Of the 4,809 PHP developers surveyed in the Developer Pulse, Star Wars was top dog; followed by (gasp) Avatar; then Star Trek.

Here’s the data:

Previous Developer Pulse results showed beer to be the preferred adult beverage for developers — 29 percent of whom said they “live for it” last year. And in 2011, we learned that Metallica reigned supreme among musical choices. On the flip side, respondents that year showed a strong resistance to Bieber fever as well as a pronounced ambivalence about Lady Gaga.

Feature photo courtesy of Flickr user Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer

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“The risks are hugely asymmetric,” Sacks said Wednesday at the Founder Showcase in San Francisco. “The upside is you prevent the company from dying, and the downside is the company dies and you could have saved it. So because of those risks, I think you should raise more than you think. I think most founders, and I know I have, tend to underestimate how much money they’ll need.”

Fundraising is a time-intensive process, and there’s always the fear that a founder will sell off too much of his or her company, he said. Take George Lucas, for example:

“I’m sure we all wish we could own 100 percent of their companies,” he said. “But the reason why George never needed to raise money was he was the only one who could ever do Star Wars.”

Sacks pointed out that for most entrepreneurs, if they discover something new, it won’t be long before competitors will be at their heels and they’ll have to find a way to stay ahead. Fundraising can help them stay in first place, which is important.

“If you win the market, the number one company isn’t worth just a little more than the number two company,” he said, noting it could be worth hundreds more than the second-place competitor in a space. “So it’s hugely important to be number one.”

And when you’re not number one, or your product is suffering? Unlike plenty of entrepreneurs or investors, Sacks is honest in noting that a pivot isn’t something to aim for. But at a certain point, it’s the best way to go, he said.

“I don’t think pivoting is desirable, but if what you’re doing isn’t working, the best thing you can do is admit it and move on.”

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The acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, will be roughly half cash and half stock. It includes all of Lucasfilm — not just the Star Wars franchise but “its operating businesses in live action film production, consumer products, animation, visual effects, and audio post production,” as well as “the substantial portfolio of cutting-edge entertainment technologies that have kept audiences enthralled for many years.”

“We’re likely to focus more on social and mobile than we are on console,” Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger said in an investor call Tuesday afternoon, “given the nature of these characters and how well-known they are…they lend themselves quite nicely to [these] platforms.”

Kathleen Kennedy, who has served as co-chairman of Lucasfilm since June when George Lucas announced that he was getting ready for retirement, will become president, reporting to Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan Horn. She “will serve as executive producer on new Star Wars feature films, with George Lucas serving as creative consultant.” Star Wars Episode 7 is slated for a 2015 release, with the next films to come every two to three years after that. ”A lot of the value that we attribute to this deal is [still] to come,” Jay Rasulo, Disney senior EVP and CFO said on the investor call.

Lucas — who was not on the investor call — said in a statement, “I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come. Disney’s reach and experience give Lucasfilm the opportunity to blaze new trails in film, television, interactive media, theme parks, live entertainment, and consumer products.”

Disney would not disclose Lucasfilm’s annual revenue, but the Star Wars films have pulled in over $4.4 billion worldwide.

Disney’s most recent major acquisition was Marvel Entertainment in 2009. Disney bought Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in 2006.

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1. What’s the one big issue/law/attitude/restriction that you think is
holding back the industry?

Lack of faith in having people pay for your product. Companies rise and fall all the time because all they care about is getting as many users as possible and coming up with the business model later. What most fail to realize is that perhaps their product was never meant to be successful at a massive scale. I want companies to realize the market for their own product and know that those users will pay for it. Xmarks is shutting down next month, a bookmark synchronizing service that I use. They’ve been around for years and have grown very large, but didn’t really have a business plan before it was too late. I would have happily paid them.

I look up to a company like Metafilter [which is] successful with [its] small, paying user base. For them it might have been accidental in hindsight, but then there is 37signals, [which has] built leanness and efficiency into their company philosophy.

If you look at the online video industry, Vimeo is playing it smart and doing well with their Plus subscription accounts. Meanwhile, YouTube is putting ads everywhere possible in order to cover cost therefore ruining the actual experience of their own product.

Then if you just glance over at the gaming industry, you don’t see them offering their technology for free. It’s an understood fact that you pay for the products.

Obviously, a subscription model isn’t the answer to all companies in the industry. There are many ways to financial success. I’m just personally interested in seeing more successful and efficient startups.

2. What industry buzzword do you never want to hear again?

HTML5. Technically it’s not a buzzword, but a lot of people like to use it as one. I think I’m tired of all the HTML5 vs. Flash rants. Just choose the right one for the right situation. I could go on for a while, but I’ll stop there.

3. If someone gave you $50 million to invest in a company in this space, which one would it be? (Mentioning your own doesn’t count.)

Personally, I’m excited about making my life simpler via mobile platforms. I would probably split it between Venmo and Square. With Venmo, I absolutely love that I no longer have to run to the ATM to pay my friend back when I can just pay him or her via text message. Square has the ability to help out tons of struggling new local businesses and individuals, which is incredible.

Venmo has also created a new form of online friendship that I want to see implemented into other social sites. The fact I can officially trust a friend to withdraw directly from my account is very interesting (and scary). Imagine if the trust-connection was implemented into Yelp or Netflix. If I could trust my friends who I think have good taste in food or movies, those sites would now effectively have dramatically improved suggestions for myself. You would essentially develop subgroups of friends who have the same tastes as you.

Sorry, I’m off topic!

4. What was the last video (that you weren’t personally involved with) that you liked enough to spread to others?

All of Nathan Fielder’s videos are hilarious. His videos remind me of The Lonely Island guys back before they were famous. And turns out Nathan already has landed some success by becoming a writer for a show on Comedy Central.

5. WILD-CARD: Star Wars Uncut has proven to be a creative and technological success — but is there opportunity to take a project like this and make it financially viable beyond the LucasFilm copyright?

Definitely. If I went to LucasFilm first, Star Wars Uncut would have taken years to come into existence, if at all. Financial viability for Star Wars Uncut itself is iffy, but my idea has proven a point. Masses of people are excited about the project and even more for the film. Ted Hope said at the Vimeo Festival this past weekend that Star Wars Uncut is the best movie of 2010.

But its success is built upon a massive franchise, so in order to create a financially viable transmedia project, we would have to work with a film or TV studio from the beginning. The success hopefully has opened the eyes of the film and TV industry to show that their audiences are actually interested in consuming transmedia content almost as much as their own original content.

Thanks to the impending interactive set top boxes and video platforms (Boxee, Google TV, Apple TV, etc.) that are all debuting shortly, online video content and projects like Star Wars Uncut could actually start being monetized and consumed through the TV very easily.

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Star Wars: Uncut Trailer from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

Technically, the full-length Star Wars Uncut isn’t a fully edited together version — instead, Pugh programmed an embedded Vimeo player to automatically jump from one scene to the next (because many duplicate versions of scenes exist, it’s the top-rated ones which were selected for the assembly). To watch it, simply go to the Watch page and click the big Play button.

Star Wars Uncut has been compared to Our Footloose Remake, another unauthorized recreation of a beloved film by many, many filmmakers. The difference, though, is that with each creator taking on 15 seconds of the film each, as opposed to five minutes, even more diversity in the approaches is found.

Seriously, watching the full assembly gives you an incredible sense of the project’s scope. Machinima, live-action, Lego, Flash animation, Lady Gaga-inspired posing, action figures, stop motion, small children… All of these and more come together to make a surprisingly watchable version of George Lucas’s iconic film — an edited sample of which is embedded below.

Star Wars Uncut “The Escape” from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

When I spoke with Pugh about the project last January, he said that LucasFilm were huge fans of the project, specifically because he “treated it like an art project.” Things are now potentially moving beyond the art project stage, though — according to the site, a fully edited version of the film has been completed, and “we are working through the legal issues in order to bring that to everyone as soon as possible.”

Star Wars Uncut‘s Emmy nomination for Creative Achievement in Interactive Fiction makes it the only independently-produced project to be recognized in either interactive category. Its reel, presented to Emmy voters, does a great job of showing off exactly why it deserved to be nominated.

SWU Reel – Emmy from Casey Pugh on Vimeo.

It’ll be interesting to see if a win this Saturday at the Creative Arts ceremony — or even the benefit of additional exposure — has any effect on the project’s legal fate.

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Star Wait was filmed in 2002 during the lead-up to Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (the most disappointing of the Star Wars prequels — or at least that’s what I think), and consists mostly of interviews Rotman and editor Adam Schenck filmed with the hardcore Star Wars enthusiasts who spent six weeks waiting in line to see Episode II premiere at the Mann Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.

While Star Wait was available as a feature film on DVD in 2005, its 2002 origin was as a web series. According to Rotman, with whom I spoke via phone, he and Schenck would visit the line, take their footage, and edit together an episode the next day, posting it to their website as a “postage-stamp sized” Quicktime video (as YouTube and other hosting options didn’t exist back then). The site attracted up to 150,000 hits a week back then, and clips on YouTube still rack up views. Rotman believes it to be “one of the first docu-reality web series ever.”

After being reedited as a feature film, Star Wait‘s 2010 transition back to web series from feature film isn’t necessarily perfect — episode one opens with a 1:45 credit sequence/montage that introduces the primary characters but is much better suited to a full-length film than a web series, and concludes with an abrupt cut (the result of an encoding problem). But future installments, Rotman says, will be more polished and standalone, and in the meantime the content of the first episode is undoubtedly intriguing.

For, as Rotman and Schenck document, waiting in line for Star Wars wasn’t as simple as sitting down in a lawn chair: Those participating in the line were obligated to log a certain number of hours waiting, raise at least $50 for charity and wear customized badges. The entire process is given a great deal of dignity, as these fans aren’t treated as a crazed mob, but instead as distinct individuals, with different reasons for engaging with the franchise and different attitudes towards important issues like spoilers. One of the funnier sequences in the first episode, in fact, is when fans explain the color-coded badges they wear, which indicate not only their participation in the line but the level of advance knowledge they want to have prior to seeing the film.

According to Rotman, he doesn’t plan to leave the series online “forever,” but will keep the nine episodes available for the foreseeable future. The film version is still available on DVD in North America, and Rotman is looking to expand its reach with worldwide distribution. Star Wait might not be perfect web content, but it’s a great example of recycling — especially since, despite the eight years that have passed since its filming, its tale of passionate fans is still very relevant.

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Star Wars Uncut – Scene 400 from r2witco on Vimeo.

Pugh chose to recruit people to recreate Star Wars above all other films because of its global appeal. “I can’t think of a single other movie that has such a huge following — even if you aren’t a fan of it, you know it. It’s a globally recognized part of our culture,” he said. Three days after launching the project, every scene had been claimed; the first uploads of scenes came from France, Germany and Japan.

Fans have submitted up to five different versions of classic moments from the iconic sci-fi film since the project’s launch. If everything goes according to plan, the last scenes should be uploaded by the end of the month, at which point Pugh will take everything offline for approximately 30 days so that he can develop the next iteration of the project. The completed version will allow people to vote for their favorite scenes and enable tagging on individual scenes, from animation to parody; he also plans to assemble a final version of the top-rated scenes, accompanied by composer John Williams’ score.

According to Pugh, “there’s no genre of film these people haven’t done.” He’s also planning to reward people for their participation through a Foursquare-esque system of badges.

This week, Pugh met with Lucasfilm regarding the project — according to him, they’re huge fans of the project, and like his approach, specifically because he “treated it like an art project.” The project remains a nonprofit one; while there’s no immediate potential for monetization, he does foresee the potential to work with companies to replicate the process for other films or film trailers. Though whether or not the idea would work with other films is unclear. “[Star Wars] is our culture, our blood,” Pugh said. “I don’t think it would work with Indiana Jones or Ghostbusters.”

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Trench Run is based around the Rebel assault on the Death Star at the end of George Lucas’ classic 1977 movie. Piloting an X-Wing fighter, you begin the game high above the Empire’s dreaded Death Star in an aggressive dogfight with TIE fighters. Once you’ve dispatched them, it’s time to descend into that famous trench and make your approach to a small (two meter wide) thermal exhaust port, which, if memory serves, you’ll find right below the main port.

Oh, and, the shaft is ray-shielded so you’ll need to hit it directly with proton torpedoes. The doubting Dodonna’s amongst you might think that impossible — even for an iPhone — but, y’know, womp rats, T-16’s and all that.

The game starts with a fierce dogfight with TIE fighters above the dreaded Death Star…

…and culminates in the famous trench run.

Trench Run uses the iPhone’s accelerometers to great effect. I’m usually wary of extensive tilt-control. That might be because I’m just rubbish, or because developers sometimes use accelerometers unnecessarily. In Trench Run it’s not too bad, and there are options for adjusting pitch and sensitivity.

The on-screen controls are cleverly implemented; there are no virtual buttons cluttering the screen. Instead, the two main controls (Force Power for slow motion and, of course, Fire) are activated by pressing the left or right hand sides of the screen. Easy.

The few controls are activated by hitting large areas of the screen

Video sequences of the X-Wings approaching the Death Star (S-foils in attack position, naturally) and the spectacular explosion of the Death Star itself (the 1997 bang, by the way) really help set the scene. But it’s John Williams’ breathtaking score that puts you slap bang in the middle of the action.

All Wings report in…

One quibble; the difficulty levels are a bit… odd. The easiest level was selected for me at installation so I bumped it up a level (usually labeled “Normal” but Trench Run goes directly from Easy to Medium.) So, with Medium selected, I dove in… and failed. I’m normally good at this type of thing but after 15 minutes of failure I was starting to hate this game. So I tried again on “Easy.”

10 minutes later I had destroyed the Death Star and defeated the evil Empire. I had finished the whole game. See, once the dogfight’s over, the actual trench run is appallingly easy. THQ Wireless say the game has “tons of replay value” but when the difference between “Easy” and “Medium” is actually “Pointless” and “Practically Impossible” I don’t see myself playing this again any time soon. (Now in your best Yoda voice, croak “That is why you fail.”)

THQ also says there are hidden features in the game. You could always stretch out with your fingers and ask Google what they are, but that’s probably the path to the Dark Side.

If you love Star Wars, this is a game you should own. I doubt it’s worth the $4.99 asking price, but hey, there’s profit to be had, and Lucasfilm ain’t finished beating this Tauntaun just yet.

Star Wars Trench Run is out now. Go buy it – and may the Force be with you.

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Report: Teens Trade in Live TV for iPlayer; well-read report from a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley in Europe details young people’s use of technology and entertainment. (Bloomberg)

TwitVid Launches iPhone App; software lets you record a video, write a Tweet and post it to your Twitter account using the iPhone 3GS. (VentureBeat)

Online Still an Afterthought for TV Ad Buyers; despite the growth in online ad spending, advertisers and ad agencies remain hesitant about shelling out for something they still see as experimental; plus there isn’t an upfront-like organizational sales structure. (paidContent)

The NYT Shows How Howcast Works; how-to video site has more than 100,000 videos on its site and generated 20 million views across its network last month. (The New York Times)

Star Wars Uncut Asks Fans to Re-Shoot the Movie; it’s sci-fi sweding as fans called dibs on different 15-second increments to recreate the film from homemade scratch. (io9)

Adventures of One Eskimo Mixes Music and Online Video; the “visual album” from the band One Eskimo to come in 10 installments that feature a song and accompanying animated storyline. (Video Business)

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But Chad Vader doesn’t exactly come off as cutting edge these days; the first episode of season 2, released yesterday, is just more of the same old thing. With a storyline focused around the sale of the grocery store, the new episode offers little of what made this show was so exciting to begin with.

Sure, maybe Chad has a crush on his new boss’s secretary, but given that the first episode of season 1 began with Chad using his Force powers to swipe the checkout girl a bouquet of flowers, it’s hardly much in the way of escalation for the character. Nor has the series upgraded its production values from the first season’s old-school look and feel; it’s not even shot in widescreen.

The best thing going for Chad is Sloan’s performance as the voice of Chad Vader, which is dead-on James Earl Jones, to the point that one of Sloan’s many side gigs is supplying the voice of Darth Vader for Star Wars video games. The quality of the imitation means that moments like Vader disciplining the deli counter guy with a Force chokehold are actually believable as the actions of a master of the Dark Side — which is when the joke of the series is operating at peak hilarity.

Chad still benefits from a funny premise and talented performers, but what was great on Channel 101 in 2006 is only so-so today. Hopefully future episodes pick up the pace, because there’s nothing more embarrassing than when a web series shows its age.

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