Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
A new behind the scenes video has emerged at USA Today, showing some new aliens, droids, and more of Lando’s capes. It features Cinematographer Bradford Young, creature effects guru Neal Scanlan, costume designers David Crossman and Glyn Dillon, who reveal that Solo has the most costumes ever produced for a Star Wars film.
Continue reading “Solo lowdown: Another behind-the-scenes feature”
Disney has posted a few new The Last Jedi things on their award site, including several new stills, an extended score, production notes and the BAFTA Q&A with Rian Johnson and the cast.
Rian Johnson talks to People about how they filmed the “Force connection” scenes between Rey and Kylo Ren. Remember those paparazzi shots of Adam Driver flying into Ireland with Daisy Ridley and Mark Hamill, and all those rumors of a big fight scene with the Knights of Ren? Jokes on us. Johnson has another wide-ranging interview over at the Daily Beast. He also explains Snoke’s big scene and the Kylo shirtless scene.
The NYT takes a look at the women behind Lucasfilm’s story group, mainly Kiri Hart. It’s not just Pablo!
You’ll never guess what from the Legends EU made it into the movie. Sort of. Hey, at least it’s not something Courtship of Princess Leia this time.
On that note, there’s a ton of meta happening on Tumblr. I’m reblogging a lot of it and hope to do a roundup of the highlights here, but for the moment, an analysis of “the sacred Jedi texts.” (There’s plenty more coming – the fandom is prolific and I have a ton of backlog in the drafts folder.)
Tech corner: Neal Scanlan on how they built the film’s creatures, and again | Visual effects supervisor Ben Morris on creating Crait and the Earth equivilants | How Yoda was rebuilt | The movie’s sound design | The creation and science of that silent hyperspace scene.
And now that we’ve all had a chance to take the movie in, the behind-the-scenes stuff has started flowing in… There are several Rian Johnson interviews out and about, with the best perhaps being at the Los Angeles Times. There he talks about introducing new Force powers, Rey and Kylo, and the whole purpose of the shirtless scene. Also: Business Insider, a Variety podcast and The Director’s Cut podcast.
Continue reading “Behind The Last Jedi: Story, effects, costumes, and more”
The crystal fox we see on Crait in The Last Jedi trailer is a vulptex; A pack of them would be vulptices, and the name was developed by Pablo Hidalgo. Detailed today in Entertainment Weekly, the creatures will be both animatronic puppets and digital creations.
“They live within the burrows and within the tunnels beneath the planet,” [Creature shop head Neal] Scanlan says. “So there is a time where their ability to shine within the darkness, should provide a guiding light to our heroes.”
It’s Daisy Ridley’s turn on publicity roundabout, and she’s chatting with Adam Driver for V Magazine. They discuss becoming “besties” on The Last Jedi set, The Force Awakens publicity weirdness and Murder on the Orient Express. The accompanying photos are VERY ’80s. (No Adam, but there’s British GQ for that.)
→ Meanwhile, Ridley is also over sorta-kinda-not-really talking about Rey’s parentage in Japan. /Film has the translation.
→ Some creature revelations from Neal Scanlan: Details on porgs, caretakers, droids and those crystal foxes.
→ Build-A-Bear has porgs. I repeat: Build-A-Bear has porgs! And some other stuff. But mostly porgs.
A new featurette focuses on the creatures of Rogue One with director Gareth Edwards and creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan.
We’re still sitting in suspense here in the U.S., but Rogue One tickets will go on sale tomorrow (November 21) just after midnight. in the U.K. (The rumor mill for the states remains vague.)
→ One of the new Mon Calamari glimpsed in the behind-the-scenes video was inspired by Winston Churchill. Creature effects supervisor Neal Scanlan talks Admiral Raddus in EW.
→ Another new TV spot appeared today, ‘Dream.’
From the Target special features (via Entertainment Tonight), John Boyega and Daisy Ridley rapping. Also, dancing! (There are GIFs on Tumblr, of course.)
→ The Facebook live chat with Daisy Ridley this morning went well. (Problems with Facebook? There’s a copy on on Youtube.)
→ J.J. Abrams talks to Entertainment Weekly about Mark Hamill and the table read.
→ Neal Scanlan talks to IGN about Snoke, while concept artist Doug Chiang is at Yahoo discussing technology, Kylo Ren’s lightsaber and Starkiller Base. 
There’s another behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects of The Force Awakens at Variety. The nearly 11-minute video features visual effects supervisors Roger Guyett and Patrick Tubach, creature supervisor Neal Scanlan, and special effects supervisor Chris Corbould.