While I was pretty much psyched for every film panel on Saturday at the New York Comic Con, the one I was most giddy about was the Lucasfilm presentation, which featured the fourth Indy film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; the Vol. 3 DVD for The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones; LEGO Indiana Jones; the Indiana Jones trilogy Special Editions; the upcoming animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and television series; the Star Wars: Force Unleashed videogame; Star Wars Celebration, and the Star Wars: Robot Chicken TV special.

Why the Lucasfilm panel when the likes of Hellboy II and The Incredible Hulk would make an appearance that today, too? Well, everybody has their “thing” and Star Wars/Indiana Jones is my thing.

Hosting the panel was Lucasfilm’s Steve Sansweet and much of the presentation was footage shown of the WonderCon panel, along with some clips of the upcoming offerings.

INDIANA JONES

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
No new footage was shown for this film, which hits theaters on May 22, 2008, but we did get to see the previously released trailer. Sansweet then held up Del Rey’s upcoming The Complete Making of Indiana Jones: The Definitive Story Behind All Four Films, written by Lucasfilm’s J.W. Rinzler (author of Making of Star Wars). Sansweet said that this coverted copy of book, which will cover the making of all four films, contains plenty of spoilers and has information about what took place in the Indyverse in the 16 years since the last movie was released. The book goes on sale May 20, 2008, just two days before the long-awaited Crystal Skull hits theaters.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones, Vol. 3
We got to see some preview footage of the Vol 3. DVD, which will available for sale April 29, 2008.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventure
The previously released trailer for the Indiana Jones-themed LEGO videogame. Cute as hell! Release date is June 3, 2008.

Indiana Jones Trilogy Special Editions DVD Box Set
Just a brief mention about the box set — due out on May 13, 2008 — which contains special editions of the original trilogy: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade. [See previous coverage at “˜Indiana Jones’ Trilogy DVD Release.]

STAR WARS

Star Wars Celebration
This segment opened up the Star Wars and consisted of montage footage of the several years’ worth of Star Wars Celebration, the official Star Wars convention. This year’s Con will be held in Tokyo, Japan, July 19-21, 2008. Tickets go on sale starting May 17 in the U.S., May 18 in Japan.

Star Wars: Robot Chicken
Creators Seth Green and Matt Senreich took the stage, where Sansweet interview them about their how they got the blessings from George Lucas to make a half-hour SW-related TV special of their show, Robot Chicken. We were shown as clip of the show of George Lucas lying on his psychiatrist couch. The SW Robot Chicken DVD comes out on July 22, 2008 and it will contain over 2 hours of bonus features.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Some footage from an interview with Brett Rector, who worked on the game, and some clips from the upcoming game, which takes place between SW Episodes 3 & 4. In the game, you play as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice on a mission and in this sampling of it, you break into the TIE Fighter construction facility and kill all witnesses — even stormtroopers, because not even the Emperor knows of your existence. There was another segment show that takes place on expanded universe planet, Raxus Prime, where you’re hunting down the Jedi Knight Kazdan Paratus. A videogame was chosen as the medium to continue this part of the SW saga because videogames are so popular now and they can provide the movie-going experience along with audience participation. I’m not a big gamer (I’m actually a recovering 1980s arcade game junkie), but seriously, I NEED to play this game. The videogame will be released on September 16, 2008, and Sansweet mentions that there will probably be a lot of people “out sick” at work on that day.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Sansweet played a mini-documentary by Dave Filoni, the director of the animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which will be in theaters August 15, 2008. The film takes place between SW: Episodes 2 and 3 with Anakin and Obi-Wan leading the Clone Army against the Separatists. The mini-doc takes a look at Anakin and his relationship with his apprentice Ahsoka. We’re also told that George Lucas was greatly involved in the making of the film, as well as the television series that’s to follow in the Fall. After the footage was shown and the lights came back on, 501st Imperial Legion Clone Troopers were standing on the stage! That’s was pretty cool.