Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Star Wars Celebration has added more guests, including Ian McDiarmid, sequel trilogy puppeteer Brian Herring, and voice actor Mark Dodson. You can check out the full guest list on the con’s official site.
We also lean that autograph tickets will go on sale Wednesday, February 13, at noon PST.
Star Wars Rebels will return on Monday, February 19 at 9:00 p.m. on Disney XD. The second part of the show’s fourth and final season will air in hour blocks, cumulating in a 90-minute conclusion on Monday, March 5 at 8:30 p.m.
Hayden Christensen will be returning to Celebration for the first time since 2002 as part of the 40th Anniversary panel, joining Mark Hamill, Ian McDiarmid, Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Peter Mayhew, Dave Filoni and Kathleen Kennedy. “Many galactic-sized surprises” are still being promised, but this is a fairly big one. (And yes, he’s signing.)
In other Celebration news, there’s now more previews up for the Store, mostly t-shirts.
There’s still content from Celebration dropping, as Carrie Fisher talks to James Arnold Taylor backstage about Leia, the slave outfit, reprising Leia, and poor Gary’s exhaustion. Also joining James backstage are Ian McDiarmid and Anthony Daniels.
Plus there’s the Pablo Hidalgo and Leland Chee interview from the livestream.
Ian McDiarmid and a whole slate of cast and crew added to Celebration guest list. John Morton, (DAK!) Bonnie Piesse, Joel Aron, Leland Chee, Jennifer Heddle, Pablo Hidalgo, Jonathan Rinzler, Pete Vilmur and many more will be in Anaheim.
Ian McDiarmid addressed the rumors that Palpatine would return in Episode VII at Fan Expo Canada over the weekend. As reported by ComicBook.com:
“There’s been all sorts of rumors. No conversations have been had, and no deals have been struck. And anyway, I’m dead… but I could be resurrected. Yes, I’ve heard of ghosts, I’ve heard of clones. There’s all sorts of possibilities. But until I get that phone call, like the one I had before, I won’t believe I’m in it.”
The all-but-confirmed to return Carrie Fisher was also at the con, where she hinted about getting in trouble over some of her previous comments… And talking to J.J. Abrams!
Latino Review is furthering the rumor from earlier this week about Ian McDiarmid’s return. They say the Emperor won’t be resurrected (sorry, Dark Empire fans) but will be appearing as a Force Ghost. And he had taken a new apprentice – who will presumably be film’s primary antagonist – before he was killed in Return of the Jedi.
What else do they say? ” Not one thing they have in the script is from a book,” (or a comic?) so count out the usual suspects… If you believe this, anyway.
There are a couple other rumors floating around today as well. One, from Episode 7 News echoes something we heard in May, that Abrams may have his hands in far more than just the actual movie. This one calls him “the creative core” of everything surrounding the new films. The other, from The Daily Superhero, says that the secrecy mandates “pretty much sounds to me like armed guards are near certain important people who are working on this movie, 24/7.”
The armed guard thing sounds like something we’ll be looking back and laughing at in 2015, but hey. Sure. Why not.
Jedi News is reporting that Ian McDiarmid will be returning in Episode VII. Emperor Palpatine reborn? Undead? A relative? A Holocron? Or simply in a dream or vision? Naturally this is completely unconfirmed, but there are any number of possibilities…
But if I was betting? Holocron, ghost or vision. By a mile.
Here’s some of my favorite videos from Star Wars Celebration Europe. Up above, Warwick Davis and Ian McDiarmid re-create the Yoda/Sidious battle from Revenge of the Sith. (Trigger warning: Ewoks are stomped upon.) Davis would try to do a bit with each cast member in a segment called “Stage Wars” and below, we have Davis and Carrie Fisher returning to the first encounter between Wicket and Leia. And there’s even more below…
Continue reading “Video: Best of Star Wars Celebration Europe”
Here’s some of the highlights of Star Wars Celebration Europe for me. I worked the convention as part of the crew at the Celebration stage in the Grugahalle, which was a giant concert hall next door to the main convention halls, so most of my memories involve being at the Celebration stage, but really it’s all about the people that one encounters at a Star Wars convention – we’re all here because of one thing: we love Star Wars!
Continue reading “James picks his favorite Celebration Europe moments”