Tag: diversity

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Today in Rogue One: Hear a preview of Michael Giacchino’s score

Entertainment Weekly brought us our first listen of Michael Giacchino’s Rogue One score. I’m not really much of a score junkie, but it sounds good! If you want to dig a little deeper, the full track listing has been spotted. There are few intriguing things there, so take it as you will.

→ Chatting about Columbia’s Rogue One jackets with the brand’s director of apparel design, Debra Criss. These are really some of the most impressive clothing tie-ins we’ve seen with this film, so it’s nice to learn more.

→ There’s been some pretty ridiculous stuff running around Twitter regarding an “anti-Trump” message being inserted into Rogue One at the last minute. While Star Wars has never shied away from some pointed commentary, the timeline alone here makes that deeply unrealistic. And in any case, certain themes have been baked in since the start. I expect this boycott will bear about as much fruit as the last one did.

→ The interviews: Gareth Edwards on diversity, reshoots and the “team sport” method of Star Wars (and/or filmmaking in general.) Riz Ahmed raps. The Wrap calls Donnie Yen “the perfect breakout star for 2017” and he tells Mashable “Give me a lightsaber, you wouldn’t have two hours of storytelling.”

→ A quick guide to the Star Wars books, films and TV you may want to catch up on before Rogue One.

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#PutDrewInStarWars petition asks for Star Wars’ first LGBT movie character named after Orlando shooting victim


Star Wars fan Christopher Andrew “Drew” Leinonen and boyfriend Juan Ramon Guerrero were among the 49 people who died in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando earlier this month. Drew’s best friend Joshua Yehl has started a petition asking Lucasfilm to use him “as inspiration for the first-ever LGBT Star Wars character to appear in a movie.”

The petition has over 6000 supporters as of Thursday morning, gaining widespread support (including a retweet from Mark Hamill) in the past few days. You can sign it here.

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GLAAD: Star Wars movies need gay, lesbian characters

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As part of their annual report on LGBT characters in movies, the anti-defamation group GLAAD is pushing Star Wars to introduce gay and lesbian characters into the films. Per Variety:

“As sci-fi projects have the special opportunity to create unique worlds whose advanced societies can serve as a commentary on our own, the most obvious place where Disney could include LGBT characters is in the upcoming eighth ‘Star Wars’ film,” the report reads. “2015’s ‘The Force Awakens’ has introduced a new and diverse central trio, which allows the creators opportunity to tell fresh stories as they develop their backstory. Recent official novels in the franchise featured lesbian and gay characters that could also be easily written into the stories.”

The introduction of gay and lesbian characters into the canon Star Wars novels has been controversial, but really, what isn’t?

Also at Variety, Brent Lang looks at why major blockbusters like Star Wars and Marvel have been reluctant to add LGBT characters.

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J.J. Abrams: “Of course” there will be gay Star Wars characters

60m-jjabramsThe Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams was asked about the future of gay characters in Star Wars Thursday. “Of course,” he told The Daily Beast. “When I talk about inclusivity it’s not excluding gay characters. It’s about inclusivity. So of course.”

By Abrams’ logic, the sprawling Star Wars universe couldn’t possibly exist without a gay populace—even if we haven’t seen a single character identified as gay thus far. “I would love it,” he said. “To me, the fun of Star Wars is the glory of possibility. So it seems insanely narrow-minded and counterintuitive to say that there wouldn’t be a homosexual character in that world.”

Of course, fans of the new Star Wars novels know that there are already canon gay and lesbian characters there (most notably, though not without ‘controversy,’ in Aftermath) but on film it’s a different story.

Abrams’ comments are far from a promise – or a confirmation – but he does say that discussions on diversity and inclusiveness are happening in Hollywood. And given what Lucasfilm’s done so far, I doubt they’re an exception.

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Star Wars canon’s first LGBT character to appear in an upcoming novel

kemp-sithIt’s not the first time Star Wars has featured LGBT characters, but an upcoming novel will be the first to introduce one into Star Wars canon as it now stands.

Paul S. Kemp’s Lords of the Sith, out in April, features Moff Mors, a lesbian and “Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes but is an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure,” Bryan Young at Big Shiny Robot reports.

“There should be diversity in Star Wars,” Del Rey editor Shelly Shapiro told Young for Full of Sith. And what more is there to say than that?

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David Oyelowo, The LEGO Movie big snubs of Oscars

SelmaOscar nominations came out this morning (with a little help from J.J. Abrams as a presenter) and the main story seem to be how very, very male and white they are. The most noteworthy snub? Civil rights drama Selma, which earned a Best Picture and Best Song nomination, despite nothing for director Ava DuVernay or the cast, led by Rebels’ David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. The saddest thing, maybe? Shutting out one movie is all it took to whitewash the acting nominations.

The other big snub? The LEGO Movie, which is up for Best Song (‘Everything is Awesome’) but totally shut out of Best Animated Feature. At least one of the directors has a good attitude about it.

But as usual, the only field that’s heavy in genre is Visual Effects, which sees nods for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, X-Men: Days of Future Past.

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Today in Episode VII: Concept art, Imaginarium visits, editor talk and diversity

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→There’s another concept art description from Making Star Wars today, perhaps one from the same sequence as the battle art we saw a few weeks ago.

→ Actor Pip Anderson was at the Imaginarium. Make of that what you will.

→ A report from a talk with editor Mary Jo Markey. She doesn’t talk about Episode VII, but you don’t really expect her to, do you?

→ New Tosche Station staffer Shoshana writes about diversity, race and Episode VII.

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What even the best blockbusters are still getting wrong about women

What even the best blockbusters are still getting wrong about women. “When I asked [Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves] why there was so little for women to do in Dawn, he fell uncharacteristically silent. ‘It wasn’t a conscious decision. I don’t know,’ he finally admitted.” Why are we still making a big deal about this, re: Episode VII and other blockbusters? Because of answers like that.