Merrick here...

Thomas Dolby, who co-authored the mesmerizing theme song to HOWARD THE DUCK back in 1986...

...has an noteworthy entry on his blog. We're specifically talking about Dolby's December 5 entry, which can be found HERE.

Buried unceremoniously beneath a mound of text chronicling his visit to California, Dolby refers to a new STAR WARS movie. It's so fast you could easily miss it:

My host is friend and former collaborator Paul Sebastien, who over the years has worked for Xbox, Playstation, and now LucasArts. Last night he was telling me a little about the forthcoming Star Wars-related TV show, movie and online games—very cool indeed.
[EDIT]
...it sounds like Mr Lucas has got his head into a good place. I met him several times when I was working on a movie in the 80s called [name suppressed to protect credibility!] and he’s a decent chap, but I could have done without the last three SW movies.

We've heard about the TV series both ongoing and forthcoming, and already know there will be more games. But a new movie? Is he talking about a TV project (whether new - or related to the already announced series & whatnot)? Or, is he discussing something different?

Presuming Thomas intended to say "movie"...

Sure didn't like The Prequels much at all (SITH wasn't too bad, although it didn't exactly warm my loins). This said, I've really been enjoying catching up with THE CLONE WARS television series. It's certainly uneven...and I really despise that Lucas feels slavishly compelled to soften his action by injecting broad comedy into heated adventure sequences. But, in the end, THE CLONE WARS represents STAR WARS, told differently, and with more ingenuity and vibrance than the franchise's recent big screen entries (standard DVD and Blu-Ray sets HERE). Proves there's still life in the old mare after all.

If the Lucas that allowed THE CLONE WARS to happen brings us another STAR WARS film - with the same open-minded approach to storytelling? I might be interested. Will the new movie be a stand alone set in the STAR WARS universe, perhaps? Possibly intended to introduce us to another subset of the franchise? We'll see.

The probability of STAR WARS' return to theater screens has always seemed a foregone conclusion. But...unless I missed something...this is the first time we've heard anything pointed about it happening. Back in October, Lucas folk denied that new STAR WARS movies were being planned (HERE). So, unless Dolby misspoke, or is bat-shit crazy, I'm wondering what's changed since then? AVATAR, maybe? Perhaps George now wants a digital/3-D tale of his own? Guess none of this is that big a mystery, really. We've all seen the Whim of George in action before; the winds shift in the blink of an eye.

A tip of the hat to Talkbacker Paulseta, who posted about this in yesterday's AVATAR song Talkback (HERE) - where nobody listened.

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