This Wednesday brings Star Wars #20 and Han Solo #1 (preview) to comic shops. The Han miniseries is written by Marjorie M. Liu (who spoke to CBR about it last month) with art by Mark Brooks.
Star Wars out this week: Han Solo miniseries begins
Wear Star Wars Every Day: Week 23
Week 23 of #WearStarWarsEveryDay gets us in a summer mood! Thanks to Todd, James, Anastasia, Paul, Margaret, and Mediocre Jedi for all the different tops I show off this week. Which looks best as a summer fashion? Some Jedi armor from The Old Republic? a nice Pacific Sun aloha shirt at LEGOLAND? a cute women’s rayon Rey raglan? or some cool 501st Legion threads? This review for Week 23 covers June 3 to June 9 of my wearathon, and an update on fundraising for Collateral Repair Project, a non-profit organization that provides emergency assistance, education, and community support to urban refugees.
What’s the news on fundraising? Nothing this week, but overall, thanks to everyone’s support, I can account for more than $1,800 being donated to Collateral Repair Project, with over $1,200 donated via GoFundMe. Can you help me reach $2,000 by the end of the month? Why not chip in $20 to get me to the milestone of 6 months completed! Just $50 is enough to provide a family of four with food for a month!
Get more info on what Wear Star Wars Every Day is all about, or make a donation or a per-day pledge!
More capes: Best #StarWars, #RogueOne and #SWEU tweets for May 27 – June 9
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?
Continue reading “More capes: Best #StarWars, #RogueOne and #SWEU tweets for May 27 – June 9”
John Williams expects to score Episode VIII
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.
Williams received the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award Thursday night. The ceremony, which features Spielberg, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Harrison Ford and more paying tribute, will air on TNT June 15th at 10:00 p.m. ET/PT.
Rogue One catchup: New rumors, old rumors, and a cake
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!
Disney is testing droid characters for their parks
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.
Push the Talking Trash Can (who has been known to sing the Imperial March) has long been a feature at Tomorrowland in several of the Disney parks.
Cape, cliff? Rian Johnson shares Episode VIII images
“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?
Video: The Star Wars Show, episode 5
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.
The Force Awakens ends domestic theater run with $937M
The Force Awakens officially ended its theater run on Thursday, June 2 with a domestic total gross of $936,662,225. Unadjusted for inflation, that makes it the highest earning Star Wars film: In second place is The Phantom Menace with $431,088,295 domestic.
“We always knew Lucas could override anything:” Timothy Zahn on The Force Awakens, Legends and the Story Group
Timothy Zahn was at Awesome Con 2016 in Washington D.C. this past weekend, and Tosche Station has the audio of the panel moderated by their own Bria LaVorgna.
Naturally, as the man who kick-started the modern Expanded Universe with Heir to the Empire, he was asked about Lucasfilm’s decision to to make the older books non-canon. Here’s that four-and-half-minute bit:
The Star Wars authors have always known how a sequel trilogy would effect the books, and it’s all fairly good sense. On the story group and folks like Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Filoni, and Kathleen Kennedy he says:
These are people who are not going to simply go and demolish stuff. If they have to destroy a part of it, overwrite it, it will be because its necessary to set up something else down the line. They’re not going to go with wanton destruction.
He points out that the gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens is still barely filled in, and:
In a way, it’s kind of sad that it’s all ‘Legends,’ and not ‘real,’ but it was never really ‘real’ in the first place. We always knew Lucas could override anything that we’d done. But I think the Expanded Universe – and Star Wars – are in good hands.
In the full audio, he also talks about the possibility of his characters ending up in Rebels or the other new canon (he’s for it,) his thoughts on Kylo Ren, and (of course) Rey’s parentage.
Zahn also did an interview with The Daily Dot’s Eric Geller.