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Roundup: The Force Awakens passes Jurassic World’s key opening weekend box office records

jw-tfaThe numbers are in, and The Force Awakens made an astounding $529 million worldwide this weekend, $248 million of it domestically. That takes it past both Jurassic World’s key opening weekend records.

Jurassic World producer Frank Marshall (and husband of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy) tweeted the traditional congratulation ad, seen at right. Meanwhile the film also continued to rule on social media.

→ Want the nitty-gritty of what the actors made in The Force Awakens? Variety has a report, but beware of spoilers.

→ Video: Phil Tippett and his team on recreating the Millennium Falcon’s Dejarik holochess game.

→ The Force Awakens is among the ten films making the shortlist for the visual effects Oscar. Five will make the cut. Also on the shortlist are Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic World, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Ant-Man, Ex Machina, The Martian, The Revenant, Tomorrowland and The Walk.

→ Finn’s ID number is a particularly easy-to-miss Easter egg. Also on Buzzfeed: Finn/Poe shippers. Hey, at least it’s not Reylo.

→ Matt Patches did it. He stayed spoiler-free for The Force Awakens for three whole years. I think he’s nuts, but respect.

→ Also: Mike Ryan on the redemption of Han Solo, Hasbro’s first look at Leia and Maz Kanata figures in a new motion poster, and how will The Force Awakens influence fashion?

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Spoilerphobes beware: A couple of old friends showed up (vocally) in The Force Awakens

Rey approaches

No, you weren’t hearing things: Those were the voices of Ewan MacGregor, Frank Oz and Alec Guinness that we heard during Rey’s vision in The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams confirmed to Entertainment Weekly.

Ewan McGregor came in to record his part (after cartoon counterpart James Arnold Taylor took a shot at it,) as did Frank Oz. Guinness’ “Rey” was isolated from existing audio:

As they worked on editing the dream sequence, Bryan Burk, a longtime Bad Robot collaborator and one of the producers of the film, surprised Abrams one day with the gift of a single word: Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice saying the name “Rey …”

“I said, ‘That’s cool, is that the thing from Ewan McGregor?’” Abrams recalled. “He said ‘No, we took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’”

Not only that, but the lilt in his voice from that truncated word happened to fit exactly what Abrams had in mind. “They cut it, and you hear the performance – he’s saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. It is so crazy perfect,” Abrams says. “So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice.”

Taylor and several other familiar voices can still be heard in various parts around the film – but I’ll leave the specific IDing to those more well-versed in the cartoons than I.

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Adam Driver to host SNL in January

tfa-sdcc-driver-cropAdam Driver will be the first of The Force Awakens cast to host Saturday Night Live come January 19. Dude does have comedy chops, so this is bound to be interesting.

Driver’s hosting was announced during last night’s airing of the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler winter finale, which not-so-shockingly featured no Star Wars sketches. Previous episodes this season have featured cameos from J.J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega, and a toy commercial parody.

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Today in The Force Awakens: By the (box office) numbers, John Williams on the score

Rey and BB-8 (Rolling Stone)The Force Awakens is heading for a $200 million opening weekend, according to the early estimates. That puts it in sight of Jurassic World’s $208.4M record, something many doubted would be possible due to the usual holiday box office trends.

Disney says that it brought in $57M from the Thursday night previews, with Friday showings likely bringing the total to $100M.

→ John Williams talks about the score with the Los Angeles Times, including what seems to have become the score’s standout, ‘Rey’s Theme’. Meanwhile, you can listen to the full score on several streaming services, including Spotify.

→ Daniel Craig made a cameo after all, according to Entertainment Weekly, though I’m also seeing a lot of skeptical fans due to… Accent reasons.

→ Is there a backlash yet? I guess?

→ Badass Digest looks at the Resistance, the First Order and the Republic. Y’all may want to pick up Pablo Hidalgo’s Visual Guide to the movie.

→ Speaking of today’s book releases, io9 has a look at some pieces from The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

→ And speaking of books in general, author Chuck Wendig on the movie – and which Aftermath character we saw on screen.

→ Also: Easter egg sightings from EW and Comicbook, Adam Driver on Kylo Ren’s mask, and TFA rules Twitter

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Discussion post: The Force Awakens is here!

STILL-tfa-trailer3-kylobridge

Did you see The Force Awakens tonight? (Or yesterday, or a few days ago…) Here’s a safe spot to discuss it. Spoilers are very much allowed, so stay away until you’ve seen it! (My spoiler-free review is thataway.)

The rules are pretty simple: Don’t be a jerk, 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, so bear with me. I do have to sleep sometime.)