I admit it. Like so many millions, I am a Star Wars geek. Having been born right smack dab in the middle of the 1970s, it was pretty hard to not fall in love with the franchise in my formative years. My very earliest memories are populated by Luke Skywalker action figures, and toy versions of the most beautiful spaceships ever designed.

To say that the series had an impact on my life, and my love for cinema, would be a massive understatement. When my two young kids asked me to detail just how Chicken Run was made, I involved them in the creation of a short stop motion film starring R2-D2 so they could (hopefully) learn by doing. In anticipation of Revenge of the Sith, I composed a tongue-in-cheek limerick about Obi-Wan Kenobi where each of the six stanzas referred to one of the films. Just this past weekend, I attended a Halloween event at a military aircraft museum because I really wanted to get my picture taken with an amazing, fan-made replica of R2-D2 that was onsite (well, I also really wanted to see the planes…). And I didn’t just go way out of my way to make it to each of the last three Star Wars films on opening night, my best friend actually flew across the country so that we could share in the experience together (both the excitement, and the disappointments). Yes, I am a Star Wars geek.

As both a Star Wars geek and a cinephile, my mind has been consumed by a single question since yesterday’s announcement that Disney had bought Lucasfilm and would be producing a new trilogy of Star Wars films beginning in 2015. That question? With George Lucas (thankfully) out of the picture, who will be hired to direct? Here is my wish list:

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What, exactly, does "Tintin" mean to you? There’s a very good chance that for you, "Tintin" is simply the title to Steven Spielberg’s new, mo-cap animated film that opened in theatres this past week… and nothing more. But for me "Tintin" isn’t just a funny sounding name for a character or movie. Tintin is a passion that has been with me for most of my life. Tintin was my gateway drug to the world of comics, a medium that I grew to adore as much as any other, and that I still love today.

Tintin in America is the first comic book that I can recall reading. Well, there had always been the comic strips in the daily newspaper, but that’s not quite the same. I discovered a few Adventures of Tintin books in a dark, neglected section of a local book store back in 1983 or ‘4. Back then, graphic novels and other comic collections just weren’t stocked at traditional book stores so finding comics—especially comics that I’d never even heard of—felt like a wondrously odd and magical discovery. I was in second grade—eight years old, or about to be. In the years that followed, I picked up copies of all the Adventures of Tintin books; I’ve probably read each of them a dozen times. And now, 28 years since my first encounter with the character, we have a Tintin movie created by one of our greatest filmmakers. My expectations for the film are high. Unreasonably so. No current film project is dearer to my heart than this one.

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