Carrie Fisher’s urn is a giant Prozac pill, because of course it is

Carrie Fisher’s ashes were laid to rest in a giant Prozac pill. (You can see the pictures at Buzzfeed.) Her brother Todd explains to Entertainment Tonight:

“Carrie’s favorite possession was a giant Prozac pill that she bought many years ago. A big pill,” Todd explained. “She loved it, and it was in her house, and Billie and I felt it was where she’d want to be.”

He also said the private service for family and friends on Thursday – attended by Meryl Streep, George Lucas and others – was “fitting” and ” beautiful.”

Yesterday also saw Fisher’s Star Wars son, Adam Driver, share his thoughts on the actress with Stephen Colbert. Here’s the clip:

Club Jaders remember Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds

I’ve always found it difficult to write about things like loss. If there’s no sarcasm to be found I default to news-mode about 90% of the time, and that’s probably being fairly generous with the percentages. So I asked for Jaders to send in their own thoughts and memories about Carrie Fisher – and Debbie Reynolds, who holds her own special place in Club Jade history.

Continue reading “Club Jaders remember Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds”

Today in Rogue One: Editors talk reshoots, process

In an extensive interview with Yahoo, editors John Gilroy and Colin Goudie shed some light on the reshoots and discuss their Rogue One process. Don’t skip this one!

The rest might not be exactly today, but here are a few things that have come up since we last checked in…

→ A fun look at how much the data formats of Star Wars suck, from Sarah Jeong. Yes, data formats are funny, deal with it.

→ At StarWars.com, Doug Chiang discusses designing Rogue One, from ships to stormtroopers to Darth Vader’s castle.

→ Empire has 13 things they learned from director Gareth Edwards – including, yes, there was an opening crawl early on.

→ In addition to winning a third straight weekend, Rogue One has now passed the $800M mark.

→ All about your new favorite Mon Calamari, Admiral Raddus.

→ How actual military veterans ended up in Rogue One (and other films.)

→ Not gotten around to the movie’s Visual Guide yet? io9 has the highlights. (You should still get the book, though.)

Rumor: Woody Harrelson in talks for Han Solo mentor role

Variety reports today that Woody Harrelson (The Hunger Games, Zombieland) is in talks to play a mentor figure to Alden Ehrenreich’s young Han Solo. Kathleen Kennedy said last month that they expect to begin filming in February.

Ehrenreich, Donald Glover and Emilia Clarke are the only confirmed cast members for film so far, which is being directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller.

Recently, rumors have been swirling that the movie will be pushed back to December 13, 2018. It was originally announced for May 25, but after Rogue One’s success, I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t move. (Maintaining the May release date would likely butt it right into the home release promotional window for Episode VIII.) Lucasfilm has only been using the year in their most recent announcements.

Harrelson will next be seen in War of the Planet of the Apes.

Some of the internet’s best Carrie Fisher tributes

There’s so much to say about Carrie Fisher, and so much out there that I can’t claim for this to be anywhere near comprehensive. But here are a few of my favorite tributes:

The Establishment’s Anne Theriault: General Leia Organa Is The Hero We Need Right Now

Like Fisher, Leia earned every tiny ounce of respect that came her way. She was given the title of princess because of who her parents were, but she earned the rank of general through hard and often miserable work. We love the mythos that heroes get where they are because they are special or chosen, and the people we hold up as icons reflect that. But the rebel army isn’t made up of Jedis—for the most part it’s just ordinary people united to fight for the same cause. And Leia, in spite of having once been royalty and maybe having some ability with the Force, is mostly as ordinary as any other soldier; she rose through the ranks not by manipulating the Force but by learning leadership skills and military tactics.

Simply put: Leia got to where she was by showing up and quietly learning to do the work.

The Guardian’s Merope Mills: My time with Carrie Fisher, a hurricane of energy, charisma and foul language

[The Force Awakens] had just been released, and Carrie had quickly become everyone’s favourite part of the promotional tour. She shot down anyone who asked about her weight loss for the role and had recently asked, via Twitter, for everyone to stop debating whether or not she had aged well – as it hurt “all three of my feelings”.

Like everything Carrie said or did, that tweet revealed a truth – she told me she hated the way she looked in that film and suddenly, unexpectedly, she was in tears.

Minutes later she was in high spirits, plotting to tweet an old photo she had unearthed from the first set of Star Wars in which she was cupping C-3PO’s balls. “This is going to get me in trouble with the people at Disney,” she said, while I held the pic steady and she snapped, “but I don’t care.”

Former assistant Byron Lane:

Most of my time with her involved me staring at her, wide-eyed and in blissful shock that one person could live a life so fully. We rode dog sleds in Canada, swam hot springs in Japan, pet koalas in Australia. That’s how she lived. Extraordinary. Brilliant. Hilarious.

The Washington Post’s Alexandra Petri: So long, Princess, and thanks

You could always tell there was a real human being in there beneath the silly space hair — one with a sharp wit and an observer’s eye. She did not take fame seriously, and through her writings demystified it, often hilariously. She shared too, with warmth and courage, her experiences of loss and mental illness. Her life was an open book, and it was fantastically well-written.

Jenny Lawson: Stay afraid. But do it anyway.

When I’m on book tour I spend a lot of time with drivers who take me from airports to bookstores to hotels to new cities. They usually work for the book companies and they see all sorts of interesting people in their work so I always ask them, “Who is the best person you’ve ever driven?” and “Who is the worst?” I always promise not to share the worst but frankly there should be an entire book written by drivers who have seen entirely too much of the worst of people (because it is fascinating) but my favorite stories are always the ones about the best people. I’ve probably asked over 100 drivers who their favorite person they spent time with was and so far only a single person has been mentioned more than once…Carrie Fisher.

John Scalzi for The Los Angeles Times on Carrie Fisher as a writer: Witty and vulnerable, she took us to the edge of our comfort zone:

“I feel I’m very sane about how crazy I am,” Fisher wrote in “Wishful Drinking,” directly after describing “being invited” to go to a mental hospital. That was part of the charm of her writing: it would take you places you might not have wanted to go, and kept up a stream of chatter to help you remain, if not comfortable, at least comforted. Your friend Carrie Fisher was with you, even as she was observing herself.

And yes, those much-vaunted edits to The Empire Strikes Back floating around are indeed director Irvin Kershner’s, not Carrie’s. But that doesn’t distract from her own accomplishments, which /Film’s Peter Sciretta has documented.

There’s plenty more on our Tumblr, but this may be my favorites – and takes I think Carrie herself would have approved of:

http://rachsolo.tumblr.com/post/155084647358

http://medie.tumblr.com/post/155096840302/akamarykate-thefilmstage-rip-debbie

Badge art, stage hosts for Celebration 2017 revealed

Celebration 2017 is only months away, and StarWars.com our first look at the badge art. We also learn who’s hosting the three major stages, and it’s returnees Warwick Davis, David Collins and our pal Amy Ratcliffe, who made her debut on the Behind-The-Scenes Stage at Celebration Europe.

Meanwhile, per an email sent out to attendees, 4-day passes to the con are almost sold out. Celebration 2017, the con’s third outing to Orlando, takes place April 13 to 16.