Cloning

With, presumably, no more live-action episodes coming, what can fans reasonably expect from "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," the theatrical pilot for the upcoming animated television series? Well, there's knockout animation, facsimiles of popular characters and plenty of action. But anyone older than 8 with the majority of brain functions intact will have a bad feeling about this.

George LUCAS, looking overheated under the midday sun, gamely worked the red carpet last Sunday at the world premiere of the latest cinematic installment to his space saga, "Star Wars: The Clone Wars." At one point, Lucas was photographed with one of his most avid fans, a grinning, chubby fellow from Pennsylvania who showed up at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre wearing two-day stubble, a sweat-stained shirt and a brimmed frontier hat that Indiana Jones would admire.

ImClone Systems Inc.'s board of directors said Monday that cancer drug partner Bristol-Myers Squibb Co.'s $4.5-billion buyout offer "substantially undervalues" the company, with Chairman Carl Icahn personally against the deal. Despite calling the bid too low, ImClone stopped short of rejecting it and said its board formed a committee to weigh the offer. The board also said it was considering splitting the company into two units to focus on Erbitux and its developing pipeline separately.

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. on Thursday offered $4.5 billion in cash for biotechnology company ImClone Systems Inc., saying the two, which are cancer drug partners, were "a natural fit." The proposal offers ImClone stockholders $60 a share, a 30% premium over the company's closing price of $46.44 on Wednesday. Bristol-Myers, the world's No. 14 drug maker by revenue, already owns about 17% of ImClone.

The Television Critics Assn. Press Tour, the semiannual gathering of television journalists from around the country, continues at the Beverly Hilton. We offer these dispatches. -- With the "Star Wars" franchise coming to the small screen this fall, television critics got a sneak peek Friday morning at an entire episode of "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," though they were asked not to reveal too many details. The animated episode will air on Cartoon Network and TNT at an undetermined date this fall, along with 21 others in a series that further broadens the reach of the formidable and lucrative "Star Wars" story.

The animated "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" will have its world premiere at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on Aug. 10, five days before it opens in theaters. Proceeds from the premiere will benefit the American Cinematheque, a film organization based at the Egyptian. The Egyptian was one of two Los Angeles theaters where the first "Star Wars" sequel, "The Empire Strikes Back," played during its extended run in 1980. Tickets for the 4 p.m. premiere will be on sale exclusively to American Cinematheque members until July 23 and will then be available to the general public.

A Northern California biotech company announced Wednesday that it would clone dogs for the five highest bidders in a series of online auctions. Some ethicists condemned the offer, fearing it could lead to human clones. Opening bids start at $100,000 for the service being offered by Mill Valley-based BioArts International. The cloning process is to be performed by South Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who scandalized the international scientific community in 2005 when his breakthrough human cloning research involving embryonic stem cells was found to have been faked.

First "Indiana Jones," and now "Star Wars" -- this summer is turning out to be the season of George Lucas. "Star Wars: The Clone Wars," a new stylized, computer-animated feature film, will open Aug. 15 in theaters and set the stage for a tie-in television series with the same name and mode of artwork that will begin airing as a 30-minute weekly series in the fall on the Cartoon Network and TNT.

When Cyagra Inc. holds an office potluck, no one's stomach churns when the lasagna, meatloaf or tacos are made with cloned beef. The cutting-edge ingredient was produced on the company's Pennsylvania farm for the Food and Drug Administration, which spent seven years evaluating the safety of meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring. "We had leftovers," so we used them, said Steve Mower, director of marketing for the Elizabethtown, Pa.-based company.

With the Food and Drug Administration having declared that meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring are safe, opponents of such food are shifting their fight to how the fare is labeled. Although the FDA said it would not require special labels, legislation already introduced in the Senate could force its hand. Many consumers are demanding that the agency allow food from conventional animals to be labeled "clone-free" -- a marketing move that could dash industry hopes of getting beyond the clone debate.