You may have noticed a lack of Top 5 around these parts last weekend. Given the holiday weekend with friends and family, a slow news week in general, and my own recovery from Black Friday shopping at a local Wal-Mart (Note to past self: the kid next to you in line is going to unexpectedly throw-up so…just be prepared for that), it seemed like the logical time to take a week off. In spite of the holiday, though, a few cool things did happen the week before last so you’ll have to excuse the fact that some of this week’s items date back to two weeks ago.

Disclaimer aside, this week’s return includes Allison’s Confessions of a Star Wars Virgin series and more Star Wars news, Adam’s 2013 Oscar Previews, Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel returning for the Boy Meets World sequel series, Girl Meets World, the first programming announcement and an abundance of first images from Sundance 2013, and the synopsis for Star Trek Into Darkness finally sees the light of day. Find a brief recap and link to each after the jump.

This week on The Collision, we’ll be talking with special guest (the show’s first!) Allison Keene (@keeneTV) about losing her Star Wars virginity, the series’ lasting influence, the interaction of the prequel trilogy and the original trilogy, and where the sequel trilogy will go.  As always, we finish up with our recommendations.

Click here to listen to the new episode of The Collision, click here for the previous episode (“The Twilight Legacy and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2“), click here to add the podcast to your RSS, and click here to find us on iTunes. To keep up to date with The Collision, you can follow us on Twitter at @MattGoldberg, @AdamChitwood, and @DrClawMD (Dave Trumbore). Hit the jump to check out the trailers for this week’s recommendations.

Our daily series where Allison Keene watches the Star Wars movies for the first time. Read her intro/explanation here.

First of all, I can see why A New Hope was a surprise hit.  Though there’s a great amount of world-building that could leave room for prequels, and a satisfying, but still open ending that could pave the way (and obviously did) for sequels, the core story is both compelling and entertaining, and introduces a cast of instantly likable characters.  There’s something strange too about how even the non-human elements (the droids) and alien forms (the Jawas) are kinda, well, cute with their bleeps and blips and bloops.  There’s a little something in A New Hope for everyone, and I found it to be a pleasant surprise (admittedly I came to it with haughty reservations).  Hit the jump to explore a slight disturbance in the force.

Fans of Star Wars have managed to parody and re-tell the saga in countless ways, and it’s getting to the point where it’s become redundant and predictable.  Artist Wayne Dorrington has broken the mold by going through every scene in the Original Trilogy, and breaking down to its barest form.  No dialogue, no motion, just basic pictures and symbols.  Dorrington told us that he thinks this is how IKEA would tell the Star Wars movies.  I would agree except that Dorrington’s illustrations makes me laugh whereas IKEA’s instructions make me want to murder every Swedish person in the world.

Hit the jump to check out Star Wars: A New Hope done in “iconograph” form.

Why do people still get outraged about Star Wars?  What’s the point?  People get upset at the Blu-rays.  They get upset when George Lucas opens his mouth.  They get upset when the prequels are even acknowledged.  They lose their freaking minds if you say “Greedo Shot First”.  We’ve been having these discussions since 1997 when the special editions arrived.  Now whenever the opportunity arises, we keep dredging up old controversies.  It’s time to let them go.

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace opens yet again this Friday, and the film is destined to make even more money because all the marketing for the 3D re-release has been aimed directly at kids. Even the junket interviews were conducted by children (you can watch our interviews here, here, and here). George Lucas hasn’t given too many interviews regarding the 3D release, but one hit today that’s sure to grind fanboy gear. During the discussion, Lucas defends the edits he’s made to the Star Wars saga, and specifically addresses CGI Yoda and why Greedo shot first. Hit the jump to see what he had to say.

It’s been a couple of weeks since the release of Star Wars on Blu-ray, and we’ve all said our share of “NOOOOOO”s over the whole “NOOOOOO!!!” unpleasantness. Once again, fans lamented the further erosion of their beloved franchise thanks to an owner/creator who now seems to view it all less as a cinematic classic and more as an extended game of chicken between him and the audience. The nine-disc Blu-ray set continues that grand tradition… and once again, after swearing that they would stand firm, the fan base caved. The set appeared to record sales, and complaints about the new changes were quickly drowned out by the sound of cash registers.

With that in mind, the question now becomes whether the fans have bought a bill of goods: whether the Blu-ray set delivers nothing but another box to sit on the shelf and gnaw at the souls of true believers. I’m happy to report that – unwelcome tweaks notwithstanding – Lucasfilm delivers a magnificent set that does justice to the iconic saga. Hit the jump for the full review.

I love this time of year. The opening week of college football is upon us and we’re in the middle of a three-day Labor Day weekend. To make matters even more enticing, the 100 degree heat of the Midwest is slowly but surely becoming a distant memory. All in all, life is good. Now, for those of you who look forward to our weekly “Top 5″ installment, things are only getting better.

In this week’s edition, we’re bringing you our coverage of Star Wars: The Complete Saga (blinking Ewoks and all), a new batch of set photos from Man of Steel and The Avengers, Don Cheadle’s hilarious albeit disturbing take on Captain Planet, and an exclusive interview with 50/50 director Jonathan Levine. Hit the jump for a brief recap and link to each.

Just the other day, we reported the sad and not at all surprising news that George Lucas has once again tinkered with his Star Wars films for their upcoming Blu-ray debut. One of the more striking edits in Star Wars: The Complete Saga is the inclusion of the universally panned “NOOOO!!!!” cry from Darth Vader into Return of the Jedi. That report was confirmed, and now we have two more clips of Lucas’ “improvements” to the ever-changing franchise. Apparently Ewoks will now blink, because of the fan outcry that the creatures were just too damn unrealistic, and in A New Hope Greedo still shoots first, but the cut is a bit tighter. If that wasn’t enough, we also have a clip of the CGI Yoda that we previously learned will be replacing puppet Yoda in The Phantom Menace. Hit the jump to watch Lucas’ handiwork.

As the high-definition format of Blu-ray looks forward to the franchise of Star Wars: The Complete Saga (Episodes I-VI) hitting its catalogue, it’s time for fans to look back at the historical saga of Star Wars. With the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, the dawn of the 21^st century and now the teens of it, Star Wars has existed in five decades and counting, but how pure was that first one. How glorious was that second, how rejuvenating was that third, how sweet that fourth and the fifth has just started. Before Star Wars is in high-definition, this is Star Wars in retrospect. You’ll need a home theater seat by September 16, but you don’t need a theater seat to experience this now. No, this is your seat on the Millennium Falcon and hyperspeed is after the jump.

If the upcoming Star Wars Blu-ray set included the original theatrical editions of the original trilogy, I would care what special features are on the Blu-ray.  Unfortunately, we’re being stuck with the special editions, complete with Han shooting first, awful Jabba the Hutt special effect, and cringeworthy musical number in Jabba’s palace.  For some people, these added flaws won’t detract from the promise of seeing the beloved trilogy in high-definition.

Lucasfilm has now announced the full list of special features that will be included in the 9-disc set.  While you can buy the original trilogy separate from the prequel trilogy, you’ll have to buy all six films in the “Complete Saga” box-set to get the three additional discs of bonus material.  So if you want the sweet new special features, you’ll have to suffer the indignity of buying the prequels.  Hit the jump for the list of special features and decide if it’s worth it.  Star Wars: The Complete Saga hits stores on September 16th for an SRP of $139.99.  If you’re interested, you can pre-order Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray via this link to Amazon.  In case you only want to partake in either the Original Blu-ray Trilogy or the Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy, you can click here or here respectively.  [Disclaimer: we get a small percentage of from the sale of items purchased through our Amazon links, but if you were going to buy it anyway, why not throw a few credits our way?]

UPDATED: With cover art

All of the Star Wars films will return to the big screen — only this time, in 3D.  We’ve been hearing rumors about this for awhile now, but THR now confirms that George Lucas will milk the franchise once more by releasing new 3D conversions of the films beginning in 2012.  The plan is to release all six films — starting with The Phantom Menace — in the early months of 2012.  Depending on how well The Phantom Menace does, each subsequent Star Wars film will be released in order at the same time each following year.  It will supposedly take that long between each film because, according to Lucas, each conversion takes at least a year to complete and to perfect.

Given that it’s Lucas we are talking about, the director will then probably release the 3D versions of the films on DVD after the theatrical re-releases are done. Hit the jump for my thoughts about all of this and why I don’t think it will be that big of a success for Lucas.

Artist Andy Helms has drawn up a set of stunning Star Wars prints based on the original trilogy.  I really dig the symmetry across the three prints and the minimalist approach.  Unfortunately, the prints are sold out, but he says he’s looking into a limited run of some offset prints made of all three of them together.  Fingers crossed he goes ahead with it.

Hit the jump to check out the prints.

College Humor has released a new video featuring a brand new opening crawl to Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope that better fits the heavily edited Special Editions of the original trilogy.

If you’re a Star Wars fan none too happy with the bastardization of the original trilogy by Lucas in the special editions, you need to do yourself a favor and check out this video. Similar to the now famous 70-minute The Phantom Menace review, the video sums up everything wrong with the countless unnecessary edits shoved into the original films in order to make them more “modern” or worse still in order to make them fit better into the new, far inferior trilogy. Some callouts include the insertion of Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader, all the pointless new CGI and the brand new musical soundtrack in Jabba’s Palace.

Hit the jump for hilarity to ensue.