Carrie Fisher tweeted out a lovely picture of Gary today, and confirming along the way that Space Bear is the codename for Episode VIII. We first heard of the bear way back in September 2014. If anyone can translate that tweet, go right ahead, as I can’t read emoji. (I’ll never make it in the Resistance.)
→ John Boyega says “you never know,” about a possible Finn/Poe Dameron relationship. Shippers are gonna ship regardless. (Speaking of, if you’re appreciative of the Regency fan art he posted yesterday, it’s by TheRealMcGee on Tumblr, and she also did Rey and Kylo Ren.
→ There’ll apparently be drones to take out drones when VIII films in Croatia, plus a lot of guards.
→ Speaking of location shoots, Making Star Wars has a few details on shooting at another site in Ireland that’s “a very good match for Skellig Michael.”
Returning from The Force Awakens are Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Adam Driver, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Anthony Daniels, Gwendoline Christie, and Andy Serkis.
Video footage shows director Rian Johnson, Hamill and Ridley filming on Skellig Micheal in September, and a hint as to where VIII picks up…
…Or is it? Note that only one shot – Ridley holding out the saber – is actually a close duplicate to what we saw in The Force Awakens. While they may be keeping things less restrictive this time, let’s not put too much faith in what they’re willing to show us.
John Boyega won the EE Rising Star Award at last night’s BAFTA Awards. He later joined The Force Awakens effects team, who won for Special Visual Effects:
On the red carpet, John revealed he starts filming on Episode VIII Monday.
Domhnall Gleeson and Carrie Fisher were also at the awards, where they presented the award for Film Not in the English Language and goofed off backstage.
It may be no surprise that The Force Awakens is nabbing a bunch of key nominations for the Nickelodeon 2016 Kids’ Choice Awards, but a Star Wars book has also earned a nomination, competing against both Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. DK’s Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, by Adam Bray, Cole Horton, Michael Kogge, and Kerrie Dougherty, is one of six choices to be voted on in the Favorite Book category. Will it stand up to the likes of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Maze Runner? Anyone can vote as much as they want for the Kids’ Choice Awards at nick.com/KCA. Sadly, you can’t skip a category, like Favorite (Music) Collaboration.
In other categories, The Force Awakens has earned nominations for Favorite Movie, Favorite Actor (John Boyega) & Favorite Actress (Daisy Ridley). In the video games category, Disney Infinity 3.0 (which added Star Wars content) is a nominee. The Kids’ Choice Awards will air live on March 12, hosted by Blake Shelton.
“So, just finished training and all that kind of stuff, for the next one. And as you can see, Finn is back.” [Video]
We know Episode VIII filming is due to begin soon, and there’s plenty of evidence from Rian Johnson on Tumblr, an Instagram from Daisy Ridley, a Snapchat from John Boyega, and tweets from Anthony Daniels and Carrie Fisher.
John Boyega talks to Vogue UK, and he tells them that the Episode VIII script is “great” but “much darker” than The Force Awakens, and that his part in the new film “will be much more physical.”
Meanwhile, Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow talked to Entertainment Tonight about “working closely” with VII director Rian Johnson, as well as the petition to have him replaced by George Lucas.
J.J. Abrams discusses The Force Awakens with The Hollywood Reporter, including the criticisms that the film is too similar to A New Hope, and why it was important “to go backwards to go forwards.”
Finn/Poe may be the internet’s favoriteThe Force Awakens ‘ship, but it seems at least one of the actors involved isn’t quite on board. John Boyega told ShortList Magazine’s Chris Mandle that the (possible) romance is “all in Oscar’s head.”
Oscar Isaac admitted to “playing romance” on a pre-release interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, though he declined to specify with who. He earlier remarked about how his only romance in the film was with “those two little balls” – aka BB-8. (But who doesn’t the man have chemistry with?)
Mandle’s Boyega interview – and any additional context – will be published later this month. Mandle has a post up, including Boyega’s full comment, where he calls the relationship between Fin and Poe “a brotherly love, a bromance.”
But in any case, when does something like this actually stop the ‘shippers? Remember kids, it’s all for fun – no matter where the canon ends up.
StarWars.com’s Andi Guiterrez has some questions for J.J. Abrams and the cast of The Force Awakens. Also, lollipops! Sadly not the infamous Jar Jar ones.
After a successful deployment at Celebration Anaheim earlier this year, StarWars.com will be livestreaming The Force Awakens red carpet at the film’s official world premiere in Los Angeles on December 14. Andi Gutierrez, Anthony Carboni, and David Collins will be hosting and interviewing the cast and other notables.
→ J.J. Abrams talks to io9 about the script process (including Michael Arndt’s exit,) starting fresh with Lawrence Kasdan and even the Expanded Universe. (On that note, The Hollywood Reporter on the pre-Abrams story meetings.) At Nerdist, he says he wants to see Selma’s Ava DuVernay do a Star Wars film. She seems game! And Pablo Hidalgo’s fame continues to spread, as he’s the subject of the first question from the Associated Press.
→ Harrison Ford sheds some light on “Chewie, we’re home,” at io9, and says The Force Awakens “correctly ambitious in every sense” in the LAT.
→ Daisy Ridley and John Boyega are in the New York Times! With the AP, John shares the story of how (and why) he got Robert Downey Jr. as his mentor in fame. But he couldn’t resist getting a little saucy about Star Trek with Yahoo. (Well, about William Shatner, technically. Which is, I believe, legal under the Carrie Directive)
→ It was Oscar Isaac’s turn on Good Morning America today, where he talked about flying an X-wing.
→ A film still of Billie Lourd in the movie has been floating around for a while now (plus she was in one of the first TV spots) but People has an official character portrait, in which we can see she wears her hair in a toned-down version of Leia’s iconic buns. Still no character name, though.
→ J.J. Abrams, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Adam Driver were in Seoul today goofing around, while Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o and Kathleen Kennedy were in Mexico City. I can’t find any reports in English, but damn they looked cool.