Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
→ Yet more photos from Greenham Commons, the closest looks yet at the various set pieces
→ Ex-James Bond Sir Roger Moore has visited the Episode VII set, and adds some weight to earlier planet rumors.
→ How much of a tax break did Disney get for filming Episode VII in the U.K.? According to This is Money, a cool £8 million, or over $13 million.
All-but-confirmed Episode VIII writer/director Rian Johnson chatting with fellow filmmaker Terry Gilliam on a podcast recently. Here’s the most interesting bit that’s made it out:
Kathleen and her whole creative team have been so insistent on all the filmmakers they’ve been hiring for these new movies: ‘We want you to take it and turn it into something that you really care about.’ And we’ll see how the process plays out, but so far, that’s a big part of the reason I’m in it. Because that just seems like their attitude towards it. It’s really exciting actually.
Listen to whole thing at The Talkhouse. (UPDATE: Here’s part 2.)
Gilliam requested they bring Frank Oz back, so if you hear a lot of Yoda chatter in the next couple days, this is no doubt why. (via)
Your move, Zack Snyder.
Entertainment Weekly has a nice interview with Anthony Daniels yesterday. They touch on Rebels, of course, but he also talks about the Episode VII Threepio suit:
I will tell you that the team then got together and built a new suit. They made an entirely new look-a-like with changes that you will never notice [on screen] that made my life a lot easier. I can get it on and off very quickly.
He ‘s also asked about Threepio’s growth, George’s involvement, and some other stuff. However, on a personal note, I really like this:
My favorite line is — interesting you ask least favorite — my favorite line is, [in character as C-3PO] “We’re doomed.” It’s a phrase that encapsulates his whole philosophy. It’s his life. He always feels on the edge of disaster. That’s where the humor comes from because he is a humorous character, but mostly it comes by default. He doesn’t tell jokes. He’s just wrong about everything most of the time and lives on this precipice of fear, which gives a sort of tension. You and I hide that. You hid magnificently that you were terrified of talking to me. As humans, adults, we sort of do. He doesn’t have that guile. And in fact, now that I come to think of it, he is pretty much without guile. He says it as it is and that can occasionally be quite funny because he can be inappropriate without meaning to be.
That’s Threepio, yes. But it’s also, in so many ways, us, the fandom. He’s ‘our’ avatar, in a lot of ways. Particularly in times like these.
→ Clickhole wins the Episode VII No-Prize today. Spot-on work there.
→ Rick Lawrence posted a few more photos from Greenham Common this weekend, now removed from Facebook, but the rest of the internet is not so easily swayed. The one that created the most fuss: A figure who looks suspiciously like Adam Driver, raising a number of questions. For some less spoilery fare, check out a helicopter shooting the set.
→ But wait! There is another location, and it’s… Endor! People are seriously buying this as something other than a code name, for some reason. UPDATE: Apparently it’s not even a Star Wars set. Well played.
→ And finally, some dumb: Robert Downey Jr, Hugh Jackman, Samuel L Jackson and Daniel Craig are going to cameo in Episode VII. Sure, guys. Okay. I’m sure none of these men have any other reason to be at a storied British film studio. None at all. But, just for the hell of it, let’s say they’re playing a swoop gang. A singing swoop gang.
John Boyega and Lupita Nyong’o went to see Grace Jones. Jones is playing a festival in London this weekend; This is, I believe, our first sign that Nyong’o may be on set.
Making Star Wars was busy last night. There’s a whole grab-bag of stuff from a source playing off the recent rumors, including the Luke timeline, the ‘guards’ at Greenham, Moraband, the Sith lineage and Daisy Ridley’s character’s name. But if you believe any of this, the biggest bombshell here may be that an Obi-wan Kenobi spin-off is higher in the pipeline than we may have expected:
I’ve heard from quite a few people now that an Obi-Wan Kenobi movie is in the works. For the spin-off movies they were initially going to stay away from any Jedi or Sith characters. But I’m hearing now that because of the popularity of Obi-Wan (fans recently voting for him on the official website etc) that an art team is now working with a writer on concepts for an Obi-Wan movie.
Of course an Obi-wan spinoff seems pretty much inevitable, with Ewan MacGregor game and twenty years between the trilogies to set it in, but the earlier rumors have mainly focused on characters like Boba Fett and Han Solo.
They also spotted a Tumblr post from a girl whose boyfriend is an extra at Greenham Common – she claims that Harrison Ford will be on set Monday.
Latino Review has dropped Da7e Gonzales’ Friday column early, and it features more (and clearer) pictures of the second X-wing, as well as a few details on how the starfighters figure in.
The ships may be real, but the plot/character stuff? I shrug. But I will note that it does sound like something (someones?) who could be primed for a spin-off.
As for the other big bombshell (so to speak) of the week, I’m already sick of the Death Star crap that’s floating around the J.J. Abrams pic from the other day. That well is dried up, thanks in no small part to Return of the Jedi. The part of me that railed against the fetish back in the days of Kevin J. Anderson is wary, but I wouldn’t count out a superweapon of some kind. But an actualfax Death Star? No matter what you believe about the Empire itself, it’s not so far-fetched that there are a ton of Star Destroyers with similar light packages and shiny floors still around.
Yes, some pockets of resistance have recently emerged to the retro-heavy looks we’ve seen thus far, but let’s give them a tad more credit than recycling an idea for the third time. Remember, we haven’t seen the full package yet, and somehow I doubt they brought in Doug Chiang and Iain McCaig just to touch up some old McQuarrie pieces.
Entertainment Weekly is acting like they’ve never heard the term ‘Lucasfilm Story Group’ before in an article today where they ‘exclusively’ inform us that things from Episode VII may very well show up in Rebels.
“There are characters, vehicles, imagery that are introduced in the show before we’ve ever seen them in the movies, possibly including VII,” Simon Kinberg tells them.
Of course, he told /Film back at SDCC that “We haven’t really talked about that,” so take it as you will. Playing coy is the name of the game here, I suppose. But consider that season 2 of Rebels is likely to premiere next October, just as we’re likely to see some serious marketing ramp up for Episode VII, and it seems pretty likely that the two are going to tie together with something more significant than some ships and speeders. On that hand, it does seem a bit early to unleash the certain point of viewing, so they really want you to watch Rebels.
In other news/rumors…
→ There’s now a video from the Greenham Common set, and someone thinks they’ve spotted a different kind of X-wing. Maybe this one can really be a Headhunter, for the truthers.
→ On that note, could Daisy Ridley’s character name indeed be [redacted]? Well, as always: Maybe?
→ Where in the galaxy is Luke Skywalker? Round, umm, let’s say 5.
→ Mark Ruffalo wants in. Aww, Mark Ruffalo.
→ Are we really taking random message board posters seriously now? Because now there’s one who claims to know all about Adam Driver’s role. Okay!
Disney CFO Jay Rasulo said today that the Star Wars franchise will be “mirroring” Marvel by broadening the appeal to women and families. Gotta wonder: Has anyone told merchandising that yet?
In other things floating around…
→ Adam Driver tells the Wall Street Journal that Episode VII is “very human” and “not taking a back seat” to the spectacle.
→ How Simon Pegg’s daughter became the girl who “saved Star Wars.”
→ Daisy Ridley is one of Empire’s 20 stars of the future.