To what do we owe this unexpected bounty of Carrie Fisher and Stormtrooper goofery? To this August’s Star Wars Celebration, a yearly Florida based convention, and Lucasfilm, who released these photos in anticipation of the event. And there’s plenty more Leia were that came from, so venture downwards, brave reader.

Everyone has heard about the pervy things that Disney animators have slipped into their movies, like the word “sex” in The Lion King, or the erection in The Little Mermaid. But little inside “jokes” like this go way back to the earliest days of Disney when Walt Disney was producing Mickey Mouse shorts. One such joke got one short, “The Shindig,” banned in America in 1930 because an allegedly naked Clarabelle Cow was reading Elinor Glyn‘s Three Weeks, an erotic novel from 1907. Oh, those saucy Disney animators!

R2, we asked you to shut down all the trash compactors on the detention level.

Star Wars fans and fans of fun wordplay alike are loving life today because it is May the Fourth. And while this is also considered Cinco de Mayo Eve, May the Fourth is widely considered (by geeks) to be Star Wars Day because: “May the Fourth Be With You.” See what they did there? But I’ll bet you had no idea that this geektastic phrase has historically-relevant origins — with former Prime Minister of England Margaret Thatcher, and a guy who almost got fired.

At the opening of her first video, this 24 year old grad student named Lizzie Bennet explains that “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Or at least it is according to the pink t-shirts her mother gave her and her two sisters last year for Christmas. Yes, in true meta inversion, this is a world where Elizabeth Bennet of Jane Austen‘s Pride and Prejudice finds Bridget Jones’ Diary to be a dirty pleasure. Part one, of four and counting, is above. More below.

Speaking Correct Order of Words Yoda Is from YodaFan on Vimeo.

I know, I know, stick with this one until it gets out of the prequel trilogy, and you’ll realize an interesting truth: Yoda mostly drops the object-subject-verb order when he’s saying things of great importance and philosophical relevance, i.e., his most moving scenes. And also that you still get chills when he says “That is why you fail.”

(via Red and Jonny.)

When we last saw Homer Liwag, he was making some very bold moves. Moves like giving your girlfriend a ring box with a tiny bag of sand in it, and telling her that Indiana Jones got there first, in order to stall for time as you designed and commissioned a beautiful Indiana Jones inspired engagement ring. The results of that gambit were something we were happy to post back in January.

But, generally, the engagement ring isn’t the last ring that’s involved in the whole getting married process, and so recently Homerliwag shared with us a link to his latest creation: a Star Wars themed wedding band that’s a little bit lightsaber, and a little bit Vader’s chestplate.

There are three things about Star Wars: The Phantom Menace that stick out to me as good. They in no way redeem the whole movie, but, much like all of Iorek Byrnison’s scenes in The Golden Compass movie, I wouldn’t mind paying for a DVD of just those bits. They are: Queen Amidala/Padme, functioning as a clever, dedicated, compassionate and powerful character before she gets relegated to love interest, plot device, and crying gestational receptacle for later main characters in the later two movies; Liam Neeson‘s Qui-Gon Jinn; and the movie’s climactic lightsaber fight.

I might have to shorten that list now.

Look, we know that Star Wars took place a long long time ago in a galaxy far away. But the fine folks at io9 have managed to pinpoint exactly when, by using details from a non-canonical short comic that allowed Indiana Jones to meet his cross-continuity look-alike Han Solo… one hundred and twenty-six years after the Millenium Falcon crash landed on Earth. Okay, so it was more like he met Han Solo’s skeleton. He was looking for the source of the area’s Sasquatch sightings. Starting to get the gist?

Anyway, the story is not canonical, so consider this the non-canonical temporal setting of Star Wars, but that just makes it all the more interesting to imagine that the Battle of Yavin (AKA, the end of Star Wars: A New Hope with the s’plodey Death Star) occurred in the same year as the Louisiana Purchase. Here’s the timeline:

Take a look at that nice-looking Death Star cake. Oh, it’s a cake? Yes, indeed, it’s a cake. And here’s the most excellent part: it’s not that hard, according to the person who made it. Of course, this person might be a professional cake-maker, and thinks anything this elaborate is … a piece of cake. (Hehe, I’m adorable.) Anyway, for more information on how to make this fine pastry, join us after the jump.