Tag: Star Wars

Categories
GeekWire

Star Wars fans jam ‘Rogue One’ ticket window

Jyn Erso
Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones, in “Rogue One.” (Disney / Lucasfilm via YouTube)

The past 24 hours have brought good news and bad news for throngs of Star Wars fans who are eagerly awaiting “Rogue One,” the next installment in the film saga.

Let’s start with the bad news: Many of those fans faced hours of frustration on the night of Nov. 27, scrambling for advance tickets. At 9:01 p.m. PT, theaters and websites started selling tickets for the show, including seats for opening night on Dec. 15.

At least that was the plan.

Seattle’s Cinerama struggled with its overloaded online reservation system for hours: Users encountered repeated error messages when they tried to connect – and even if they were able to get through to the website, many couldn’t get all the way through the payment process. “Could Not Get Seat Data” was a frequent response.

For the Cinerama’s harried staff, and for hard-core fans who had a hard time getting opening-night tickets to “Star Wars, Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” it was deja vu all over again.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

SPOILER: How Star Wars uses plasma physics

Image: Poster
A detail from the Star Wars movie poster highlights weaponry. (Credit: Lucasfilm / Disney)

Spoiler Alert! This post doesn’t reveal any major plot twists, but it does explore a significant element of the new movie. Stop reading now if you want it to remain a surprise.

X-wing fighter technology hasn’t changed all that much in 30 years, but one of the threats unveiled in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” suggests that the dark side has upped its game when it comes to plasma physics.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Hubble salutes ‘Star Wars’ with lightsaber

An image from the Hubble Space Telescope focuses on jets of hot gas blazing forth from a protostar in the middle of a dusty cloud known as Herbig-Haro 24. (Credit: NASA / ESA)
An image from the Hubble Space Telescope focuses on jets of hot gas blazing forth from a protostar in the middle of a dusty cloud known as Herbig-Haro 24. (Credit: NASA / ESA)

Leave it to the scientists behind the Hubble Space Telescope to capitalize on the craziness over “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Their latest cosmic snapshot shows what looks like a double-bladed lightsaber worthy of Darth Maul.

The lightsaber is actually a pair of jets of superheated gas, emanating a newborn star that’s hidden in a cloak of dust as thick as a Jedi Knight’s cloak. This scene isn’t set in a galaxy far, far away. Instead, it’s 1,350 light-years away in our own galaxy, in a celestial cradle called the Orion B molecular cloud complex.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

How the ‘Star Wars’ saga scores on science

Image: Lightsaber
Kylo Ren (played by Adam Driver) wields a lightsaber with three blazing blades in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” Just be careful where you point that thing, Kylo! (Credit: Lucasfilm / Disney)

The “Star Wars” saga isn’t exactly a science textbook, but there’s one fact about the universe that the movies got dazzlingly right: There are more planets out there than you can shake a lightsaber at.

Back in 1977, the movie now known as “Star Wars: A New Hope” put an assortment of alien worlds on display. There was Tatooine, a desert planet with two suns. Alderaan was Princess Leia’s home planet and the epicenter for a “disturbance in the Force.” Rebels took refuge on a moon in orbit around the gas giant Yavin.

In those days, the idea that there could be so many livable worlds seemed like pure science fiction. “For the most part, scientists thought planets were very rare in the universe,” said Jeanne Cavelos, an astrophysicist-turned-author who literally wrote the book on “The Science of Star Wars.”

Now we know better.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

R2-D2 jet brings ‘Star Wars’ vibe to Seattle

Image: R2-D2 jet
All Nippon Airways’ R2-D2 jet arrives at Sea-Tac. (Credit: ANA via Twitter)

All Nippon Airways’ R2-D2 Dreamliner jet touched down today at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for the first time, two and a half months after the 787 rolled out of Boeing’s Everett factory.

The airliner – decorated in a blue, black, gray and white scheme modeled after the adorable Star Wars robot – is taking on several Seattle-Tokyo flights this month. The timing is perfect for ANA to capitalize on the hype over “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.” And Seattle fans of the movie series, or just plain cool-looking jets, ate it up.

Get the full story on GeekWire.