Posts

Posted on

Han, Luke and Leia: Passing the torch? Again?

Umpth time’s the charm? A Random House listing for Troy Denning’s Crucible, the post-FOTJ novel announced last week at San Diego Comic Con, contains this:

SETS UP NEW SERIES: With this book, Han, Luke, and Leia are passing the torch to the next generation of Star Wars heroes, and the stage will be set for the next major Star Wars series.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard this, but the New Jedi Order didn’t manage it, Legacy of the Force rounded out Jacen Solo only to kill him off, and Ben Skywalker… Well, okay, Ben is in better shape than his cousins ever were as teenagers. But that’s a pretty low bar, and thus a slim hope to hang on. Ironically, just this morning I was talking about an opinion piece I’ve been mulling, tentatively titled “Hey Del Rey, it’s your last chance to make me care about Jaina.” More then…

On the other hand, I’m guessing this means we’ll be seeing either a Jaina or Ben standalone announced at Celebration…

Posted on

Amanda Plummer is Wiress in Catching Fire; Melissa Leo, Tony Shalhoub and Sam Claflin up for other roles

The big Hunger Games casting news today is the casting of Amanda Plummer. Plummer, perhaps most familiar as ‘Honey Bunny’ in Pulp Fiction, will be playing the role of Wiress (Nuts,) a previous victor of the Hunger Games and an important ally for Katniss and Peeta in Catching Fire.

Meanwhile, Variety reports that Sam Claflin (Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Snow White and the Huntsman) is a leading contender for the key role of Finnick. The fan-casting has been pretty contentious for this role, so things may get a bit testy if this pans out.

Variety also highlights some much less-likely-to-be controversial frontrunners: Oscar winner Melissa Leo (The Fighter) for Mags, and Emmy winner Tony Shalhoub (Monk) for Wiress’ cohort Beetee, aka Volts.

I think Plummer is a great choice, and both Leo and Shalhoub would be fantastic (though Leo is rather young for Mags, who’s supposed to be 80-something) and big gets for the production. Claflin I’m not so sure about – I know that many Hunger Games fans were looking in a different direction. Still, there have been much worse choices in the hat for Finnick.

Posted on

SDCC roundup: Everything Star Wars

Comic-Con is over, and it’s time for a nap. (Damn you, Monday!) James’ pictures from Sunday begin here. Meanwhile, for those of you not online all weekend, here’s what went down for Star Wars. Some of these have had rather substantial updates after they were first posted!

Expanded Universe. Our focus, the books and comics, got some pretty big bombs dropped. Namely, we heard about our latest post-Fate of the Jedi novel, Crucible by Troy Denning, at the Star Wars books and comics panel. (James taped it! Others live-tweeted!)

Earlier, we had news of Star Wars, a new comic scripted by Brian Wood. It’s provoked plenty of discussion, both for the usual continuity issues and putting Leia in an X-Wing.

We’re also getting Vader’s Little Princess, a Leia-centric followup to Darth Vader and Son, and a Dawn of the Jedi novel by Tim Lebbon. There will be more book announcements at Celebration VI.

James also did an interview with John Jackson Miller, which is up over at Big Shiny Robot.

The Clone Wars. Lots of season 5 tidbits dropped, and the premiere will debut at Celebration VI.

Merchandise. Still nothing from Sideshow on their long-promised Mara Jade figure, but we did learn that a Mara mini-fig we saw at Celebration V is going into production as a Celebration VI store exclusive. It was also announced that Kotobukiya is going to do a Bishoujo Mara Jade, and Hasbro’s Jedi Mara figure will be in Wave 2 of the Droid Factory line. ‘

In other, less Mara news, Master Replicas is launching a Jedi costume line. Check out all that new Her Universe stuff!

Also. Course of the Force; Random House Audio bringing their fanfic-reading contest to CVI.

Posted on

SDCC: Clone Wars S5 premiere to be shown at CVI

The Clone Wars panel in San Diego was earlier, and naturally Dave Filoni and co. revealed a few hints about the new season. Moderator Pablo Hidalgo has the rundown, and there’s another nice writeup from Patrick Kevin Day at Hero Complex.

The least spoilery is certainly the news that the first episode of s5 will be show in Orlando at Celebration next month. I’ll let you head over to Tosche Station, who’ve collected Amy Ratcliffe’s live-tweets, but for now I’ll just say that it looks like Obi-Wan is going to have some time in the spotlight. Oh, and Maul might get some clothes. (That’s not spoilery, right?)

If you’re yearning for some actual action, both Entertainment Weekly and IGN have exclusive clips.