Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Paramount released a new featurette video: a first look video at the upcoming Star Trek Into Darkness, with director J.J. Abrams describing the film as ‘upping the ante’ and ‘everything I’ve ever done, wrapped into one movie’ while Chris Pine calls it ‘relentless’. And a handful of clips, mostly from the previously-released trailers, though there are a few new shots. At least, I don’t recall someone dropping some antacids into water in earlier teasers. And some BWAAAAAAAANH! BWAAAAAAANNHH!
We’re heading into the final stretch of the season for Star Wars: The Clone Wars, with the last two episodes of the Ahsoka arc coming this way in the next two Saturdays. ‘Sabotage’ put a terrorist attack on the Jedi Temple, with Ahsoka catching the culprit, but ‘The Jedi Who Knew Too Much’ now has Ahsoka on the run, framed for killing that suspect, and some clonetroopers
I do a little reviewing and catch up on other reviews and news for The Clone Wars:
The investigation behind the Jedi Temple bombing continues in this week’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. With her main suspect in custody, Ahsoka Tano continues her search for justice… or is it revenge that she’s seeking? In the first preview above, Ahsoka goes to meet the perpetrator of the attack, Letta Turmond, in her detention block. The second clip started off as an IGN exclusive with Ahsoka showing a little more emotion than a Jedi should, while discussing the situation with Admiral Tarkin, Anakin Skywalker and Barriss Offee. Is Ahsoka going to get in over her head?
Continue reading “The Clone Wars: Is Ahsoka ‘The Jedi Who Knew Too Much’?”
Looking for some new Mara Jade artwork? Fantasy Flight Games slid a few image of Mara Jade into the base set of Star Wars: The Card Game, which came out in December. The game features artwork on all of the cards, ranging from concept art from Ralph McQuarrie to new artwork done for Fantasy Flight. While not directly named on any cards, Mara Jade makes her appearance as the Emperor’s Hand on two cards in the Sith deck sets for the Dark Side player.
Continue reading “Fantasy Flight slips Mara Jade into Star Wars: The Card Game“
The final story arc of season five for Star Wars: The Clone Wars begins this Saturday, with ‘Sabotage’. A blast within the Jedi Temple has Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano leading the investigation. Meanwhile, public opinion about the Jedi in the war has started to turn against the defenders of the Republic. In the top clip, the Jedi Council members let our crime-solving heroes know that it very well could be one of their fellow Jedi behind the attack. In the clip below, Anakin and Ahsoka are up to their usual tricks, dealing with buzz droids on Cato Neimoidia, in a scene that foreshadows the opening of Revenge of the Sith. And the final clip in this post is a trailer for the entire story arc, focusing on Ahsoka getting into trouble. Continue reading “The Clone Wars kicks off its final story arc of the season with ‘Sabotage’”
The Nerdist Channel has the latest episode of their All-Star Celebrity Bowling show, and it’s the Wolfpack from Star Wars: The Clone Wars taking on Chris Hardwick and his team from Nerdist. Dave Filoni, Ashley Eckstein, Catherine Taber, and Dee Bradley Baker hope to strike back at host Chris Hardwick. There’s probably more bowling / Star Wars puns to be had here, but I’ll spare you.
In the land of not-Star Wars, Lucasfilm picked up a couple awards last weekend:
Red Tails won the NAACP Image award for Outstanding Motion Picture, beating out others such as Flight and Django Unchained. In a video clip from the event, George Lucas shares why he produced the WWII action film about the Tuskegee Airmen.
While the Annie Awards were dominated by wins for Wreck-It Ralph and Dragons: Riders of Berk, a team from Industrial Light and Magic won for Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production: Jerome Platteaux, John Sigurdson, Ryan Hopkins, Raul Essig, and Mark Chataway won for their work on The Avengers. Also in the running, we had The Clone Wars crew with four nominations and LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out with one nomination.
With ‘The Lawless’ airing last Saturday, the story arc of Darth Maul’s ambitions to become a major player in the galaxy have come to an end. Naturally, with many of the big developments that came out of this story, most notably the deaths of Pre Vizsla, Duchess Satine, and Savage Opress, and Maul being spared by Sidious, there’s a lot to talk about with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Here’s a rundown of some of the buzz on Darth Maul / Death Watch storyline: Continue reading “Roundup: Wrapping up the Maul/Death Watch story on The Clone Wars“
Rumor time! While we’ve heard before that Disney was interested in doing Star Wars movies not in the main storyline (looking at you, Zack Snyder’s Seven Samurai-inspired film), but here’s a new rumor to add to the wall: Ain’t It Cool News reports that the first standalone film is going to focus on Yoda.
The first Stand Alone film is going to center upon YODA. At this stage specifics are sparse, but Kathleen Kennedy is putting together a STAR WARS slate… I’m wildly curious for more details on the YODA film – would this be a young or old YODA tale?
As always, it’s a rumor, until we have official confirmation.
Also mentioned in the same post: Star Wars theme land in Disney’s California Adventure.
With some big happenings in Star Wars: The Clone Wars, supervising director Dave Filoni took to the Internet with three cast members to discuss today’s episode, ‘The Lawless’, which concluded the Maul storyline and also preview the final story arc of the season, featuring Anakin and Ahsoka. Hosted by Pablo Hidalgo and Christian Blauvelt, the entire video session from Google hangout (more than 50 minutes) is now available online at Youtube, but here’s some of the key points (trying to keep it free of major spoilers for this episode and ones to come):
Overall, a lot of fun and I hope that we get more of these types of events with the cast and crew, especially with some of the voice talent of recurring but not main show characters, like Sam Witwer (who gave a great interview with Christian Blauvelt on Hollywood.com).