Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Added to the ranks of presenters at the 2018 Academy Awards today are Mark Hamill, Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac and Lin-Manuel Miranda. (Remember him?) A previous announcement included Laura Dern.
The 90th Academy Awards are airing on March 4 at 8:00 p.m. ET on ABC. The Last Jedi is up for four awards.
‘Jabba Flow,’ the new ‘Cantina song’ from The Force Awakens, is now up on iTunes. Or, if you just want to give it a listen, head over to StarWars.com. This is the first time the song by Shag Kava (aka Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda and J.J. Abrams) has been available outside of the film itself.
Miranda and Abrams performing the song today:
I actually scrolled past this several times in my Twitter feed this morning, thinking it was just another less-than-relevant fan project, but no: Star Wars Headspace is an electronic dance music compilation executive produced by Rick Rubin with the full blessing of Lucasfilm. You can listen to a few tracks over at StarWarsHeadspace.com.
If you’re not an electronic music aficionado, though, there still may be something here for you: The Headspace site is teasing an exclusive premiere for a J.J. Abrams directed video of ‘Jabba Flow’ – apparently not the remixed version. The track by Abrams and Hamilton‘s Lin-Manuel Miranda is heard during the sequence at Maz Kanata’s castle in The Force Awakens, but is missing entirely from the film’s soundtrack. Does this mean a single release? In any case, the video will debut February 18 at 8:15 p.m. on the basic cable channel Freeform (née ABC Family.)
Headspace will be released digitally February 19, with physical copies going to retail on March 18. It can be pre-ordered on iTunes now.
The big news out of J.J. Abrams’ appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon was that he collaborated with Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda on the music for The Force Awakens’ Cantina equivalent. (Maz Kanata’s place, no doubt.)
Hamilton probably needs no introduction (but here’s one from PBS,) since it’s the rare Broadway show that the internet can’t shut up about. You can listen to the original cast recording on Spotify.
Miranda confirmed, in case anyone doubts Abrams:
We did.
Worked on it between 6pm & 7:30 on 2 show days for the past 2 months.
JJ is the best.
Can't wait to see.
https://t.co/pPYu8nRsxI
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 1, 2015