This past weekend, much of Club Jade was at our annual gathering at Origins Game Fair in Columbus, including yours truly. Here’s some of what we missed:
This week, everyone freaked out, calmed down, and freaked out again about Rogue One, John Boyega got himself a second franchise, and Star Wars Twitter mocked the Expanded Universe. A lot. Because if you can’t mock what you love, what can you mock?
Talking to Variety, composer John Williams says he has every intention of returning to score his eighth Star Wars film.
“If I can do it, I certainly will. I told Kathy Kennedy I’m happy to do it, but the real reason is, I didn’t want anybody else writing music for Daisy Ridley,” he quips.
Williams also says he has no intention of retiring. His next film, before VIII, will be Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.
Bobby Roberts returns to Full of Sith for a new Rumor Control on the recent Rogue One rumormongering. It is, ironically, spoiler-free and full of good sense.
→ Speaking of rumors, The Hollywood Reporter says stunt coordinator Simon Crane is on board for the reshoots.
→ Meanwhile, Making Star Wars has some (likely) code names, and that kyber crystals (which have been popping up in all sorts of things lately) may be involved.
→ For the spoiler-free: A Rogue One cake has been spotted!
Well, file this under ‘delightful:’ Disney is testing interactive droid characters to roam their parks. Youtuber DAPs Magic (via io9) spotted ‘Jake’ at Disneyland’s Launch Bay, even interacting with exhibits.
Threepio, Artoo and BB-8 are givens for the parks, but the idea of new-to-us droids randomly roaming Star Wars Land? Bring it.
“In the home stretch,” Episode VIII director Rian Johnson posted, along with an image of a familiar (?) cape, on his Tumblr today. This pairs nicely with one he posted on his Instagram last week, which seems to feature similar rock formations. More of Ach-to?
In this week’s Star Wars Show, Andi and Peter announce that ILMxLAB will be at Celebration Europe and interview Finding Dory co-director Angus MacLane.
Entertainment Weekly’s Anthony Breznican has reached out to Lucasfilm sources to check out what really behind all the Rogue One reshoot brouhaha that’s been going on this week.
Lucasfilm isn’t ‘officially’ commenting on the rumors, but given that EW has been one of their most frequent choices for film reveals in the past few years, this is probably as close as we’re going to get. Here’s the rundown:
→ The reshoots were indeed preplanned, though they have been moved back to summer to allow for adjustment. They expect to lock picture in August, with scoring beginning in September – earlier than The Force Awakens, which locked in October.
→ They are not reshooting 40% of the film, as Making Star Wars claimed yesterday. If that was the case, the film would likely have been pushed back.
→ The reshoots “have everything to do with clarity and character development” and are parts of larger scenes that are already shot. “It’s a lot of talking in cockpits,” one insider said.
→ One reason the reshoots are for such a long period has to do with scheduling the actors. With things being pushed back, the actors have other commitments that need to be worked around.
→ Christopher McQuarrie contributed to an earlier draft of the script, but is not involved at the moment. EW did find another script collaborator, though: Tony Gilroy, who came aboard in the spring and “has even been recruited to consult on other Star Wars projects.” He has a long association with Frank Marshall and also worked on Edwards’ Godzilla. He will act as a second unit director for the reshoots.
→ There have been other rumors/fears flying that the film is being “watered down” to appeal to the traditional Disney demographic. These accusations are unfounded, EW says, and Rogue One is still very much a war movie. The only people within Disney who’ve seen it are CEO Bob Iger and studio chief Alan Horn. There’s no feeling of “meddling” from the parent company, EW sources say, just gratefulness that they allowed the schedule alteration.
→ There have been no test screenings with the public. (Did anyone ever really buy that one?)
→ And, in what is no surprise to anyone, we’ll see more of Rogue One at Celebration Europe in July. Expect to be blown away.
Making Star Wars’ Jason Ward dug into his sources regarding the Rogue One reshoots, and he got a fairly detailed (though not spoilery) breakdown of just how much there is to be done, why they need so much time, and what the mood of the crew is.
UPDATE: Writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, who worked on the script, says he is not supervising the reshoots. (MSW says he’s “helping out.”) “For any outlet to say so is not only wrong, it’s irresponsible,” he tells Slashfilm. “Gareth Edwards is a talented filmmaker who deserves the benefit of the doubt.”
MSW also found out that Scott Z. Burns did an earlier pass at the script.
→ The second season of Rebels is coming to Blu-ray and DVD on August 30. The Blu-ray has a special feature of Dave Filoni reflecting on Ahsoka Tano’s showdown with Darth Vader. 
