star wars

He was Eric Welch one day... ....and Darth Vader the next. But, really. Eric, a retired marine who owns a gym from Canandaigua didn't have great ties to his family name due to him living in and out of foster homes, so he decided he was going to legally change his name at the WNY DMV to Darth Vader last year...

Consider this an ample warning to turn back now if you haven’t had time to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens yet because we’re about to get into serious spoiler territory. Avert your eyes, ye who wish to remain untainted when it comes to the finer plot points of The Force Awakens. Go forth, lest ye be spoiled on the identity of a character who makes it to Episode 8.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was always going to make enough money to make most blockbusters tremble in fear. That was inevitable. It’s a Star Wars movie. The big question lingering over this opening weekend concerned whether or not it’s surely enormous opening weekend would break the records set by Jurassic World earlier this year. And now, with the early estimates in, we can answer that question: yes and no.

By now, you probably know all about some of the cameos in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, like Daniel Craig’s secret appearance and the actors behind the voice of BB-8. But there are a couple more hidden cameos you most likely didn’t notice — as it turns out, Luke, Leia, Han and Admiral Ackbar aren’t the only classic characters from the original trilogy who appear in The Force Awakens, but J.J. Abra

SNL delivers the greatest Christmas gift of all by inviting both Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to host the 2015 finale together, the way nature intended. With their new comedy Sisters in theaters this weekend (take that, Star Wars), the duo hit the SNL stage in top form with a handful of surprise guests, a couple of classic characters and a whole, whole lot of joy. Read on for our ranking of this week’s sketches from best to worst.

Whether it’s Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead or The Hunger Games, you’ve surely seen one of the Bad Lip Reading videos on YouTube. They take a movie or TV show (or footage from football games) and re-record the dialogue with hilarious results. Today they’ve finally set their sights on the original Star Wars trilogy and they’ve brought along some famous friends for the ride.

Does your family gather around the warm glow of whatever public access channel is showing the 24-hour-yule-log?  Ahhhh the comforting scent of the flat screen.... (???) This is a well-timed (and frankly, quite awesome) alternative for your Star-Wars-loving family. ...

When you’re out promoting a movie, you’re often asked to do a lot of things, most of them pretty silly. With the amount of press the cast of Star Wars: The Force Awakens was being asked to do, there were asked to do a lot of silly things, none perhaps as silly as going on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and singing a medley of Star Wars music a cappella. But the entire cast — including Harrison Ford! — actually commits, and it actually turns out to pretty fun.

Before he was Poe Dameron in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Oscar Isaac was Oscar Hernandez, a high school kid growing up in Delray Beach, Florida who, like many high school kids, played in a local band. Being the mid-90s, ska-punk was making a resurgence (anyone remember Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake?) and Isaac, a singer, guitarist and bassist, was a big part of the local scene with his bands, The Worms and Blinking Underdogs. Whereas video of most of our crappy high school bands remains buried forever, Oscar Isaac is in the new Star Wars movie, so we did some digging and found video from 1996 of one of his sets at Ray’s Downtown Blues in West Palm Beac

At long last, the screenings of Star Wars: the Force Awakens have begun to gradually trickle down through the populace. Last night in Los Angeles, the most beautiful and famous among us had the privilege of bearing witness to J.J. Abrams’ go ...

The original Star Wars was driven by nostalgia for pulp magazines, Saturday-morning serials, and a simpler era with clear-cut heroes and villains. The new Star Wars is driven by nostalgia for the original Star Wars, and a simpler era when that title evoked words like “adventure” and “excitement,” and not words like “the taxation of trade routes,” and “Jar Jar Binks.” The characters in Star Wars: The Force Awakens are all searching for something of great importance to the galaxy far, far away. I won’t reveal what this MacGuffin is, but I will tell you what it represents: that old Star Wars magic. Can director J.J. Abrams and the rest of the saga’s new creators find it?

While many suspected that In the Heart of the Sea would perform well in its opening weekend at the box office, Ron Howard's seafaring epic delivered incredibly underwhelming numbers, while The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 continued its reign for the fourth week in a row. That's all going to change next weekend when Star Wars: The Force Awakens arrives and completely demolishes the competition — if you can even call it "competition."