Lucasfilm has released stills of Supreme Leader Snoke and Maz Kanata to Entertainment Weekly. They’re watermarked, but hopefully better versions will be found soon. (I nabbed the one above from Twitter.)
The Force Awakens continues to smash box office records
The Force Awakens has broken yet more records with an $88.3 million domestic haul for New Year’s weekend, bringing the totals to $740.3M domestic and $1.51 billion globally.
This week it notably beat Avatar as the fastest film to make it to $700M – it took 16 days, as opposed to Avatar‘s 72. The James Cameron film made $760.8M domestic in 2009, and it gets to hang on to being the top-grossing film of all time in North America for (maybe) a day or two. The Force Awakens is currently #6 in all time worldwide grosses.
The Force Awakens script names the film’s final planet… Maybe?
The Force Awakens screenplay (via /Film) sheds a bit of light on the film, including a (temporary?) name for the final planet, details on Rey’s vision, and how Kylo Ren feels about his actions in the final act (which is also reflected in the novelization.)
It’s also, apparently, hilarious. (We briefly toyed with that Mean Girls AU over at Twitter.)
Behind the scenes of The Force Awakens with cinematographer Dan Mindel
Dan Mindel, the cinematographer on The Force Awakens, has been sharing behind-the-scenes pictures from the film for the past few weeks on his Instagram. Until we get a documentary (with the Blu-ray?) this may be our best look yet. The above shot from the final duel is probably the most illuminating, but there’s still a lot of great stuff.
Trash of the thing: Best #StarWars and #TheForceAwakens tweets for Dec. 21-31
Spoilers ahead, as we all saw The Force Awakens a bunch more times, read all the tie-ins, and… Something about a holiday? Two of them, maybe? I don’t know. I’m very tired.
Continue reading “Trash of the thing: Best #StarWars and #TheForceAwakens tweets for Dec. 21-31”
What do Rey and Kylo want? Exploring The Force Awakens
What screenwriter Todd Alcott writes on movies and TV is always worth reading, and his pieces on The Force Awakens are no exception. Check out his thoughts on Rey, Kylo Ren, Finn, and finally Poe Dameron and General Hux.
Here are a few other nice posts about various aspects of The Force Awakens. I also have a ton of meta queued up over at the Tumblr beginning Friday morning. (Currently binging on fan art.)
→ What to do when you’re not the hero any more, Laurie Penny’s look at how this year’s new movies (including The Force Awakens) and TV reflected a more diverse way of storytelling.
→ James Whitbrook on how Kylo Ren succeeds as a character where Anakin Skywalker failed. Or, there’s Bryan Young on ten times The Force Awakens nods to the prequels.
→ Two pieces for everyone sick of the ‘remake’ talk: Chris Taylor’s 5 questions and Joseph Scrimshaw’s how to talk to your family about The Force Awakens.
George Lucas on Disney: “They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that.”
George Lucas was on Charlie Rose (via Indiewire) recently, where he was about as outspoken as he’s ever been on Star Wars in the wake of selling Lucasfilm to Disney:
“They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new,” he said.
George is gonna George, I guess.
An important read for this week – particularly in reflection of these comments – is Devin Faraci’s defense of George Lucas, and the importance of cultural context. (Something which also applies the “white slavers” comment you’re seeing around so much. Though George has apologized.)
The Force Awakens concept art gives us a look at the disparate evolution of Episode VII
With the actual Making of book not due out until October, The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a must-read if you want a look at the development of the film. /Film runs down some of the possible plot points – warning, a lot of them are pretty deeply weird, or at least that’s the impression the book gave me. (The article barely scratches the surface.)
If you just want to look at pretty pictures, check out io9, Wired and Buzzfeed.
The Force Awakens blazes past $1B at the box office
The Force Awakens just isn’t slowing down. It took in $153.5 million domestically over Christmas weekend, and worldwide it’s past a billon dollars – the fastest film to ever do so. On Friday, it doubled the previous Christmas Day record, leaving the 2009 Sherlock Holmes in the dust.
For the full list of broken records – at the moment – head over to Entertainment Weekly.
The Force Awakens Blu-ray due in early April
According to Blu-ray.com, we can expect The Force Awakens Blu-ray (and presumably also DVD/digital release) on April 5.
UPDATE: Blu-ray.com has removed the date, but it could very well still be the release date… Stay tuned.