No new trailer, clips for The Force Awakens at SDCC

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Entertainment Weekly says the The Force Awakens panel at San Diego Comic-Con will have a behind-the-scenes focus, but not a new trailer or clips as we hoped. Still, that doesn’t mean we won’t learn anything – they claim “several actors who haven’t yet spoken publicly about their roles” will be on hand on Hall H.

Actors scheduled to be at the con for other projects include Oscar Isaac – who did show up at Celebration with John Boyega and Daisy Ridley – and Gwendoline Christie, who we’ve heard very little from. Adam Driver, Lupita Nyong’o, Andy Serkis and Domhnall Gleeson are also possible, but we’ll just have to wait and see… (As always, I never count on Harrison Ford… Stranger things have happened, but given how much we already know the character there’s probably not much that can be said.) The only confirmed panel members remain Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Lawrence Kasdan.

Don’t count on a new trailer at D23, either – EW says the next one won’t be out until fall. My bet is just before or soon after Force Friday on September 4…

The Force Awakens: Vanity Fair catches up with Pablo (and John Williams)

pablo-hidalgo-lucasfilmRed alert! Lucasfilm’s Pablo Hidalgo is in Vanity Fair! We knew him when, y’all. Okay, they also have John Williams talking about The Force Awakens score, but: Pablo! He gives another fab quote on the Legends situation:

…there are great stories told there, but in all honesty they were written in an era where there was no expectation that we were going to add new movies or cinematic content onto that. So they blazed new trails there without the benefit of that knowledge, and they told really cool and compelling stories, but it’s not necessarily the stories that we want to tell on-screen.

→ Someone else got a super-vague quote from Oscar Isaac about Star Wars, this time the improbably named Monkeys Fighting Robots. (Says the woman who runs a site that sounds like it probably hosts porn.)

→ Do you want a (possible) synopsis of The Force Awakens based on all the Making Star Wars rumors? Do you? Because MSW has that for you. Click or not, it’s all you.

The Force Awakens: Costumes, Pip Andersen and bōjutsu

tfa-teaser2-firstorderToday, Vanity Fair has an interview with The Force Awakens costume designer Michael Kaplan, which actually feels surprising revealing for this point in the process. Namely, the stormtrooper uniforms are sturdier and Empire and Rebels First Order and Resistance are more color-coded. On that note, a new photo of Oscar Isaac in his base jumpsuit has emerged.

Pip Andersen talked a little bit about his role.

A few more tidbits from the Japanese interviews: Kathleen Kennedy said Daisy Ridley was trained in the bōjutsu fighting style, which means she’ll actually be fighting with the staff we’ve seen the trailers.

→ Hasbro has announced a Star Wars panel for SDCC. Maybe they’ll finally show some stuff for The Force Awakens?

→ Rumor corner, take 1: There’s something floating around a third trailer for TFA may be on Pixar’s Inside Out, and that it’s already been shown at a “Disney blogging conference.” However, another attendee has denied it.

→ Rumor corner, take 2: A Youtube video that supposedly shows an effects scene being filmed has popped up.

What Oscar Isaac wants as Poe’s homeworld, the rumor mill resurrects ‘Joss Whedon for Star Wars’

tfa-poe-smallToday, in sequel trilogy ‘news’ that really isn’t… Oscar Isaac expressed an opinion on what planet he would like Poe Dameron to be from, which some news sites immediately took as fact. Nope! Just wishful thinking on Isaac’s part – really, if it was true, or if his homeworld was actually something that came up in the film, would he just up and tell the AP like that? Logic! It’s a hell of thing.

Isaac was also asked if he was related to Jimmy Smits’ Bail Organa, to which he (rightfully) replied “there’s room in the Galaxy for more than one Latin family.”

And then the Joss Whedon thing has reared up again, because of course it has. Quite frankly, after comments he’s made recent about how exhausting Avengers: Age of Ultron was, I can’t see him signing up for another big franchise movie for a while. And by ‘a while’ I mean ‘not this trilogy.’ Let the guy have a break.

Vanity Fair’s The Force Awakens photoshoot is up

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And now, the actual Vanity Fair photoshoot is upwith one more photo set to go out in their email newsletter. We do get a name for Lupita Nyong’o’s CGI character: Maz Kanata, a pirate who has a castle populated with a variety of riffraff. We also get a nice shot of Oscar Isaac and his X-Wing, Rey (and J.J. Abrams) on Jakku and Abrams with Kathleen Kennedy, John Williams and Lawrence Kasdan.

UPDATE: And the last photo has been spotted. Gwendoline Christie is confirmed as Captain Phasma, the chrome stormtrooper. You can read most of the article at VF as well, plus the prequel spreads are back up!

Fisher, Ridley and Boyega on The Force Awakens

ridley-boyega-ewThe latest Entertainment Weekly has a spread on The Force Awakens. You can read the print article here, but they’ve also been posting expanded interviews with some of the cast.

So far we have Carrie Fisher, who called herself “the custodian of Leia” and reveals that her part in one of the sequel drafts “wasn’t what I thought Leia should be.” Then Daisy Ridley, in what may be her first major Star Wars interview. And today, we heard from John Boyega.

No Oscar Isaac yet, but he did do a nice interview with IGN where he revealed some of the research he did for the part.

Yes, we saw a new trailer for The Force Awakens!


J.J. Abrams and Kathleen Kennedy’s “special guests” included the new trio – Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac – who confirmed some of what we’d already heard and/or guessed about their characters. We also got to see the (real!) BB-8 and Artoo, plus their makers, and of course Anthony Daniels, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Peter Mayhew also showed up. I’ll be back later with more, but for now just keep an eye on @clubjade, where I’ve been far more active than on the blog. (Sorry!)

In the meantime, you can backwatch the panel yourself!

And another video that StarWars.com dropped on us today:


Here’s just the BB-8 portion of the livestream:

The Force Awakens roundup: Helmets, how do they work?

spoilers-swirl-broadsaberIt’s time for another round of what does Kylo Ren’s helmet look like? Jason says it’s the one.

→ Going back a bit (sorry, I kind of got hooked on the Topps app last weekend and it killed any and all productivity) we have some details of a space battle, speeder bikes/troopers and a picture of Mark Hamill from the boat to Skellig Michael. #Beardwatch lives!

→ And finally, for our spoiler-free friends, TWO interviews with Oscar Isaac! One is from Vulture and the other is at Uproxx.