Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
And the first wave of Celebration guest announcements brings us a variety of voice actors: From Resistance, Christopher Sean, Suzie McGrath, and Scott Lawrence, who voice Kazuda Xiono, Tam Ryvora and Jarek Yeager. From The Clone Wars, there’s longtime Celebration vetern James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan Kenobi). There’s also Battlefront II’s Janina Gavankar and Skywalker Sound’s Matthew Wood, who voiced General Grievous.
Star Wars Celebration Chicago is being held April 11-15.
Ashley Eckstein and Her Universe are launching a special The Clone Wars collection at San Diego Comic-Con. To celebrate the show’s 10th birthday, Eckstein (who voices breakout character Ahsoka Tano) gathered some of her TCW castmates as models.
Some of the clothes are already available online, but they’ll also be for sale at the company’s SDCC booth in the Lucasfilm Pavilion.
On StarWars.com, Matthew Wood reveals the familiar voices behind the various troopers and pilots of The Force Awakens.
No, you weren’t hearing things: Those were the voices of Ewan MacGregor, Frank Oz and Alec Guinness that we heard during Rey’s vision in The Force Awakens, J.J. Abrams confirmed to Entertainment Weekly.
Ewan McGregor came in to record his part (after cartoon counterpart James Arnold Taylor took a shot at it,) as did Frank Oz. Guinness’ “Rey” was isolated from existing audio:
As they worked on editing the dream sequence, Bryan Burk, a longtime Bad Robot collaborator and one of the producers of the film, surprised Abrams one day with the gift of a single word: Obi-Wan Kenobi’s voice saying the name “Rey …”
“I said, ‘That’s cool, is that the thing from Ewan McGregor?’” Abrams recalled. “He said ‘No, we took a line from Alec Guinness saying ‘Afraid.’”
Not only that, but the lilt in his voice from that truncated word happened to fit exactly what Abrams had in mind. “They cut it, and you hear the performance – he’s saying it the way I would have begged Alec Guinness to have said it. It is so crazy perfect,” Abrams says. “So when you hear Obi-Wan talk to Rey it is both Alec Guinness and Ewan McGregor doing the voice.”
Taylor and several other familiar voices can still be heard in various parts around the film – but I’ll leave the specific IDing to those more well-versed in the cartoons than I.
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.
Backstage at Celebration, Mark Hamill chats with James Arnold Taylor about Star Wars and shared some family photos from the Return of the Jedi set. (The Force Awakens stuff starts at 7:20. #Beardwatch!)
A bunch of other Celebration videos have gone up over the past few days as well, most pulls from the livestream, including interviews with Billy Dee Williams, Ray Park, Joel Aron, Doug Chiang and Christian Alzmann, among others. And then there’s con highlights that played during the Closing Ceremonies…
James Arnold Taylor chats with Mark Hamill at Star Wars Weekends! He chats about his beard (yes, it’s exactly what you think it is,) talks Star Wars, does impressions, and even breaks into the Joker. (via)
In a hurry? Just the Joker/Luke dialogue:
The new Insider has named the stage hosts for next year’s Celebration Anaheim. Returning are James Arnold Taylor (Celebration Stage,) David Collins (Digital Stage) and Gus Lopez (Collecting Track.) There are new hosts for the Behind-The-Scenes stage, which has been the domain of Pablo Hidalgo for the past several cons: Jason Swank and Jimmy Mac McInerney of RebelForce Radio. Is Pablo too busy with his Story Team duties? Will he only be acting as a panelist, in line with his Story Team duties? We worry.
James Arnold Taylor is more than just the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and other characters on The Clone Wars! If you’ve followed the veteran voice actor on social media, you’ve seen his tidbits of inspiration for everyday life. Now Taylor has compiled a book of his daily doses of positive attitude to help provide that extra boost of good vibes for each day of a year. In JAT 365: 365 Daily Inspirations for the Pursuit of Your Dreams, Taylor delivers a tool for daily progress in working towards one’s dreams. I take a look inside and see what JAT 365 is all about. Continue reading “Review: JAT 365 by James Arnold Taylor”
Short stories. Star Wars Books announced last night that Lucasfilm editor Jennifer Heddle has written a young Leia Organa novel for Star Wars Insider #145. “Constant Spirit” features Leia before A New Hope, and Heddle thinks it’s “one of the earliest-set stories about Leia there’s been, if not the earliest.” The issue will be on newsstands October 22, and in subscriber mailboxes a week or so before that.
Chats. Star Wars Books also had a Facebook chat with James Arnold Taylor the other day. (About… Kenobi? I guess?) There’s even an official edited transcript. There’ll be a John Jackson Miller chat soon, but no details yet.
Interviews. Speaking of Miller, he did a bunch of Kenobi interviews. Check them out at Suvudu, Tosche Station, Eleven Thirty-Eight and TFN. Yes, there are more, but Miller himself has rounded ’em up and he’d know better than I.
DRAGONCON! Tosche Station Radio was on location at DragonCon, and they shared their experience with those of us who had to play along at home. Check out their audio of panels with Star Wars authors, fan activities and the panel on women and minorities in the franchise, featuring Club Jade’s own Luci! They also caught Tim, Mike, and Aaron conspiring!
Reviews. Head over to the newly-redesigned Big Shiny Robot for James’ latest comic reviews: A double (with Bryan Young) of the hot new release The Star Wars #1, plus Star Wars #8, Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin #5 and Dark Times: A Spark Remains #2.