up by a publisher they would want me to make changes. That’s to be expected. However, the book as it was is the version that Mark and I did together, and I didn’t want to make any major changes without him. I didn’t want to lose anything that he had written. My cousin Cathy volunteered to lend her expertise to editing it. Shawn, one of Mark’s closest friends in PA, and I had grown very close after Mark’s death, and he volunteered to help lend his artistic talents to help get the various projects Mark and I had worked on off the ground. As you can see from the image above and the last two “test books” we’ve put out in the last couple of months, he’s incredibly talented, and I’m incredibly lucky that he’s working with me.
The unedited version of the novel ended up clocking in at 128,789 words. That’s not too incredibly long for a fantasy novel, but when you’re doing it through print-on-demand a manuscript that long becomes incredibly expensive to publish in paperback (for those of you who like to rock it old school). So, we decided to break it up into two parts, the first of which will be available soon. The goal was to tell a story that anyone, regardless of their beliefs, could pick up and really enjoy. We made sure to have it test read by many different people with different religious backgrounds, genre preferences, ages, and so forth to help ensure that it could appeal to the widest audience possible. We wanted this to be our Star Wars, our Lord of the Rings, our Dune Chronicles. Hopefully we succeeded. Now it’ll be up to you to determine how well we did.
Since Mark is no longer with us, Shawn, Mark’s sister, and I decided that we wanted to do something special with what would have been his half of whatever profits any of the Chosen “products” make. We decided that the best thing to do would be to start a foundation in Mark’s name that helps up and coming writers and artists to achieve their goal of becoming a professional. It might mean we help provide art supplies for an art student, or a writer’s workshop for a wannabe author. We’re still working out the details as to how that will work, but 50% of whatever any “Chosen” product makes, along with 10% of everything else we put out, will go towards that foundation. I’ll let you know more details as soon as we get stuff nailed down. For now, I hope you’ll check out the first part of The Chosen Chronicles: Rebirthing, and let me know what you think. It will be released soon in both paperback and digital formats. As always, the digital version will be as affordable as we can make it. I’ll give you a specific release date soon. For now, here’s a short description:
There has been a war raging between Heaven and Hell for the fate of all creation, and the forces of Heaven are losing ground. The Enemy has discovered something that may tip the balance of the war in their favor, and now it’s up to Jude, the absentee leader of the warrior-priesthood known as the Chosen, and his new trainee Paul, to rally the disjointed forces of Heaven on Earth and find the source of this new threat. If they fail, it will mean that the forces of Hell will be free to run rampant across the Earth, ultimately leading to Armageddon and the end of all things.
J.R. Broadwater is the author of the non-fiction book Down with the Thickness: Viewing the World From a Fat Guy’s Perspective, and the sci-fi detective novel You Only Die Twice, both available now in digital and paperback formats. Sample chapters and more information about both books can be found here.
Filed under Novels, Rant Alert, The Chosen: Rebirthing
Rant Alert- The Amazing Spider-Man
*Mild Spoiler Warning if you haven’t seen the film*
As an adult comic book geek I’ve come to a place where I’ve learned to accept one really tough truth- the movies I loved as a kid/teen sometimes just don’t hold up as well later. Christopher Reeve will always be Superman. I’ll always remember how incredibly cool I thought the Burton Batmobile was. (I had posters of it all over my room.) I’ll remember how much fun I had watching the original Spider-Man movie at the theater…3 times. However, if I’m being honest and objective, those movies just don’t hold up as well now.
The Chris Reeve Superman movies, while groundbreaking at the time, are really kind of cheesy and boring now (Addendum: The Donner Cut of Superman II is still pretty good). Chris Reeve is still a perfect Superman, but if you’re honest with yourself the plots were generally kind of lame, the humor was cheesy, and they could never agree on what Superman could actually do- memory-wiping kiss, eye beams that could rebuild walls, S logo that turns into a large fruit roll-up to trap enemies, to name a few. Burton’s Batman movies are just plain boring and ridiculous now. I can’t sit through the first one without getting bored, and Returns is so bad it’s painful. We won’t discuss the travesty that is the Schumacker movies that came afterwards. Raimi’s Spider-Man movies (not counting 3) are worshiped on many a fan-geek’s alter, but they aren’t the end-all be-all either. Kirsten Dunst was a horrible and boring Mary-Jane. Toby McGuire made a decent “geeky” Peter, but he was always a bit too whiny and his portrayal was severely lacking the cocky-wisecracking that makes the comic book Spidey so much fun. They, too, could be kind of cheesy, as they were made at a pre-Nolan time when comic book movies were still not treated as serious cinema. Raimi’s movies did a good job in helping to fix that mindset, but they were still just not quite on-par with the quality of storytelling we’ve been spoiled with in the last few years. I loved Spidey 1 and 2, but they’re not as fun for me to watch as Iron Man or Avengers. They were just too plodding and were missing the sense of fun that the comics have when Peter is being Spidey. As a Spider-Man fan (especially ASM and Ultimate) I was excited when they talked about rebooting, because the Raimi movies never really nailed it for me.
Now that The Amazing Spider-Man has hit Bluray the discussions about just how good a Spidey flick it is have begun again. I felt that over the summer Spidey got lost among the Avengers hype, and it never really got the recognition it deserved. It certainly had a few issues, a few of which had more to do with cuts that the studio made, but overall I felt that it was a very solid foundation for a Spider-Man series. Andrew Garfield brought a large range of emotion to the part that really sold it for me. He could convey emotion without going into “whiny” territory, and he sold the fun, cocky wisecracking when in the Spidey suit that was really missing in the Raimi series. Yeah, he could be kind of a jerk at first, but that was kind of the point. He’s a kid that’s had it rough, he’s lost people he cares about, and once he lost Uncle Ben he snapped for a while and was lashing out. It was authentic. It made sense. He never quite became the “comic version” of Spidey, either ASM or Ultimate, but there were large traces of it and I could definitely see him growing into that characterization with further movies. He had great chemistry with Emma Stone, who played Gwen. Their relationship felt natural, not forced, and I love that Webb didn’t play into the same tropes as so many other comic movies do. He treated the audience, and the characters, as intelligent people. They don’t drag out Peter telling Gwen who he is. (The audience I watched it with in the theater cheered when he webbed her in and kissed her). When Peter tells her he can’t see her anymore, she doesn’t act like a mindless twit. She realizes right away that it was because her dad made him promise. Best of all was how Aunt May was portrayed. She isn’t a doddering, blind old woman. You know by the end that she’s figured out who Peter is and what he’s been doing without the movie having to telegraph it. The scene after the last fight, when Peter limps in covered in bruises and cuts, and painfully pulls out the carton of eggs while muttering “I had a rough night” was beautifully done. The casting of Sally Field and Martin Sheen as May and Ben was inspired, and while many a fan had a problem with Ben not using the “With great power comes great responsibility” line, I think the way he referred to it when talking with Peter got the same point across in a meaningful way.
Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man was a great foundational movie. It sets the stage for what is very likely to be a great Spider-Man movie series that gets us closer to the Spidey we all know and love from the comics. I’m really looking forward to what they do with the next couple of movies. Maybe you felt the same way. Maybe not. Feel free to comment down below and discuss.
J.R. Broadwater is the author of the non-fiction book Down with the Thickness: Viewing the World From a Fat Guy’s Perspective, and the sci-fi detective novel You Only Die Twice, both available now in digital and paperback formats. Sample chapters and more information about both books can be found here.
Filed under Rant Alert
Rant Alert- The Salvation Army & Those Annoying Bellringers
We’ve all seen them in the front of various grocery stores, mall entrances, and the occasional street corner- men and women ringing a bell and wearing red aprons with a big red kettle in front of them. They want you to donate money for charity. It’s typically done around Christmas time.
“It’s the first of November! Why are they out and begging for money when it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet?!”
I’ve heard this a lot. I’ve also heard how people are reluctant to donate because they aren’t sure where the money is going. I can completely understand why they would feel that way. Religious organizations in general haven’t exactly had the most sterling reputation over the last few years. With priests and pastors being charged with sexual misconduct left right and center, sometimes even, horribly, involving minors; accusations of corruption and money donated in good faith being used for nefarious purposes; snake oil salesman on TV using God as a way of selling fake miracles and conning innocent, struggling people out of their money- trust me, I understand the skepticism, if not outright cynicism. I’m not going to address religion here. What I am going to do is address the Salvation Army, their bell-ringing campaign, and tell you exactly where that money goes after you stick it in that kettle, and what it is used for.
I worked as a Youth and Program Director for the Salvation Army Corps in Belleville, IL for three years. I’m currently working seasonally as their Kettle Coordinator- which basically means I help run that Corps’ bell-ringing campaign through Christmas Eve. Full disclosure- I was and am an employee, but I’m not a “Salvationist”. I don’t belong to their church as a soldier. I haven’t always agreed with everything that they say, or how they do things all the time. Show me an employee that has ever fully agreed with their employers. That said, being that this is my 4th season helping to run a bell-ringing campaign, and having been involved in the financial planning sessions for our Corps and being privy to where the money we raise each year goes, I do have intimate knowledge as to how things generally work, and I wanted to drop a little of that knowledge on you fine folks so that you can be well informed in your charitable giving decisions.
Bell-ringing typically starts around the 1st of November and typically ends on Christmas Eve. That schedule can differ slightly from Corps to Corps and territory to territory, but that is a general ballpark time frame. So we have roughly two months to ring bells and try to raise money. Some chain stores have an agreement already with the Salvation Army, so the Corps in those areas already have sites that they can ring at automatically, but the rest of the sites have to be recruited by the Captains of the Corps in that area. The more sites you have to give you permission to ring, the more potential money you can make. It’s also more sites that you have to man with workers, more expenses in gas, transportation & wages, and more time. The money raised during the Kettle Campaign each year accounts for roughly 60-70% of each Corps budget for the year. Again, that number can differ from Corps to Corps, but for a ballpark generalization, it’s not a bad one. So just to reiterate: 2 months to raise money for roughly 60-70% of a yearly budget.
The Corps in Belleville is also a community center. They offer a hot meal three times a week to anyone who comes- the “SAL Cafe”. They offer an after school program for local community kids that provides homework help, tutoring, and recreation for the kids until their parents get off of work. The offer rental assistance, utility assistance, and run a food pantry for those in the community that need help (when they have the funding to do so). During the holidays they provide food baskets to those that may be without, and toys for children whose parents couldn’t afford to have Christmas for their kids. They do all this without charging the people that they service a dime. The Salvation Army does receive grants and funding from various sources to help with some programs that they offer- such as the utility assistance and the food pantry. However, the cost of running the community center, the salaries of the paid staff, the electric bills, maintenance, etc. is all mostly paid for by the money raised during Kettle Season. Disaster relief, such as what is going on right now in the Northeast after Sandy, is all at least partially funded by the money that the various Corps raise during the Kettle Season. Everything that the Salvation Army does throughout the year is, at least in some part, funded by the money that is donated to them during these last two months of the year, every year.
So rest assured that if/when you do decide to drop some money into those shiny red buckets that that money is going to a good cause, and not to line the pockets of a select few. It’s going towards the individual Corps in that area so that they can continue to provide the types of services to the community that I’ve outlined in brief detail above, and towards the disaster relief that takes place when things like the “Superstorm” hits residential areas around the world. It is going towards a good cause, regardless of how you may feel about religion in general or the Salvation Army’s beliefs in particular. So think about that the next time you hear that annoying ringing sound when you’re out shopping. Think about the lives you may touch, even in small ways, by dropping some change or a few bucks you happen to have on you into that bucket. In some cases that could mean the difference between literal life and death for someone. I know, because I’ve seen it myself. Make a difference this season in whatever ways you can. You’ll be glad that you did.
J.R. Broadwater is the author of the non-fiction book Down with the Thickness: Viewing the World From a Fat Guy’s Perspective, and the sci-fi detective novel You Only Die Twice, both available now in digital and paperback formats. Sample chapters and more information about both books can be found here.
Filed under Rant Alert
Rant Alert- The Haters Can Suck It
Okay, so I’ve talked quite a bit about Star Wars the past few days, but I have just one more rant on the subject before I give it a rest. I’m not a huge fan of the prequels. I don’t think too many people over the age of 25 are. That said, I’ve never ranted about how Lucas is only out for the money every time he does something Star Wars related. You hear it EVERY. TIME. “Another edition! Lucas is just fleecing the fans! He doesn’t care!” Few things here about why that statement is utterly stupid:
1. It’s a business, so yes they’re trying to make money. That’s kind of the point of the whole free enterprise/capitalist thing we’ve got going here in America. So complaining about a business man trying to make money with his products is like complaining about a plumber charging you for fixing your toilet. I’m not talking about complaining about the price here, to be clear, I’m talking about complaining about being charged at all. Star Wars is a brand, a very beloved brand, but a brand. I don’t hear those same people bitching about another Avengers movie, so why freak out over a new Star Wars movie? For those who do so out of fear it’ll suck, that’s understandable. For those who complain it’s because they want to make money, that’s idiotic.
2. He doesn’t keep tinkering with the movies because he’s trying to charge people again, he does it because he honestly believes it makes the movies better and he can’t stop messing with his creation. Any creator understands this to a degree, because we all do it. There comes a point where you have to just step away and leave it alone. I think Lucas has finally gotten to that point, hence the sale and semi-retirement. That doesn’t make the changes good changes, but to him he thinks they are. Again, another reason why this sale is a good thing for fans.
3. He doesn’t really need more money, and I’ll prove that statement presently. If you think a couple extra million here or there is really the driving force behind Lucas’s decisions then you’re a moron. The man is one of the richest people in the world. Last time I checked, and I admit it has been a while, he was in the top 100 list, perhaps the top 50. He has billions of dollars. He and his kids are pretty much set for their lifetimes, and perhaps for his grandkid’s lifetimes too if they’re smart about how they handle the money and the economy doesn’t completely tank for good.
Now, to the “Lucas sold out! He’s selling our childhood and his creation for money!” crowd. Shut up. I’ll tell you why- it was announced yesterday that Lucas, when the Disney deal is finalized, will be donating the money to charity. Specifically to help fund education. Four. Billion. Dollars. He’s not keeping a cent of it. The remainder that won’t be going towards charity is the stock in Disney. The rest is being used for philanthropy. I know, that selfish jerk. You can read the full article and the details here. I know there are still going to be a few jackasses that’ll manage to still say something snarky about this, but those people are morons and aren’t worth listening to. Just because you can share your opinion on the internet doesn’t always mean you should. Yes, I am aware of the irony of that statement given that it’s exactly what I’m doing here, but it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to.
J.R. Broadwater is the author of the non-fiction book Down with the Thickness: Viewing the World From a Fat Guy’s Perspective, and the sci-fi detective novel You Only Die Twice, both available now in digital and paperback formats. Sample chapters and more information about both books can be found here.
Filed under Rant Alert
Rant Alert- Star Wars, Disney & Haters
I think I established my Star Wars pedigree when I did my rant about Clone Wars. Needless to say, I’m a big fan. Star Wars means a lot to me, outside of the traditional geek reasoning. As a kid growing up Star Wars was my “happy place”. I’m a “thick” guy and grew up that way. I was picked on a lot. I had a lot of other issues going on as well, such as struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts (I tried to hang myself when I was 11). Star Wars was always the thing I could get lost in, be it the movies, books, or comics. I could escape my reality for a bit in that galaxy far, far away and when I was done things didn’t seem so bad. For a kid like me that was a very important thing. So when I say Star Wars is important to me now you have some idea of just how much and why.
I got the news about yesterday’s big announcement in the form of a text message from my girlfriend. Like most other people I was completely shocked and then I checked to make sure it didn’t inexplicably become April 1st somehow. Disney bought out Lucas? New Star Wars movies? What the what?!
I read all the articles, watched the videos of Lucas and company discussing the deal and the future of Star Wars, and then I headed straight for Facebook & Twitter- like you do. Most of my close friends and fellow nerds had the same general reaction I had- cautious optimism. Lucas has had a profound impact on movies- no one denies that. He is a genius in his own way, and as a fan I owe him a great deal of gratitude. That said, Star Wars has always been best when Lucas was a “creative consultant” and other talented people were left to do the heavy lifting. The original trilogy worked so well because Lucas had no choice but to make it a collaborative effort. Empire Strikes Back is a perfect example as Lucas came up with the story and produced but left the rest to other people. It’s the reason it is the best film of the entire series. As another example The Clone Wars, as i stated previously, has grown to be a genuinely good show. Sure it has a few episodes each season that fall flat, but overall it’s quite good. The reason for that is Lucas has a lot of talented, creative people working on the show, and he’s only there to give his two cents. The prequels, in contrast, were the way they were because Lucas had complete creative control and there was no one to tell him otherwise when he did horrible things like Jar Jar Binks.
With Kathleen Kennedy (who has a great professional pedigree) in charge while Lucas is only a “creative consultant” and is otherwise retired, we have a real shot at getting the kinds of movies we all hoped the prequels would be. That’s not even mentioning the TV shows and other additional movies that will result (Pixar Star Wars anyone?). As I scrolled through Facebook and Twitter I found exactly what I was expecting- a ton of people generally being hipster naysayers. You have the “rape/take a dump on my childhood” set; the “Lucas sold out!” set, which genuinely amuses me to no end; the douchebags who are going to crap on everything regardless because they think it’s “cool”; and then the largest group, who are genuinely concerned and/or just outright negative because the prequels completely turned them off towards Star Wars. This last group I can completely understand. Whoever ends up helming Ep. 7 is going to have a HUGE job ahead of them, because the movie is going to have to be damn near perfect to win back a lot of the goodwill that was squandered with the last three movies. I still have hope. Call me cautiously optimistic. Here’s why:
Let’s look at Disney’s track record and ignore the ridiculous “The mouse owns everything and they’re going to turn Star Wars into the mouseketeers in space!” people. Disney currently owns Pixar, Miramax, & Marvel. All three have not only NOT been turned into something they were not previously, but they have arguably improved greatly since the Mouse took them over. Let’s look at Marvel specifically because it’s the closest example to the current situation with Lucasfilm. There were cries of “DOOOOOOM!” when the deal happened a few years back, with people saying the same kinds of things as they’re saying now about Star Wars. What really happened? None of it. The comics side of things pretty much kept doing what they always have done (for better or for worse). Marvel Studios was now able to make the kinds of movies that fans and general audiences who know nothing of comics want to see. The results have been a shared Marvel movie universe with awesome quality ultimately resulting in a movie that a lot of people never thought they’d be able to pull off well- The Avengers. You remember The Avengers don’t you? The third highest grossing film ever? The movie that was pretty much an overwhelming hit with both critics and audiences around the world? Yeah, that movie. Under the Mouse.
What I’m saying is let’s give them a chance to show us what they have in mind. Lets stop peeing in the Cheerios of fans who are actually excited and hopeful that their favorite universe might get the treatment we’ve been wanting for decades. That’s not to say I don’t have my own reservations- most notably what might happen with the comics once the contract with Dark Horse runs out. However, even in those areas I’m willing to wait and see rather than freak out. For the first time in over a decade I’m excited about Star Wars. I feel like that teenager again who would hunt the internet for rumors, any rumors, about the new movie. That guy who talked for hours with friends both online and off about the possibilities. I missed that guy, and I’m hoping he’ll stick around for a while.
J.R. Broadwater is the author of the non-fiction book Down with the Thickness: Viewing the World From a Fat Guy’s Perspective, and the sci-fi detective novel You Only Die Twice, both available now in digital and paperback formats. Sample chapters and more information about both books can be found here.
Filed under Rant Alert
Holy Crap! Disney Buys Lucasfilm!
In a move no one saw coming, Disney signed a deal to buy Lucasfilm today for 4 billion dollars, which includes all of Lucasfilm’s trademarks such as the Star Wars franchise and Indiana Jones, as well as Skywalker Sound and ILM. They then announced that Lucas has been working with Disney execs in planning out more Star Wars movies, something Lucas previously said would never happen, with the first, Episode 7, being set to release in 2015 kicking off a new trilogy. I’m absolutely floored right now. I actually checked to make sure this wasn’t a prank, then I checked the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1st, but it’s real. You can check out the details along with a video here.
Filed under Rant Alert
Authentic Entertainment 