It sure is… Something.
Saw Gerrera coming to Rebels in January (and about those other Easter Eggs in Rogue One…)
StarWars.com reveals Rebels Easter Eggs in Rogue One, including a still of Chopper’s appearance in the film and a chat with Matt Martin about the experience. And although a random store sighting broke the news, we also get a look at Saw Gerrera’s upcoming appearance on the show.
Yes, Forest Whitaker is voicing him. Rebels returns January 7 on Disney XD.
Today in Rogue One: All the footage that didn’t make it, about the film’s most surprising locale
A nice video that shows many of the trailer/commercial shots that weren’t in the final film.
→ /Film takes a look at Darth Vader’s Mustafar digs, including the history, the ground-laying done in Rebels, and the hints that we may see it again fairly soon.
→ At The Verge, Andrew Liptak calls Mike Stackpole’s X-wing novels the “spiritual ancestor” of Rogue One.
→ And speaking of things revived from the murky Star Wars past, Force Material is all over the Whills, who’ve been around (vaguely) since the very beginning.
→ Rogue One has helped push Disney over the $7B global box office mark in 2016 – the first movie studio to do so.
→ DK has several behind-the-scenes photos | Alternate pun-filled titles for Michael Giacchino’s score | Gareth Edwards on the cameras and technology behind the film.
Rogue One’s opening weekend box office take: $155M
The weekend box office estimates are in, and Rogue One has a comfortable lead with $155 million. As predicted, this makes it the second biggest December box office opening of all time – behind only The Force Awakens.
It’s the third biggest opening weekend of 2016, following only Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This also makes it the second biggest Star Wars opening of all time. (Not taking inflation into account, at least.)
Post-Rogue One: Concept art, box office, effects, and Rebels
A couple of looks at the Rogue One concept art from io9 and Yahoo. The Art of Rogue One is on sale now.
→ Rogue One made $71.1M through Friday, and is still well on track for a $145-150M weekend.
→ It says sad things about the state of women’s paychecks in Hollywood that it’s actually news that Felicity Jones was by far Rogue One’s highest-paid cast member. A more bizarre wrinkle: Jones has a single sequel option in her contract. (Though I’m not sure why THR brings up “a young Luke Skywalker stand-alone” in relation to that, considering that the only speculation regarding Luke and Jyn was Jossed by the film itself.)
→ /Film takes a look at the trailer footage that was missing from the film.
→ How that one effect raises some ethical considerations. As for some of the later stuff, it wasn’t all pure digital: Some things come straight from unused A New Hope footage.
→ Phil Noto has graced us with some Erso art.
→ Did you catch all the Rebels references in Rogue One? Nerdist has the list. And a Toys R Us promo posters reveals which Rogue One character is coming to Rebels.
→ Vulture pins down Rogue One’s greatest retcon. Meanwhile, over at Wired, architects and engineers nitpick the Death Star.
→ All the crazy, convoluted ways that the Rebels stole the Death Star plans in the old Expanded Universe. They’re almost all video games, which… Okay.
→ Are Chirrut and Baze a couple? “I think that’s all good. Who knows? You’d have to speak to them,” Gareth Edwards says.
→ Your moment of zen: Ranking Star Wars’ “sweet space capes.”
Discussion post: What did you think of Rogue One?
It’s finally out! I said my piece earlier, and now it’s your turn: What did you think of Rogue One? Spoilers are allowed, so go nuts.
The rules, such as they are: Be polite to each other, and remember we have threaded comments so you can directly reply to someone if you so wish. Some comments may get caught up in moderation (particularly if you’ve never commented before,) but they will get approved eventually. I do have to sleep sometime.
All #RogueOne, all the time: Best #StarWars tweets for December 9-15
Because what else is it going to be about, today? Continue reading “All #RogueOne, all the time: Best #StarWars tweets for December 9-15”
Today in Rogue One: Behind the red carpet, weapons, and fashion
The Star Wars Show goes behind the scenes at the Rogue One red carpet and takes a look at the film’s weapons.
→ Entertainment Weekly has a roundup of the major publication reviews. They’re a little more mixed than seems the standard, but there are honestly so many reviews out there that I lost track. (Lots of “best Star Wars since Empire!” Again. A new yearly tradition?)
→ Speaking of traditions, Lining Up is still at it (and sold out,) though only for 48 hours this time.
→ Ben Mendelsohn is all about the cape. The real world fashion is all over the blogs: Although they think she started strong, Tom and Lorenzo are increasing disappointed in Felicity Jone’s dresses. (And the men get dinged for showing up in jeans while she’s in full formalwear, which is pretty par for the course.) The Fug Girls cast a wider, but less critical, net. No one likes the lavender.
→ FYI, I know the film was shown in some international markets today, and I’ll have a discussion post up on the site tomorrow, just ahead of the first U.S. showings at 7 p.m. EDT.
Video: Rogue One cast answers the internet’s most most pressing questions
Well, this is charming. Riz Ahmed, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Felicity Jones and Diego Luna answer questions posed by Google searches.
Review: Rogue One gives us a new (but familiar) blueprint for big-screen Star Wars
If Rogue One makes anything clear, it’s this: The standalone movies are the new Expanded Universe. Now, I mean this from a wider perspective than just “how the Death Star plans got stolen.” (Yes, there were a number of stories about that in the old EU. I am, full disclosure, happy to not be particularly familiar with any of them.) But this is a movie that has as its basic concept a handful of lines from the opening crawl of A New Hope. And that alone feels to me like a very EU concept.
In short: Ten years ago, Rogue One would have a been a novel or a comic series. There was a big move to this exact sort of thing in the late days of the Legends EU – Heart of Darkness starring Mace Windu (Shatterpoint,) a small-town western starring Obi-Wan (Kenobi,) zombie stormtroopers (Deathtroopers, a term reused here – with a space – for black-clad but presumably not-undead troopers.) These books took big concepts and genres and rendered them as Star Wars. And that’s precisely what Rogue One does – Star Wars through the lens of a gritty war movie.
Rogue One is the evolved version of this, envisioned as a real movie for a franchise that’s only recently revived itself back onto the big screen with a $2B bang. For those that felt that The Force Awakens may have played it safe, well, here’s something entirely different. It’s recognizably the same galaxy – you don’t need Mon Mothma or Darth Vader to remind you of that – but it’s a different spin on it. (The daddy issues, though – those remain.)