Top Hat Sasquatch

In celebration of the LEGO Star Wars Visual Dictionary and the 10 Year Anniversary of LEGO and Star Wars’ beautiful marriage, I hereby give you my top ten coolest LEGO Star Wars sets. Don’t agree with my choices? Let me know in the comments, or forever hold your peace.

10. Sandcrawler – #10144

It may not be the most exciting vehicle from the Star Wars Trilogy, but the Sandcrawler is a pretty impressive beast, especially in LEGO form. This set came with 11 minifigs, including Owen Lars (pre-burn-victim), R2-D2, C-3PO, three Jawas, and a bunch of droids. The middle compartment lifts out, and it even has a tiny cockpit for a Jawa driver. So it only takes one Jawa to drive this thing? Impressive.

9. UCS Imperial Star Destroyer – #10030

Part of the Ultimate Collector Series ($$$), the Imperial Star Destroyer boasts an impressive 3,104 LEGO pieces, is three feet long, and even comes with a scale model of the Tantive IV so you can play tractor beam. I’m not much into the non-minifig-scale sets, but I had to include this because of its sheer scale.

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If you follow me on Twitter (and you should), you’ve probably heard me mention that this coming Saturday is going to be a big day for Saturday Morning Central. SMC is proud to be partnering up with DK Publishing as part of their blog team covering the release celebration of LEGO Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary.

To celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the marriage of LEGO and Star Wars, DK is publishing a visual dictionary packed with facts and photos. The book also contains an exclusive Luke Skywalker (awards ceremony from ANH) minifig!

If you’ve never read one of DK’s books like this, here’s a good idea of what you get.

You can buy the book now on Amazon!

I grew up addicted to their Star Wars Visual Dictionaries, and I was pretty excited to hear about the LEGO Star Wars version. 10-10-09 isn’t just a book release, it’s also a day packed with events all over the country. You can check out the official website of the book to find a complete list of stores, and if you’re lucky enough to have an event close to you, you should go check it out. Members of the 501st will be there to represent the Empire, and you may just run into one of my fellow blog team members.

Unfortunately, there is not a store in Indiana participating, so I will be coming up with some alternative coverage here on the site. Oh yeah, and did I mention the PRIZES? Soon I will post details on how to enter, but here is what you could win from DK:

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As if there wasn’t enough cool stuff to help deplete our checking accounts this year, on October 20th Shout! Factory is releasing a Transformers: 25th Anniversary “Matrix of Leadership” Edition Collector’s Set. It’s going to contain 16 DVDs, 98 restored episodes, a ton of bonus content, voice cast reunions, a 60-page book, Autobot and Decepticon magnets, and more.

This set is a beast. It’s going to be over 38 hours long. It’s going to have archival Hasbro toy commercials, PSAs, art galleries, and even an animated fan film called Transformers: Generations, which is hopefully better than Star Trek Generations.

No word on the cost yet, but we’ll find out closer to October 20th.

I don’t cover music a whole lot on Saturday Morning Central, especially new music, but this is pretty cool. One Eskimo is a band from the UK, and they’re making their debut in the United States by trying out a new concept, a visual album. It’s a combination of music and animation in a 10-part series that tells the story of One Eskimo and his animal friends Giraffe, Penguin, and Monkey. The animation reminded me a lot of the Gorillaz videos, which is appropriate because it was produced by the same studio.

I would best describe the music as indie/electro pop, almost reminiscent of Radiohead. The music combined with the animation is a pretty cool laid back trip. It’s more like an ongoing story than just a collection of music videos.

You can check out the official site or download the latest episodes on iTunes (non-affiliate, iTunes link).

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory has always been one of my favorite movies. I’ve seen it a million times, can quote a good portion of it, and have always loved the music. Oddly enough, I’ve never owned it until now. It was always a movie I caught whenever it was on TV, rented it on weekends, or watched it at my in-laws’ house. That’s not a bad thing though, because the new Blu-ray Book is by far the definitive version of the film to date.

Ever since I made the transition to Blu-ray about a year ago, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory has been a movie I’ve wanted in high definition very bad. I knew the colors and production design would pop off the screen, and I when I popped it in this week, I wasn’t disappointed.

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