Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Force Awakens star John Boyega returned to Twitter and Instagram on Thursday, where he revealed – after the fact – that he’d spent some time roving the convention while wearing a clone trooper helmet.
Who’s the lucky fan who got to duel with him, I wonder?
UPDATE: He wasn’t the only one…
Celebration is winding down here in Anaheim, and it was just announced at the Closing Ceremonies that the next one will return us to London’s ExCel, the site of the first Celebration Europe back in 2007. It’ll be July 15-17, 2016, and tickets will go sale tomorrow.
We’re also seeing the return of Fan Relations, with Lucasfilm vet Pete Vilmur at the helm.
Big thanks go out to Mary Franklin and all the folks at Lucasfilm and Reed for bringing all this to us!
Alan Dean Foster is writing the novelization of The Force Awakens, Del Rey revealed today at their panel at Celebration Anaheim. It’ll be out in eBook on December 18, the day the movie comes out, with a hardcover to follow on an unspecified date in January.
Foster was the ghostwriter for the original Star Wars adaptation (credited to George Lucas) back in the ’70s, as well as the author of the first actual Star Wars novel, Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. This won’t be his first return to the franchise: He also wrote a prequel novel, The Approaching Storm, which came out ahead of Attack of the Clones.
This was already floating around, but it was confirmed that Del Rey is repackaging A New Dawn and Tarkin together as Rise of the Empire. We learned that that book will contain three new short stories, one of which ties into Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath. (Sadly, that’s just about the most we heard on Aftermath.)
That was just about the only real news out of the Del Rey panel that wasn’t already revealed earlier in the con.
As for Marvel, we got a few things: Greg Weisman will be writing the second arc of Kanan; They will be doing an adaption of The Force Awakens, but not anytime soon. Star Wars #6 is not John Cassidy’s last SW comic for Marvel… And Simone Bianchi will be drawing Star Wars #7, which is a one-shot Obi-Wan story on Tatooine.
The newest Star Wars stars discuss Celebration, their Star Wars histories, filming The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams and more behind the scenes in Anaheim. There’s also video with Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy, Carrie Fisher and Anthony Daniels, and Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew.
A couple of quick updates this morning: We’ve learned at Celebration that Alexander Freed will be writing Battlefront: Twilight Company, the November novel from Del Rey.
(The actual Battlefront game was this morning’s big draw, but more on how that’s relevant to us later. )
Marvel has been dropping their news ahead of their panel as well. First we learned that a Lando Calrissian limited series will follow Princess Leia. It’ll be from Charles Soule and Alex Maleev and issue #1 comes out in July.
And this morning, some Shattered Empire details. The limited series will be written by (as we knew) Greg Rucka, with art and cover from Marco Chechetto. (Is the Phil Noto piece just a variant?)
The Del Rey and Marvel panels are tomorrow, so no doubt we’ll learn more then.
Fans started picking up their badges in Anaheim today, and a sign pointing towards The Force Awakens Exhibit was soon spotted. Here’s the description:
I figured we ought to get this out of the way before Celebration and whatever they chose to drop on us. Remember your hashtags (#SWCA! #TheForceAwakens! #StarWaraRebels! #SWEU!) and be funny, kids.
The latest – maybe last? – batch of item reveals for the Celebration Anaheim store are here, and now they include the first bit of The Force Awakens swag. (A portion of the proceeds will go to UNICEF as a part of Force for Change.) There’s also a nifty Rebels crew jacket, some messenger bags, and a few other curiosities.
Just in the nick of time, we have the Celebration announcement we knew was coming: The con will be streamed live on StarWars.com. Beginning with the J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy’s panel, they promise “30-plus hours of live streamed content.”
Here are a few of the things they’ll be showing:
…Discussions with actors Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid, and several other performers associated with the Star Wars saga. Additionally, StarWars.com and Verizon will be live streaming the Star Wars Fan Film Awards; the Smuggler’s Bounty radio drama; EA’s new Battlefront videogame; and several other exclusive Celebration events that might otherwise be missed by members from Star Wars’ global fan community.
StarWars.com will also have live interviews with celebrity guests in a “Star Wars Cantina set.” It all begins at at 10:00 a.m. PST, Thursday, April 16.
There’s almost always been only one formal track at Celebration, the one for collectors, but the truth is there are usually several informal tracks, and I’ve collected a few on different subjects here. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list by any means, but if you’re still confused the schedule, consider these suggestions for Anaheim.
Continue reading “Celebration Anaheim: A quick and dirty guide to panels”