Category: sequel trilogy

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The big picture: Bob Iger and the Millennium Falcon

iger-falcon

Fortune has a photo of Bob Iger with The Force Awaken’s Millennium Falcon, courtesy Industrial Light & Magic:

Yannick Dusseault, visual effects art director for The Force Awakens, and his team gave Fortune six options showing the Falcon in different ways. The resulting image required the custom rendering of ILM’s computer generated Falcon. According to ILM, the fabled ship was rendered in wireframe form (a skeletal version) as well as a more layered “textured render,” which were combined in Photoshop to create the final image.

Iger is the magazine’s latest cover story, one focusing on Disney and technology.

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Today in The Force Awakens: You’ll shoot your eye out, kid

wicked-broadsaber→ Of course there’s a 3-way ‘crossguard’ from the real-life Wicked Lasers. (Who we first heard from way back in the day.) Of course. (via)

→ J.C. Chandor, who directed A Most Violent Year, talks about keeping Oscar Isaac’s X-wing secret with Screencrush.

→ At the Huffington Post, Domhnall Gleeson talks about losing weight for Unbroken – and seeing The Force Awakens trailer.

→ Market Saw has what they claim to be the ‘final iterations’ of concept art for Han Solo and Chewbacca. Funny how with the rushing river of concept art leaks the only stuff we ever see regarding original trilogy alumni is the terribly predictable Han and Chewie stuff.

→ Something Awful has ‘discovered’ more trading cards for The Force Awakens. It’s all very nonsensical, but hey: It’s Something Awful.

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Rumors: Helmets, Darths and other The Force Awakens theories

spoilers-swirl-bespin2Making Star Wars isn’t done yet, and in response to yesterday’s apparent reveal of Kylo Ren’s helmet, Jason takes a look at various peices of concept art and speculates as to what they may mean for the character – or some character, anyway – and how they may or may not connect to our previous villains. This draws on a few things we’ve seen and heard before, so experienced spoiler hounds only.

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Leaked photo of The Force Awakens action figures?

spoilers-swirl-broadsaberTheForce.net brings us a leaked photo of action figures for The Force Awakens. The picture originates in a Chinese forum and features four trailer characters (Rey and Finn are in different costumes, Kylo Ren head-on, BB-8 looking pretty much the same) and an old pal from the original trilogy. These could be fakes, I suppose, but who knows? (Picture, more thoughts in the comments.)

Spoilerphobes beware: Indie Revolver has taken this opportunity to show us concept art of Ren’s helmet.

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Today in The Force Awakens: EW gives us… A nice picture?

tfa-ew-illo→ The meat of the Entertainment Weekly preview piece seems to be this analysis that showed up today, plus sidebar on John Boyega that showed up on Tumblr. Neither really tells us anything we don’t already know, but the illustration by Martin Ansin is nice.

→ Matt Martin accidentally started a meme. I’m just glad that I’m not the one gathering the tweets, but here’s mine. I Sharpied!

→ Oscar Isaac got his uncle in Star Wars, and he jokes about wearing a Gonk costume to Comic-Con next year.

→ Now Wired is looking at how fast the TIEs in the trailer are. Math geeks, it’s okay. We don’t need to know.

→ Rumor corner: Making Star Wars on concept art of a new alien sidekick.

→ What did I forget yesterday? The Disney XD trailer featurette is now online. It’s… Not for us.

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The Force Awakens true and false with Andy Serkis

EW122614→ Andy Serkis dispels a couple of The Force Awakens rumors in a chat with Entertainment Weekly: He’s not playing more than one character, and he’s “not leading a band of gymnasts or acrobats.”

Episode VII is (naturally) featured in the next issue of the magazine, which looks ahead to 2015 and is teasing some additional stuff in addition to Serkis. EW stuff we’ve seen online but not in print includes Mark Hamill and the cards. Or maybe we’ll see some other stuff in the next few days. (Cross your fingers.)

→ If you’re still stuck on the broadsaber, Popular Science got some real swordsman to weigh in.

→ Rumor corner: Making Star Wars describes a new kind of fighter.

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Maisie Richardson-Sellers admits she’s in The Force Awakens

Maisie-Richardson-Sellers2Maisie Richardson-Sellers was one of the first actresses whose name we heard connected with Episode VII, and although she was never confirmed by Lucasfilm, she’s now at least allowed to admit she’s in the movie. She tells Refinery29 that Star Wars was her first screen acting job:

It is really strange, but it’s also fantastic. I’d always done theater, and his was my first screen experience. I couldn’t have asked for a better team to introduce me to the world of screen acting.

On Star Wars in general:

I grew up watching them and I’ve always been fascinated about how they use the epic nature of the story — but also make it really personal. It has tender relationships, and it’s funny and quirky. I feel it’s really well-rounded and that’s why it’s so popular; it’s so accessible for so many generations and backgrounds. Even though it’s such a surreal story, it feels very true. All the relationships are very true. It breaks down the age old story of good versus evil in a very accessible manner.

On keeping secrets:

I had to sign many, many contracts. It’s very, very secret. But, everyone who’s working on it loves and respects the franchise so much, they all want to keep it a secret. We wanted to hold it tight, so it wasn’t hard for anyone. It wasn’t a forced thing; it’s our little child which we’re going to present to the world in a year.

She’s also appeared on CW’s The Originals.

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Rumor: Another character name for The Force Awakens?

rumors-swirl-ladytroopersWe have a new character name for The Force Awakens this morning – one Captain Phasma. Stitch Kingdom dug the name out of some trademark registrations.

But whose role does the name belong to? Speculation quickly pinpointed Gwendoline Christie, no doubt due to the name’s feminine sound and previous rumors, but it’s probably a last name, which means it could be anyone. Remember how there were also rumors that Christie’s character was originally male?