…Or to watch now that you’e seen it. Above, a look at shooting in Abu Dhabi. Below the cut, on story and stunts.
Continue reading “Video: The Force Awakens featurettes to whet your appetite”
The Force Awakens breaks a big record for Fandango
According to Fandango (via Variety) The Force Awakens has moved the most tickets in the site’s history. Not just presales: Total sales of movies like Jurassic World and The Hunger Games. That doesn’t account for the other online ticket-sellers and in-person sales, but it’s still pretty impressive.
Just the other day, we heard (unofficially, but supposedly via a Disney source) that the film has passed the $100M mark in total presales.
The Force Awakens has already opened in several international territories, where it’s already brought in $14.1 million from early screenings. In France alone it took in $5.2 million, their biggest December opening day ever.
This morning in The Force Awakens: Bob Iger’s praise, London press
In an email to employees, Disney’s Bob Iger called The Force Awakens “one of the proudest and most exciting moments” in Disney history.
→ The BBC report and photos from The Force Awakens’ London premiere. Meanwhile, you can watch this morning’s the London press conference.
→ The Military Times profiles Adam Driver.
→ You won’t need to be a Star Wars expert to enjoy The Force Awakens, Bobby Roberts points out in The Portland Mercury.
→ Buzzfeed takes a look at J.J. Abrams’ previous movies, leading into some interesting casting bits on The Force Awakens
→ J.J. Abrams and Harrison Ford were on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert the other day, where we get ‘exclusive video’ of J.J. Abrams convincing Harrison Ford to return as Han Solo. Colbert is also pushing the hashtag #SpoilerSpoilers. (My favorite.)
Roundup: The Force Awakens reviews
The Force Awakens reviews came off embargo very early this morning, and there are a lot of them (I did one!) They are also, for the most part, overwhelmingly positive, and as of Wednesday afternoon the film is 94% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.
Here are a select few:
→ The prize for most innovative goes to Hannah Lodge at The Beat, which is helpfully divided to let you choose your own spoiler level. (It’s still not all that spoilery.)
→ io9’s Charlie Jane Anders has become one of my favorite reviewers, and her take on TFA is mostly positive – it passes her “grin test.”
→ I’m super jealous of Chris Taylor’s opening line at Mashable, if only because he said it better than I did. I could not pull off his Beatles references, though.
→ Our pal Bryan Young at Big Shiny Robot is a little more hesitant, particularly on the editing front.
→ Drew McWeeny at Hitfix praises how TFA grapples with the legacy both on and off screen.
→ The Guardian’s Jordan Hoffman is heavy on the detail – mainly of the Easter Egg variety, not so much the spoilers.
→ Devin Faraci of Birth. Movies. Death. calls The Force Awakens “the Star Wars movie for remix and remake culture,” a fair enough assessment. He’s cynical on a lot of things – that’s Faraci for you – but he’s also full of praise for the characters and the final saber battle.
→ Among a handful of not-so-positive reviews is Scott Mendelson at Forbes, who found the nostalgia a bit too overpowering, and the details not sketched in enough.
Today in The Force Awakens: Making the AFI list, everybody sings
The Force Awakens is one of the American Film Institute’s Movies of the Year. Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian were also honored.
→ For GQ, Oscar Isaac covers Bill Murray’s classic lounge-singer version of the Star Wars theme. With new words! Also singing: Everyone.
→ Alyssa Rosenberg at The Washington Post looks at how The Force Awakens plays into the ‘great cultural debates’ of our time.
→ Gizmodo takes a look at Star Wars merchandising in Hungary, which gets pretty damn weird. (Creamed corn? Chicken nuggets? Foie Gras?)
→ Rolling Stone posted their full interview with Harrison Ford; Greg Grunberg on getting his own action figure.
→ Quentin Tarantino has accused Disney of trying to strong-arm his latest movie, The Hateful Eight, out of ArcLight theaters with The Force Awakens.
Marvel’s Kanan comic to end with #12
Marvel’s Kanan comic ending with #12, per writer Greg Weisman on Twitter yesterday. Issue #9 is out today.
Star Wars Books shuts down Facebook page to spare fans movie spoilers from disgruntled Legends backers
Yesterday, we first heard of threats from some members of the so-called ‘Bring Back Legends’ movement to spoil The Force Awakens on public Facebook pages. Apparently some of them made good on their threats, because the folks at Del Rey have deactivated their Star Wars Books page. They explain their decision – no, it’s not gone for good – on their Tumblr:
We don’t want to give people who wish to spoil the movie for others a platform to do that and we are under no obligation to do so.
The ‘Bring Back Legends’ (or ‘Give Us Legends’) movement is a rather scattered gathering of fans of older Star Wars novels and comics – almost everything published before September 2014, including several decades of storylines that continue past Return of the Jedi. Last year, Lucasfilm announced that the older fiction would stay in print as ‘Legends’ – but as an alternate universe that doesn’t count towards the new films. Most Bring Back Legends fans want the older storylines to be continued, but there is a rather wide spectrum of opinions and attitudes on how and why.
My policy has been – and remains – to not cover them, for the most part. Most of them seem rather harmless – bitter, sometimes annoying, but harmless. But this is not the first incident where they’ve crossed a very distinct line, and that I will not ignore.
This is not going to change anyone’s minds about Legends, and spoiling people for a hotly-anticipated movie may be skeevy, but this is not a matter of life and death. Still, no one should have to invoke the nuclear option because of what is and isn’t canon in tie-in fiction.
Meanwhile, look for Del Rey to publish Alan Dean Foster’s The Force Awakens novelization as an eBook on Friday – Facebook or no Facebook.
Review: The Force Awakens is everything I hoped it would be
Let’s just cut to the chase: The Force Awakens is a pretty good Star Wars movie.
Some are saying great, but I’m not sure if a single viewing is enough. (And I don’t do rankings, because that’s tedious.) But the important thing, for our purposes, is that I enjoyed it.
Granted, I’m an easy mark for this one. I’ve been a Star Wars fan for both the special editions and the prequels – I waited in those lines. (Briefly.) But I never approached any of them with anything beyond idle curiosity. They were not a cornerstone of my personal fandom. The Force Awakens is the first brand-new Star Wars film that’s actually important to me. The first film where I was actually a little scared to watch, because what if I don’t like it?
In the theater, none of that mattered.
UPDATE: Please do not leave spoilers in the comments of the review. We have a special discussion post for that sort of thing!
Continue reading “Review: The Force Awakens is everything I hoped it would be”
Today in The Force Awakens: $100M in presales alone
The Force Awakens’ advance ticket sales have passed the $100 million mark in North America, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That’s at least four times as much as the previous record holder, The Dark Knight Rises.
Don’t forget that the reviews – including mine – will come off embargo tonight at 12:01 a.m. PST (3:01 a.m. EST.) Don’t worry too much, we’ve been asked not to reveal spoilers. (There’s always the Force Block browser extension if you’re paranoid.)
→ Official featurette on your new favorite droid, BB-8, and a Force for Change highlight reel.
→ Slightly more women than men have been talking about The Force Awakens on Facebook, and Rey is the character driving the most anticipation for the film, according to a new survey.
→ Oscar Isaac is GQ’s latest cover dude. Meanwhile, in the Miami New Times, he’s interviewed by his brother, Mike Hernandez.
→ Lupita Nyong’o tells Ellen DeGeneres how she didn’t know that she was auditioning for Star Wars.
→ In /Film’s full J.J. Abrams interview, the director talks about developing the film
→ What does comedian Bill Hader have to do with BB-8?
→ You’ll never guess what some of the internet’s most disgruntled Expanded Universe fans are threatening to do now! Oh wait, you totally will, because it’s utterly pointless and deranged. That Force Block thing is looking pretty good about now, yeah?
Tonight in The Force Awakens: Red carpet shenanigans
I was only able to see about half the world premiere red carpet livestream, but I did catch the most magical part: Carrie Fisher interviewing Oscar Isaac. Or attempting to interview. Whatever it was, it was wonderful, and you can watch it on Youtube.
I wasn’t able to collect tweets, but here are some from The Hollywood Reporter, Jedi News and @bahnree. There are also pictures at Variety and The Wrap. (The best. Or maybe…)
UPDATE: Kathleen Kennedy’s speech inside the theater and some of the first reactions.
→ Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams talked to /Film on how they collaborated with Episode VIII writer/director Rian Johnson, and how IX director Colin Trevorrow will likely work in.
→ Wired takes a look at Sphero, and how exactly BB-8 was a boon for them.
→ Some great The Force Awakens fashions by designer Catherine Elhoffer. You may have seen them on the red carpet tonight!
→ Andy Serkis ‘confirms’ evil Jar Jar on Conan.
→ Korean boy band EXO has an (authorized) song called ‘Lightsaber’. We truly live in an age of wonders.