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Wear Star Wars Every Day kicks off!

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With The Force Awakens out now, and Rogue One on the horizon for the end of the year, this seems like a perfect year to celebrate Star Wars every day, and I’ve taken it to the extreme! I hope to wear a different Star Wars-themed clothing item for every day in 2016, and made my goal into a Force for good by turning this project into a charity fundraiser. “Wear Star Wars Every Day” kicked off on January 1, and I’m raising funds for Collateral Repair Project, a grassroots non-profit that provides emergency aid, education, and community support for urban refugees in Amman, Jordan.


If you would like to support this effort, you can make a per-day pledge here. Even pledging 10 cents or 25 cents per day can add up to make a real difference. You can also make a flat donation on the Wear Star Wars Every Day GoFundMe page. After only a few days, we’ve raised $675 in flat donations, and have a total per-day pledge rate of $3.50 per day. You can also help extend my streak by lending or donating Star Wars apparel for me to wear. Get tons more info on the project and what your donations can do for refugees at our Wear Star Wars Every Day resource page and watch the daily updates on the Wear Star Wars Every Day Facebook page or on Twitter with the #WearStarWarsEveryDay tag.

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Keeping up with Rogue One, that other new Star Wars movie

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So if there’s one thing I’ve learned the past few months, it’s that it is really, really hard for me to get excited or inspired about Rogue One when there are actual Episodes in play. Well, to be specific, sequel Episodes, because the prequel apathy has always been strong with me. I may, however, be in the minority on this: The next Star Wars film – which is, technically, a prequel to A New Hope – is the most anticipated movie of 2016, according to Fandango.

On the other hand, The Hollywood Reporter’s Graeme McMillan wonders if the film is too early a detour, a sentiment I can’t help but agree with.

In any case, today’s big Rogue One rumor, per Star Wars Time, is that the trailer will be attached to May’s Captain America: Civil War. That seems less like a rumor and more like plain old common sense, as we’re certainly going to see it drop in the spring, if not before.

If you’re looking for some heavier rumors, Making Star Wars is back in the mix with some (possible) details on the characters played by Mads Mikkelsen and Felicity Jones, and a set description from Pinewood.

Rogue One is due out December 16, 2016.

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Star Wars out this week: The Force Awakens novelization (again) and Vader Down concludes

It came out as an eBook way back on December 18th, but Tuesday sees the release of The Force Awakens novelization in hardcover.

On Wednesday, the Vader Down storyline wraps up in Star Wars #14 and Darth Vader #15. There’s also the second Darth Vader collection, Shadows and Secrets, in trade… And although it shipped last week, Obi-wan & Anakin #1 was actually supposed to go out this week, so if your comic shop got the memo you may not have been able to find it on sale.

In other book release news, Del Rey officially announced today that Claudia Gray’s New Republic: Bloodlines and Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath: Life Debt have both been pushed back two months each. (Something that’s been reflected on our book release schedule for a while now.) Bloodlines is now due out May 3, and Life Debt on July 19. They’re our next two new novels, though there are a handful of paperback rereleases in the meantime, including the first Aftermath on March 29.

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The Force Awakens continues to smash box office records

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The Force Awakens has broken yet more records with an $88.3 million domestic haul for New Year’s weekend, bringing the totals to $740.3M domestic and $1.51 billion globally.

This week it notably beat Avatar as the fastest film to make it to $700M – it took 16 days, as opposed to Avatar‘s 72. The James Cameron film made $760.8M domestic in 2009, and it gets to hang on to being the top-grossing film of all time in North America for (maybe) a day or two. The Force Awakens is currently #6 in all time worldwide grosses.

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What do Rey and Kylo want? Exploring The Force Awakens

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What screenwriter Todd Alcott writes on movies and TV is always worth reading, and his pieces on The Force Awakens are no exception. Check out his thoughts on Rey, Kylo Ren, Finn, and finally Poe Dameron and General Hux.

Here are a few other nice posts about various aspects of The Force Awakens. I also have a ton of meta queued up over at the Tumblr beginning Friday morning. (Currently binging on fan art.)

→ What to do when you’re not the hero any more, Laurie Penny’s look at how this year’s new movies (including The Force Awakens) and TV reflected a more diverse way of storytelling.

→ James Whitbrook on how Kylo Ren succeeds as a character where Anakin Skywalker failed. Or, there’s Bryan Young on ten times The Force Awakens nods to the prequels.

→ Two pieces for everyone sick of the ‘remake’ talk: Chris Taylor’s 5 questions and Joseph Scrimshaw’s how to talk to your family about The Force Awakens.

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George Lucas on Disney: “They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that.”


George Lucas was on Charlie Rose (via Indiewire) recently, where he was about as outspoken as he’s ever been on Star Wars in the wake of selling Lucasfilm to Disney:

“They wanted to do a retro movie. I don’t like that. Every movie I work very hard to make them completely different, with different planets, with different spaceships, make it new,” he said.

George is gonna George, I guess.

An important read for this week – particularly in reflection of these comments – is Devin Faraci’s defense of George Lucas, and the importance of cultural context. (Something which also applies the “white slavers” comment you’re seeing around so much. Though George has apologized.)