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Kevin Lauderdale is back with a look at a documentary on the Kenner Star Wars toys phenomenon. Plastic Galaxy.

From the Plastic Galaxy website:

When Star Wars landed in the theaters, it introduced audiences to a galaxy filled with heroes and villains, robots and space ships, and a dizzying variety of alien life. But when the lights came up, they all disappeared...

Unless you had all the toys. In which case, the adventure never had to end.

In backyards, playgrounds, basements, and bedrooms, Star Wars toys helped kids re-enact scenes from their favorite movies, and create entirely new dangers for Luke Skywalker and his friends to face. They were lusted after on holidays and birthdays, swapped with great cunning out on the school yard, and carefully collected like fine treasures. Like no toys before them, the action figures, space ships, play sets, and props were a phenomenon that swept the nation with as much force as the film that inspired them. Along the way they transformed both the toy and movie industries, earned those behind them vast amounts of wealth, and ultimately created a hobby that, 30 years later, still holds sway over not only the people who grew up with the toys, but also an entirely new generation of fans.

Plastic Galaxy is a documentary that explores the groundbreaking and breathtaking world of Star Wars toys. Through interviews with former Kenner employees, experts, authors, and collectors, it looks at the toys’ history, their influence, and the fond and fervent feelings they elicit today.

The film, which will be released on DVD, also includes tours of some of the top collections -- comprising prototypes, bootlegs, foreign toys, and all manner of surprises. DVD extras, including micro-documentaries and extended interviews, make Plastic Galaxy a prize for not only newer fans, but also long-time collectors.

The DVD will be Region 0, meaning it will be playable on any DVD player or computer in any country. Even in galaxies far, far away...

Plastic Galaxy will be released on DVD in January 14, 2014. To continue to receive updates and news, please subscribe to our mailing list, follow us on Twitter, and friend us on Facebook. For more information, feel free to write us at info(at)plasticgalaxymovie.com, or use the feedback form.

Links of Interest

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Clay and Debby are back in time to wish you well as the world is about to end...again.  This one almost flew under their radar.  How are you supposed to prepare for the end of the world...again?  This time they take a look at the Ragnorok prophesy.  They can thank Darren Marlar for the heads up on this one.  To get more goodness from friend of the show Darren Marlar, visit his website at http://www.marlarhouse.com/wordpress/ .

Take a moment to comment on the episode in the forums or by writing john@chronicrift.com or by calling 888-866-9010.

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A 2012 Parsec Finalist

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Tonight’s Diners: Scott, Miles, and M.

Welcome to the Diner

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Tonight:

We interview Larry Nemecek. Take a fondness for NASA’s pioneering “Right Stuff,” run it through a science-fiction and fandom filter with a big love of history, and toss in schooling and careers in news, theatre and entertainment—and that starts to explain the Larry Nemecek story.

From his local news perch, Larry’s annual “TNG” concordance guides caught the eye of Star Trek’s TV writers and Pocket Books all the way from Oklahoma, of all places—so much so that the ST: The Next Generation Companion became the first episode guide for modern Star Trek, twice updated, and a move to good ol’ Burbank seemed in order.

That’s when Trekland truly beckoned—and that’s where the reputation for both fan-cool and pro-savvy straight talk was born.

Please visit his site: http://larrynemecek.com/.

It’s all there: Not just articles, columns, collaborations and live events, but years of on-lot sourcing media or solo writing with the Original Trek Fact Files from the U.K., or the Japan DVD series … consulting work with the old startrek.com (and the new, as well), or seven years creating, editing and leading Star Trek Communicator licensed magazine. Most fun are consulting gigs with the Star Trek: The Experience museum and rides … exhibits like the Star Trek World Tour, Star Trek: Federation Science, Star Trek: The Tour … and DVD bonus feature projects on and off camera. A story sale to Voyager that became the episode “Prophecy” with wife Janet was a hoot as well.

And that library: years of backstage images and over 500 archival audio interviews with Star Trek’s creative lights—it all needs airing, too. Most have never been transcribed, much less published—and the great Trekland family over the years has plenty to tell. Now there’s fan films and audio plays, too … reclaiming and reinventing the roots of fandom itself, once again.

Finally, those audio tapes are seeing the light of day in Larry's brand-new remastered audio series, "TREKLAND: On Speaker," launched in 2012 with a surprise debut at the Las Vegas Convention.

And his first film is now in the works, a documentary that had to be made—"The Con of Wrath," the true story of the 1982 Houston "meltdown to miracle" featuring the original Star Trek cast, the young event producers, the dealers and the fans themselves at the "Ultimate Fabhtasy," the first Trek "rock star" arena show that did not quite go as it was planned.

On all his projects, Larry brings a wide-ranging but unique and down-to-earth perspective—including the sharing of tales as a guest and pundit at conventions across the country or the likes of Canada, Germany, England, France, Italy, Austria, and the Czech Republic, so far. Or even smoothing the way for guests, professionals and/or fans to find each other.

Just don’t try the “get a life” line … Larry is a longtime docent at the State Historic Park ranch house of his hero and fellow Okie, Will Rogers, near Santa Monica, Calif. There’s also family—you know wife Janet and her Voyager heritage from the con circuit, too—plus travel, politics, big band and classic rock and country, keyboards … and, of course, FOOTBALL. Boomer Sooner!