Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
You can pick up Obi-Wan & Anakin #4 and the Vader Down trade collection at your comic dealer of choice come Wednesday.
Meanwhile, we’re only a two weeks out from the release of our next Star Wars novel, Claudia Gray’s Bloodline, on May 3.
We’ve got a new episode of Unboxing Star Wars! Yowie and I hit the road for the Star Wars Rebels finale screening at Walt Disney Studios and we review ‘Twilight of the Apprentice’. I also check out Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded by Pablo Hidalgo and Simon Beecroft, from DK. Plus I give a quick review of the first issue of the Poe Dameron comic, while Baby Jawa plays with a new R2-D2 toy and we check out some of the new Star Wars stuff we’ve picked up. And at the end, some Baby Jawa fun time!
Quick reviews
→ Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded – Great for everone! Have fun learning tidbits about more than 200 characters and creatures from all the Star Wars films! (and watch for my interview with author Pablo Hidalgo on starwars.com early next week)
→ ‘Twilight of the Apprentice’ – Big thumbs up! When Rebels has a season finale, they pull out all the stops and unload a whole boatload of awesome. (Also, if you haven’t seen it already, I have the entire Q&A from the screening available to watch.)
→ Poe Dameron #1 – A promising start! I think I’m more interested in who Lor San Tekka is than about Poe on his tail but we’ll see where it goes. Plus BB-8!
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Note: DK provided a copy of Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded for review.
There was a brief panic Friday evening after J.J. Abrams, speaking at at the Tribeca Film Festival, said “Rey’s parents are not in Episode VII. So I can’t possibly say in this moment who they are. But I will say it is something that Rey thinks about, too.”
Ric Olie says: Neither of Rey’s parents being in The Force Awakens would scuttle the popular theory that she’s Luke Skywalker’s daughter.
The panic was short-lived, though, because Entertainment Weekly got Abrams to clarify: “What I meant was that she doesn’t discover them in Episode VII. Not that they may not already be in her world.”
The Rey Skywalker theory lives to fight another day. The only things we have that even resemble firm denials are that she’s not a Solo or related to Rogue One’s Jyn Erso. But until something actually shows up in a movie, it’s still really anyone’s game. (Although I certainly wouldn’t put any money on the Erso theory.)
Though seriously folks, it’s not worth sniping over. This is not Star Wars’ first go-around with unanswered questions, and it won’t be the last. We will find out eventually and, yes, some of those answers might (or might not) surprise you. Don’t stake your theory flags too deeply.
To the surprise of no one, The Force Awakens is topping the home video charts, per Blu-ray.com. 83% of sales were in the Blu-ray format, and it’s outselling the rest of the VideoScan chart at “nearly five to one.”
→ Entertainment Weekly looks at the ‘mystery’ of Constable Zuvio. (Spoiler: He was always a background character.)
→ J.J. Abrams told Collider that more deleted scenes from the film will eventually be available online.
→ At StarWars.com, Catrina Dennis takes a look at Leia’s unique relationship with the Force.
→ Harrison Ford raised $191,000 for epilepsy research auctioning off Han Solo’s leather jacket from The Force Awakens.
Ground has been broken at both Florida’s Disney World and California’s Disneyland for the so-called Star Wars Lands, Disney has annouced in a blog post. They’re offering a 360-degree look at the Disneyland site.
Deadline is reporting that Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!) is now the front-runner for the role of young Han Solo. He apparently pulled ahead of the rest of the shortlist after screen tests.
The still-untitled Han Solo film, from The Lego Movie directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, will be the second standalone Star Wars film, after this year’s Rogue One. It’s due out in 2018.
Another article about why it’s not worth taking the concept of canon so seriously. Or, just chill out already.
The original trilogy will be back on the big screen in a limited number of locations this August. The Alamo Drafthouse chain is sponsoring back-to-back showings of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi throughout the U.S. (And before you can ask: They will be the Special Editions.) The initial list of dates includes 16 venues, but it’s suppose to come to “more than 20 cities.”
Tickets will go on sale at ReturnOfTheTrilogy.com on May 4.
Rogue One star Felicity Jones presents the latest Force for Change initiative. This week’s top fundraiser will win a Rogue One stormtrooper helmet autographed by the cast.
Entertainment Weekly has our first look at an excerpt from Chuck Wendig’s upcoming Aftermath: Life Debt. The book, first of two sequels to last year’s Aftermath, adds Han Solo, Chewbacca and Kashyyyk to the mix.
Aftermath introduced a number of brand-new characters, including Temmin Wexley, who as an adult appears in The Force Awakens played by Greg Grunberg.
Aftermath: Life Debt will be out in hardcover and eBook on July 19. The third book in the trilogy, Empire’s End, is due in January 2017.