Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Some sad, scared little men edited almost all the women out of The Last Jedi. Their version is 46 minutes long, less than half the actual running length, cutting out most of Holdo, nearly all of Rose’s lines, and of course Luke milking the thala-siren. (No boobs allowed!) But the best part? The reaction of the actual men involved in the movie.
Continue reading “Crybabies edit The Last Jedi down to a 46-minute ‘chauvinist cut’”
The Star Wars fangirl documentary Looking for Leia has released a preview reel. You can learn more about the doc at lookingforleia.com. Spoiler: It looks pretty great.
Lucasfilm has annouced some of their promotional partners for The Last Jedi, and they include some unsurprising names – Nissan, Verizon, General Mills. The real surprise? Christian Louboutin, which is best-known for their distinctive red-soled high heels. But they do have have a beauty line now that they’re playing up in the press release.
But speaking of beauty, Cargo Cosmetics will be debuting a Star Wars line for the holidays. It’ll debut in Kohl’s stores next month.
We can probably expect to hear about more partners and products in the coming weeks.
Force Friday officially begins in only a few hours, and today was a sheer flurry of announcements about the toys and other products that are coming out as we head towards the release of The Last Jedi.
Continue reading “Force Friday is here, and so are the toy announcements”
Remember the Star Wars Monopoly game that launched the #WheresRey campaign? Despite Hasbro’s promises, it turns out that Rey never made to the U.S. version of the game “due to insufficient interest” from retailers, a Hasbro spokewoman told the AP.
People who buy the game here can request a piece from Hasbro – they’ve had just over a hundred requests in North America. The Rey game piece can be found (sometimes) in five other markets, including the U.K. and France.
The #WheresRey campaign did seem to have an impact on Rogue One marketing – Jyn Erso toys did not seem to be in any short supply, and hopefully the trend will hold for The Last Jedi.
The fan documentary Looking for Leia is looking for backers. With only 7 days left in their Kickstarter campaign, they still need more than $8,000 to meet their goal.
The documentary is covering fans of all ages and walks of life:
We’re featuring an intergenerational and culturally diverse group of female fans, as well as women who are film buffs and cultural scholars, cosplayers and gamers, artists and authors. We’re talking to women in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math); women who use Star Wars in the classroom; women whose career path was shaped by Star Wars; women whose love of Star Wars has helped them battle cancer and live with disability and mental illness; mothers, daughters, and sisters in Star Wars families; women who are rebels and royalty, imperials, bounty hunters, and jedi. Every generation has a Star Wars story, and we’re hearing about the original trilogy, prequels, animated series, comics, Extended Universe/Legends, video games, new trilogy, stand-alone films, and conventions.
Head on over to Kickstarter to donate.
Announced overnight, just ahead of the official opening of Celebration Orlando, is Forces of Destiny, a new series of animated shorts highlighting Rey, Jyn Erso, Sabine Wren, Leia Organa, Ahsoka Tano and more.
The series will launch in July on the Disney Youtube, with additional shorts debuting on the Disney Channel in the fall. Daisy Ridley, Felicity Jones, Tiya Sircar, Ashley Eckstein and Lupita Nyong’o (Maz Kanata) are among those returning to voice their characters.
The series will also have book and action figure tie-ins. We’ll learn more later Friday at the “Heroines of Star Wars” panel here in Orlando.
The New York Times takes a look at the women behind the scenes at Lucasfilm’s Industrial Light & Magic.
As part of their Women in Entertainment issue, The Hollywood Reporter has an article on how Lucasfilm’s executive team is more than 50% female.
“When you have a balance of men and women, there are all sorts of things that enter into the discussion,” [Kathleen Kennedy] says, calling the Rey-Jyn doubleheader a “coincidence” that the studio (and parent Disney) embraced. “Because women are always in story meetings, [no one has] to go, ‘Hey, what would a woman think?’ ” says creative executive Rayne Roberts. “The reason Rey is strong and technically capable and compassionate and driven is that the women who were in that room, including Kathy, reflect those qualities.”
There’s still work to be done – the lack of women directing is mentioned – but there are worse places to start than at the top. Still, the article is pretty short – wouldn’t it be nice to see a deeper dive on this topic?
The New York Times has a feature on female Star Wars fans today, including several familiar names, like Johnamarie Macias of The Wookiee Gunner, Tricia Barr of the podcast Fangirls Going Rogue and Lauren Kell of the Women of Star Wars Tumblr.
It’s all fairly basic info to anyone who’s been hanging around fandom recently – even if you haven’t been around long enough to be classified as a relic. But at the end of the day, what’s old hat to us is still in the New York Times today. And isn’t that something?
And yeah, I probably do need to update that FAQ page. Whoops.