Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Although there are some rumblings that filming isn’t quite done for all, Saturday night was the wrap party for Episode VII. John Boyega posted a photo with Artoo and a video to his Instagram, and later shared another from the party. Naturally, the paparazzi were there. (Yes, Simon Pegg was there, so get ready for another round of ‘does he have a role?!?‘)
And you can get a closer look at the Artoo – presumably the same one used during the filmng – at Indie Revolver.
→ Jedi News is replicating the Foodles magic to find two more newly registered productions: LUNAK HEAVY INDUSTRIES and SPACE BEAR INDUSTRIES. One is no doubt our first spin-off – is the other spin-off #2 or Episode VIII? Or something else entirely? Speculate away, my pretties!
→ Both Oscar Isaac and Carrie Fisher are in the press today, and they’re both talking (a bit) about Star Wars. Everyone’s jumping over Isaac’s ‘hundreds of stormtroopers’ line, but I think the other stuff he says is way more interesting. Carrie, of course, is Carrie.
→ BEARDWATCH: As of last week, we can report that Oscar Isaac is sporting only minimum scruff. BLONDEWATCH: Carrie Fisher is still blonde. We think.
→ J.J. Abrams will receive the Visual Effects Society’s Visionary Award in February.
→ Yearbook photos of Adam Driver prove he looked exactly like you’d expect Adam Driver to look like in high school.
→ J.J. Abrams, John Boyega and Daisy Ridley were at a dinner party (?) with director Edgar Wright. There was some jumping on this as a ‘sign’ of Wright being involved with Star Wars, but I think maybe Slashfilm has the best idea – that J.J. may just want to geek out with someone who can actually keep a damn secret. Or maybe they’re just buds and/or they’re all trolling us again. Who knows! (Random trivia I was unaware of before today: Wright produced Attack the Block, Boyega’s feature debut.)
→ Meanwhile, Adam Driver is officially out of hiding as GQ’s latest cover story. He doesn’t talk much about Star Wars, but it’s got some decent (if very ::sideeye:: guy mag) stuff on his background.
→ Slate has a new Star Wars Rumor Generator. This one does posters!
J.J. Abrams takes the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, nominates 501st Legion. Well, at least it’s for a good cause.
The Movie Bit reports that J.J. Abrams, crew and at least one actor (who I won’t name for the particularly spoiler-wary) have arrived on Ireland’s Skellig Michael to begin three days of filming. They’re expected to be there through Wednesday. Getty Images has photos of the arrivals. Stalkertastic! (via)
With a week to go on A Force For Change, J.J. Abrams gives us another look at the set. Well, an X-wing. (Yes, it’s really an X-wing.)
→ No, Karen Gillan has not been cast in Episode VII. But last we heard of the wig made when she shaved her head for Guardians of the Galaxy, her Marvel brethren had gifted it to Star Wars. Now, it seems she’s using it herself, on her new TV show Selfie.
Yes, some deluded Mara Jade fans were clinging a bit too closely to that tidbit, but come on: A red wig does not a guaranteed character appearance make. (via)
→ Speaking of possibly deluded fans, someone from the Jedi Council forums (!?!) claims that they nabbed pics of names on trailers at the Puzzlewood shoot. One of them is a female name. I trust this – like pretty much anything off those forums – about as far as I can throw my iMac, and those pics could come from any random office corridor, but hey. Whatever.
→ Oh, and J.J. Abrams is apparently moonlighting as a celebrity party DJ now. The article does have some pics of the recently vacated Puzzlewood shoot, though.
Today, Latino Review’s Da7e Gonzales claims that there’s indeed a struggle behind the scenes to push Episode VII back to May 2016, with JJ Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy on one side and Disney’s Bob Iger on the other. (As we’ve heard before – but from LR, so.) Their bargaining tool? Harrison Ford’s leg, which I think has more press than rest of the cast combined at this point.
Of course we know Lucasfilm is still sticking to December 18, 2015 – but then, they would be. That is the release date – at the moment, anyway.
There are a thousand other considerations when a huge corporation like Disney is involved, but from the fan end, would any of us really object to May, if it comes to pass? I’d certainly prefer it, but the movie’s release date was never going to be my hill to die on.
In any case, this paragraph in particular makes the upmost sense to me:
The franchise and it’s spinoff films will likely be big no matter what, but the value of owning Star Wars is owning the bottomless well of potential money and that means plugging into nostalgia. Star Wars as a franchise can’t pull a Rise/Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and drastically change tones, Star Wars can’t reboot. Star Wars is continuous. Kathleen Kennedy cannot have an Episode VII that botches the handoff between Star Was and Star Is.
Star Wars may not really need to be ‘fixed’ after the prequels – I’m not even a big prequel fan and I think it’s silly to say the franchise was ‘broken’ by them – but there is a perception issue in the mainstream. The mainstream thought the prequels were bad. We can argue about whether that’s been softening until the cows come home, but the fact remains that the perception is there and it’s still plenty powerful. It still, to this day, colors how many people see Star Wars.
Kennedy needs to usher Star Wars into something that can last for Disney. She knows they can’t afford to stick the landing by releasing a rushed, subpar Episode VII with the future of the franchise hanging in the balance.
Episode VII will make Disney millions, maybe billons, not matter when it’s released or how good (or bad) it is. No matter what movie it opens against. But if Star Wars is going to last beyond a third trilogy, it’s going to need some careful cultivation. There are a whole lot of people to convince, and most of them aren’t those of us who follow every drip and drabble of news, or who know that just using the terms ‘bad’ and ‘prequels’ in the same sentence will lead to a tedious debate in certain company. Lucasfilm and Disney both need the mainstream, and they need to convince them that Star Wars is, and can be, ‘good’ again.
Of course, this story of an internal struggle and using an old man’s innocent leg as a bargaining chip is only a rumor, and none of this may pan out in any way; You know the drill. And even if it is true, plenty of great films have come from crazier turmoil than this. We simply won’t know until the movie actually comes out – whenever that ends up being.
Last week had parties, pictures, and a blonde Carrie Fisher, for some reason.
Continue reading “The staredown: Dispatches from the Episode VII cast”
Here’s a new twist to the Billie Lourd ‘casting’ – The Sun (of course) via the Mirror is now apparently claiming that Carrie Fisher’s daughter be playing the young Princess Leia in flashback scenes, complete with buns.
While I don’t doubt that Lourd and any number of others (The Sun also names J.J. Abrams’ father and father-in-law) will cameo, let’s not forget that British tabloids are the worst.