Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
With Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and Martin Scorsese’s Silence on the horizon, tis the season for weird Adam Driver photoshoots. There are no goats this time, but that is a seriously gross bathroom, Interview Magazine. (Vulture calls it an “abandoned toilet dungeon,” which makes it sound only more Kylo Ren appropriate.) They only touch on Star Wars a little, but the actual interview, with director Noah Baubach, is a good read.
As announced Wednesday, Kieron Gillen’s successor series to Darth Vader will be Doctor Aphra. Aphra, introduced in Darth Vader #3, was Marvel’s first original canon character and has developed something of a following throughout the series. (And yes, “she’d be cast as an Asian actress,” Gillen says.) There’s a great deal of storytelling freedom to be had with an original character in the original trilogy era, and plenty to do with the concept of archaeology in a setting like the GFFA. (For instance… Jedha?)
StarWars.com has an interview with Gillen, while Marvel introduces series artist Kev Walker. Doctor Aphra #1 is expected to land on December 7.
Just over a year out from launch, IGN interviews Jordan D. White, who’s in charge of Star Wars at Marvel Comics, about the line – including why they all began in the same time period at first – and what’s coming up in the future.
On why they chose Poe Dameron for the line’s first The Force Awakens ongoing:
Ideally, a miniseries tells a very specific, self-contained story. “Here’s this event.” You know, “Here’s the time when Lando tried to steal the Emperor’s yacht.” “Here’s the story of how Princess Leia dealt with the destruction of Alderaan in conjunction with her place in the Rebellion.” And then once it’s finished, it’s finished. If we were to, as some people have suggested, talk about turning that into an ongoing, it would be, “Well, okay, now we need to come up with a totally different story and direction for it to go in, because that is done.” Whereas as ongoing series, again, you want to come up with something that can generate story after story.
When you look at the main characters of The Force Awakens — all of whom are super awesome, by the way — Poe is definitely the one whose previous stories are adventure stories.
He also teases upcoming miniseries, “some that are going to surprise people” and “some that people are not going to be expecting.”
His Jar Jar idea – which remains vague, just in case – isn’t going to happen “any time soon.” But there’s stuff in the pipeline for “fans of every era of Star Wars.”
The article also previews some interior art from Darth Vader #16.
In a new interview with Wired, The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams talks about Star Wars in general, keeping secrets, the Millennium Falcon “changing hands,” and how the previous films succeeded and influenced the new. It’s today’s must-read (so far.)
Some excerpts below the cut, or go straight to Wired.
If you’re not up to watch the entire The Force Awakens panel from last night, catch the highlights above. And the full backstage interviews are below the cut!
Continue reading “SDCC video: The Force Awakens highlights, backstage interviews with cast and crew”
To promote their new book, Ultimate Star Wars, DK Publishing has dispatched the four authors across the US on a book tour. I caught up with Tricia Barr and Adam Bray at their talk and signing at the Carlsbad Library in southern California, and ended up moderating the author talk at the library.
After the signing, I was able to sit down with Adam Bray to go more in depth about Ultimate Star Wars and some other upcoming projects. Catch the book tour when it comes to your area!
Today, Vanity Fair has their J.J. Abrams interview, where The Force Awakens director talks about not overexplaining things, his weirdest moment, and capturing the tone of Star Wars. Also, a horrible Max von Sydow pun.
Now, what sparked a lot of discussion today was this bit:
Well, what’s cool is we’ve obviously had a lot of time [during the development process] to talk about what’s happened outside of the borders of the story that you’re seeing. So there are, of course, references to things, and some are very oblique so that hopefully the audience can infer what the characters are referring to. We used to have more references to things that we pulled out because they almost felt like they were trying too hard to allude to something. I think that the key is—and whether we’ve accomplished that or not is, of course, up to the audience—but the key is that references be essential so that you don’t reference a lot of things that feel like, oh, we’re laying pipe for, you know, an animated series or further movies. It should feel like things are being referenced for a reason.
Earlier, they talks about how A New Hope just dropped in references to things like the Clone Wars, and as someone who’s experienced great anvil fatigue over the past decades, I greatly appreciate a return to that, whether it be random whatevers that happened between trilogies or old stuff we already know.
Author James Luceno talks about Star Wars, the new canon and his upcoming novel Tarkin with SciFiNow.
He says he’s seen the series bible for Rebels and that when it comes to the old EU:
I chose not to really reference too much EU material only because of the setting of the story, but it was still there. It was still there to pick and choose from.
Though he does point out that there’s not that much to begin with in the primary setting of the novel. (5 years after Revenge of the Sith.)
However, as far as Episode VII goes? He knows nothing. But he makes a good point as to the Story Group:
Without spilling secrets they can say, ‘I think this isn’t a good place to go with this book’ or ‘You might want to steer clear of this topic.’ This is part of an effort to maintain a so-called continuity where every book and every game and every comic will all be part of a single story going forward, and that wasn’t the case earlier on.
Tarkin is due out November 4.
Dave Filoni talks Rebels at Collider. Character design ‘easter eggs,’ and more.
Empire talks to Simon Kinberg about Rebels – and, of course, the Episode VII connections (he’s still playing the ‘maybe’ game.) But on the tone of the series:
“We are not afraid to take those characters to some dark places. In the first season, there are some backstories that get revealed for main characters that are a lot darker and more dramatic than anything I’ve ever seen in animated TV, and which have the same depth and childhood trauma that the characters in the movies had.”
And The Inquisitor:
What we do know is that The Inquisitor is “less of a believer in the Empire and the cause of the Empire than perhaps Darth Vader, and more of a hunting dog.” So not a Sith, per se? “I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say about that, but no, per se.”
In other Rebels news, Lucasfilm and Disney have tapped DJ and dubstep producer Flux Pavilion to remix the show’s theme.