Lightsabre: the best of 2005

2005 has been a landmark year for star wars and Lightsabre.  it brought revenge of the sith, the conclusion to the saga to the big screen and dvd and the promise of more to come in the form of television and books.  for Lightsabre it meant a march 4th relaunch and redesign, a change in permanent staff and a new mission statement.  now not only would we be bringing you the latest news from the setnin sector but also daily news from all corners of the star wars universe, be it lfl, ilm, actors projects or fan made concerns.  and we tried to bring the biggest and best interviews to the site every fortnight.

so in the spirit of the official sites look back at the year, here are the top five Lightsabre moments.  hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed bringing them to you.

5: the setnin jedi stories

a series of stories written largely during the sites five month hiatus, designed to supplement the release of revenge of the sith by telling of the events of the clone wars within setnin's borders.  introducing new characters such as ade-arr b'erain, shayy and astorr gorre and bringing back characters such as garani allafson and master zeboden, these were a satisfying insight into the clone wars from a Lightsabre perspective.  written to also fit around the pre-existing flight of the rinsome storyline, these stories - the care taker, shayy, the creeping fear, the villain revealed and death story - were the focus of much attention on the site as they effectively helped relaunch Lightsabre.

4: return of the setnin select

with the hiatus came a time to do more concentrated work on the stories, history and look of the setnin sector, and the way that's done on Lightsabre is through the setnin select.  after four years of fresh artwork the setnin select programme, inspired by the george lucas selects that previewed attack of the clones, has expanded to include artwork by the likes of dan biesel, chris williams and michael longlands as well as its main contributors louis turfrey and jason brown.  and week by week the archive continues to grow as it pushes its way towards the 200th setnin select, which will hit the site on 4th july 2006.

3: setnin radio arrives

the idea of setnin radio has seeds in the nhp audio tapes of the 1980's by mark newbold and jonathan hicks.  the wish to include audio on the site has been there all along, but it wasn't until the hiatus that louis turfrey suggested a radio show, and thus the idea of setnin radio was born.  now, the weekly chat covers all aspects of star wars and general sci-fi beyond - and quite often louis dog draco - and with the show now being hosted on nathan p butlers star wars fanworks site, the sky's the limit.

2: site redesign

Lightsabre as it existed previously ended in september of 2004 with the site not being updated until late february of 2005, but those five months were a hive of activity.  after a non-stop run of site work stretching back to 1998, before the creation of Lightsabre, it was freeing to be able to concentrate time purely on stories and artwork.  and in those months, as well as designing the new layout with louis turfrey utilising the amazing art of dan biesel, the new improved Lightsabre was born.  and it seems to have turned out to be a worthwhile effort as the site continues to reach new people and hit previously unknown levels of popularity.

1: interviews with the stars

2005 brought more stars of star wars to the site than any year since our 1999 launch.  since the relaunch in march the site has welcomed ian liston, gerald home, caroline blakiston, shannon mcrandle, mike quinn, phil tippett, kenny baker, jeremy bulloch, daniel logan, jonathan l bowen, dermot crowley, garrick hagon, gil taylor, toby philpott, rena owen, julian glover, matt busch, joe corroney, peter mayhew, richard le parmentier, cynthia cummens and don bies.  and 2006 promises to continue that tradition with more star interviews lined up as well as our new webmasters interviews starting january 14th 2006.