On this week’s The Drill Down podcast, Microsoft gains JEDI powers, Google may get Fitbit, the facts on HBO Max, Facebook makes news…literally, rats who drive, and much, much more.

In just a few days, it will be May the 4th. The day is a popular holiday for fans of the Star Wars universe which is fittingly known as Star Wars Day because, well…May the 4th be with you. Get it? Great! Moving on.

As it turns out, the Empire is none too thrilled with the celebration of such unspeakable things as Jedi and rebels and the Force. And so they’re dipping their corrupt toes into the propaganda pool in hopes of dissuading people from continuing to celebrate. Something tells me the Jedi and rebels and muggles (wait, where are we?) will only party harder this year.

Click on over to the dark side to check out the video.

Ever wonder what it’s like to be a part of the Star Wars universe and be involved in an epic lightsaber duel between Sith lord Darth Vader and a Jedi? Of course you have, don’t be ridiculous. And now you can find out!

The Stunt People created a short first-person perspective video on a GoPro camera in which you start as Vader himself fighting a Jedi, and then eventually transition over to the Jedi’s perspective. The results are pretty awesome…if you can get past this all going down in what appears to be an office building or something. They pulled it off in a half hour, what do you want?!

Check out the video below.

Before those of you who are not fans of the director’s previous films and particular shooting style start to hyperventilate that Zack Snyder is not directing Star Wars: Episode VII, it looks like there’s more news on that front. The man who helmed the remake of the horror classic Dawn of the Dead and the comic book adaptations 300 and Watchmen as well as the forthcoming Man of Steel might be taking a trip to a galaxy far, far away soon after his Superman reboot hits theaters this June. He will just taking a slightly different path.

According to Claude Brodesser-Akner at Vulture, Snyder is at work on a Star Wars project over at Lucasfilm that will be “set within the series’ galaxy, though parallel to the next trilogy.” The still-untitled film will be a Jedi-heavy adventure and be loosely based on The Seven Samurai, the classic 1954 Japanese epic directed by Akira Kurosawa, the celebrated filmmaker whose movie The Hidden Fortress has been acknowledged by George Lucas as a huge influence on the original Star Wars.

Star Wars: Jedi, Volume 1 – The Dark Side
Story by Scott Allie
Art by Mahmud Asrar
Colors by Paul Mounts
Cover Art by Stéphane Roux
Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: February 22, 2012
Cover Price: $18.99

2011 saw the resurrection or rebirth of a Star Wars comic series called Jedi. Initially envisioned as chronicles of specific individual Jedi Knights during the events of The Clone Wars, the new incarnation of the series instead delves a little deeper and further back into the history of the order, and concentrates on Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn in the days he was a young trainer of apprentices and well before the time of Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Subtitled The Dark Side, the new series shadows the final mission of Jinn’s padawan Xanatos and his subsequent fall to the Dark Side of the Force. Xanatos, as a character, had previously been explored as an antagonist in the Jedi Apprentice young adult book series; but this trade paperback delves into an era when he was still a boy.

Intractable and brooding, Xanatos as a 13-year-old padawan evokes the same feel as the Anakin Skywalker of Star Wars Episode II: Attack Of The Clones. It is almost as if the Jedi surrounding him cannot sense the menace and darkness beginning to envelop him; but in the words of Jedi Grand Master Yoda, “hard to see, the dark side is.”