Club Jade

Surprising no one, Star Wars is returning to the United Kingdom, StarWars.com announces.

“We’ve devoted serious time and attention to revisiting the origins of Star Wars as inspiration for our process on the new movie, and I’m thrilled that returning to the UK for production and utilizing the incredible talent there can be a part of that,” said Kathleen Kennedy, President of Lucasfilm. “Speaking from my own longstanding connection to the UK with films like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Empire of the Sun and recently War Horse, it’s very exciting to be heading back.”

They aren’t saying exactly where in the country the film will be shot, though Pinewood does seem likely due to their deal with Disney. (And it could also be good news for Scotland, though it’s probably too early for anyone to say.)

The original trilogy and The Phantom Menace were all primarily filmed in the U.K., while Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith did most of their shooting at 20th Century Fox’s studio in Australia, though they returned to the U.K. for pickup shots.

Details are in the photo, but here’s the link again.

Ashley also gave us another look at the X-Wing dress today! (Since May 4th has come and gone, I suspect this will go on sale when Disney’s Star Wars Weekends begins.)

We’ve already seen the blurb, but now io9 has the cover for John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi! It’s pretty standard, but nice and simple: Glad to see not every cover we’re getting this year is photoshop trickery!

And here’s that blurb again, because why not:

Tatooine—a harsh desert world where farmers toil in the heat of two suns while trying to protect themselves and their loved ones from the marauding Tusken Raiders. A backwater planet on the edge of civilized space. And an unlikely place to find a Jedi Master in hiding, or an orphaned infant boy on whose tiny shoulders rests the future of a galaxy.

Known to locals only as “Ben,” the bearded and robed offworlder is an enigmatic stranger who keeps to himself, shares nothing of his past, and goes to great pains to remain an outsider. But as tensions escalate between the farmers and a tribe of Sand People led by a ruthless war chief, Ben finds himself drawn into the fight, endangering the very mission that brought him to Tatooine.

Ben—Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, hero of the Clone Wars, traitor to the Empire, and protector of the galaxy’s last hope—can no more turn his back on evil than he can reject his Jedi training. And when blood is unjustly spilled, innocent lives threatened, and a ruthless opponent unmasked, Ben has no choice but to call on the wisdom of the Jedi—and the formidable power of the Force—in his never-ending fight for justice.

Kenobi will be out in hardcover on August 27. Meanwhile, it was recently revealed that July 9th’s Crucible will contain an excerpt from Kenobi.

It’s Friday, so please take this video of Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy. It really is kind of cute.

Meanwhile, if you want the actual thing instead of just jokes about it, Star Trek: The Exhibition will be making the rounds to San Diego, Los Angeles, and Arizona this year.

Like these movies won’t be hits? As the Star Trek Into Darkness junket clips stagger out into the world, Abrams implies to MTV that the Star Wars spinoffs will depend on Episode VII going the distance.

Also from MTV: Damon Lindelof on Abrams and Star Wars, and they even asked Leonardo DiCaprio if he’d like to do future Star Wars. (He famously turned down Attack of the Clones back in the day.)

On that note… Simon Pegg talks about Abrams and Star Wars with Totalfilm – though he clarifies that he has no inside info from Abrams. And yes, they’re still asking random movie folks about Episode VII.

Interview. And finally, for someone who will almost certainly actually be in Episode VII, here’s more from Mark Hamill.

Here’s an official video featuring last weekend’s the Return of the Jedi event… Time to play spot James! Can you find him? Hint: He speaks!

Oh, and I think that pretty much confirms the 30th logo, no?

Or, the grass is green, but if you’re keeping track, here are the pertinent remarks from the Disney earnings call earlier this week, via Yahoo.

“In addition to the Star Wars feature films that we’ve already talked about, we’re also working on opportunities for television and our parks,” Iger said. “It’s still very early in the process. We’ll announce details as these developments evolve.”

Naturally.

Abrams tells HitFix that the new movies must work ‘on its own terms,’ not just depend on the pre-existing love for the franchise.

While we’ve known that the first LEGO Star Wars: The Yoda Chronicles special has been coming out in May for several months, StarWars.com finally has announced the series, and revealed the first special’s name: ‘The Phantom Clone’, airing May 29 at 8 PM (PT/ET) on Cartoon Network.

The official site points out that while we’ve had LEGO Star Wars specials in the past, The Yoda Chronicles is first to really introduce new main characters just for the shows, in this case: a clone, Jek 14, who has been “enhanced” by the Force. ‘The Phantom Clone’ and the other two future The Yoda Chronicles specials are produced by Wil Film ApS and written by Michael Price, who wrote the hilarious previous LEGO Star Wars specials, The Padawan Menace and The Empire Strikes Out.

The Yoda Chronicles looks like it will be a full LEGO Star Wars franchise, with guide books coming out from DK, and LEGO building sets coming out in August, and this past May the 4th saw the release of the associated iPad/iPhone game. Check out the show’s trailer below.
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Start your theories, people who care that Lucasfilm registered a bunch of domain names! Fusible was first to notice.

The domains include starwarsrebels.com, starwarsalliance.com, order67.net, wookieehunters.com, starwarswolfpack.com, and wolfpackadventures.net. (Wolfpack, if anyone is wondering, is a clone trooper squad that gained a good bit of traction among Clone Wars fans.)

An extraordinary amount of comment seems to focus on gunganfrontier2.com, gunganfrontier3.com and gunganfrontier4.com, which could mean sequels to a 1999 learning game or just someone at LFL being a hilarious troll.

In any case, the tendency with these domain things is to assume they’re video games, so consider the speculation floor open.