Badass Digest had our first Description of The Force Awakens trailer this afternoon; Within a few hours we had another from Making Star Wars. So who’s right? Is anyone right? Turns out, one of those extremely random things that’s been floating around is that there are actually two different 1-minute cuts, and they haven’t chosen which to release yet.
Timing? The only thing that folks in the know agree on is “soon.” One thing that may squash our hopes for this week, though: Disney will be releasing the Cinderella trailer on Wednesday. Sad trombone.
Yes, John Williams was recording yesterday, according to a tweet from Scoring Sessions, exactly as we heard earlier. It’s not confirmed to be for Star Wars, but then, it wouldn’t be, would it?
The rumor mill on a possible early teaser trailer has continued to churn. Here’s what Making Star Wars has heard about the teaser itself:
…We heard the rough edit of the teaser was just a little over a minute long, showing off new characters from the film and culminating with the return of the Falcon to the big screen!
Some still say it’ll be on Mockingjay, others the last Hobbit film next month, or on TV during Agents of Shield. (Or maybe Once Upon a Time? Which gets better ratings? When do the winter hiatuses start?) In any case, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is out next week; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is out December 17 – almost a year to the day of The Force Awakens release date.
If they are going to drop something this year, I have no trouble believing it’ll be on a non-Disney film. Into the Woods isn’t out until Christmas day, and that’s not exactly the greatest week to publicize anything, even Star Wars. (And if the trailer is out by then, it’s not like it wouldn’t get attached anyway.) Even with the internet to do most of the work, their best bet is to get something out before the holiday begins in earnest.
→ Making Star Wars also has another concept art description… This one sounds a lot like it’s related to the very first piece of concept art that we saw. (And the only one we’ve seen officially, for that matter.) Well, mostly saw. Also very curious to go back and look at the comments on that post in the wake of the title announcement…
→ It’s nothing we haven’t heard before, but at her Vegas show, Debbie Reynolds did say that granddaughter Billie Lourd had been working on The Force Awakens along with Carrie Fisher, “Harrison Ford… and the other boychik.”
→ The Irish government is less than impressed at Unesco’s claims that the Star Wars shooting on Skellig Michael may have harmed the World Heritage site, the Irish Examiner reports.
→ Both Interstellar director Christopher Nolan and The Daily Show’sJon Stewart were asked about The Force Awakens in recent interviews. And Matthew McConaughey shows up 15 minutes late to the ‘I’d love to be in Star Wars‘ party with Starbucks.
→ Per usual, any reveal, no matter how major, doesn’t stop the rumors. Some guy on Twitter tweeted what’s supposedly an extreme close-up of Luke Skywalker’s beard. (Yuh-huh.) Making Star Wars themselves on what was filmed at a certain outdoor set at Pinewood. And Star Wars 7 News adds a bunch of message board stuff about Luke to the MSW stuff from the other day. (Consider yourself warned.)
→ And for the non-spoilerphobes among us, Bob Iger told Bloomberg TV (skip to 10:25) that the name comes from “a few people” including Kathleen Kennedy and J.J. Abrams, Disney themselves – basically, exactly who you’d expect.
→ Some housekeeping: Yes, I’ve changed our tag for the new film to The Force Awakens, to reflect our other film tags. No, I will not immediately stop using the term Episode VII, because it is. And grammar geeks, here’s what Lucasfilm’s Leland Chee has to say about title formatting.
→ Spoilerphobes beware: Jason at Making Star Wars has had some further input into how we’ll see Luke Skywalker in and before Episode VII. Of course, per usual, the only thing we actually know? #Beardwatch. (Okay, I just miss it.)
→ There a lot of hints that we may see a teaser of some sort before the end of the year. Of course, we already heard the rumors that John Williams is scoring one, and this certainly could all be feeding from that. People are also somewhat leaning it being attached to November 21st’s The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, despite that not being a Disney film. (Big Hero 6 too early; Into the Woods too late?) Of course, as we know from the Avengers, you don’t really need a movie to debut a trailer these days… And it sure would be nice to see something before we’re all sucked too deeply into the holiday season.
I’ve been covering movies online since the days when the “Star Wars: Special Editions” were only a rumor. During the production of “The Phantom Menace,” I had a lot of contact with people working on and around the film, and if I had to characterize the attitude that most of them had, it was “I don’t know what we’re making.” There were plenty of people who seemed nervous about various elements or characters or ideas in what they were making. This time around, every single thing I’ve heard has been, “Holy cow, I think we’re doing this right,” and this Tweet from Daniels is just the most public example of that.
→ I know the geekerwebs are all about Marvel right now, but the big (‘big’) Episode VII rumor today has been yet another ‘leaked’ piece of concept art. Several sites are backing it up (Making Star Wars, Indie Revolver) but my gut instinct is that this is the Karen Gillan’s wig for Knights of the Old Republic fans. (Bias of note: Nothing KOTOR-related is ever going to get me excited.) In short, meh.
Will we get our first look at an Episode VII starship in a June book? It’s an Amazon listing, and we know what trouble those can be… (For one, the publisher is listed as… Reader’s Digest?) But by June, we’ll also most likely have a trailer and/or a handful of stills. Still, this is our first sign of an Episode VII book tie-in of any sort.
→ A source has told the John Williams Fan Network that Williams has received a trailer for Episode VII from J.J. Abrams, has already written the music for it, and will be scoring on November 15th. Jason at Making Star Wars points out:
My bet has always been we would not see a trailer until Star Wars Celebration Anaheim in 2015, 8 months before Star Wars: Episode VII is released. But Trek friends have let me know that each time Abrams did a film, he did a teaser with stuff not from the film itself and that could mean we are about to see something for Christmas. The one thing I will say, is I have heard we would see the Star Wars “kick off” really begin at about the one year mark before the film and this lines up really well with that.
The earliest teaser for Star Trek Into Darkness I can recall definitely had footage, but I probably wouldn’t have bothered to cover one here that didn’t. (Well, not for Trek, anyway.) I hope there is a December teaser for Episode VII, even if it’s just old footage and a title – but Disney, you’re still not going to get me to see Into the Woods.
→ Taking a beeline to the standalones for a moment – Cinematographer Greig Fraser (Zero Dark Thirty, Snow White and the Huntsman) has told Hitfix that he’ll be working on the Gareth Edwards Star Wars film that’s aiming for December 2016.
→ The Irish Examiner has some technical details on the Skellig Michael (aka Sceilig Mhichíl) shot, which was significantly scaled down.
Badass Digest had our first Description of The Force Awakens trailer this afternoon; Within a few hours we had another from Making Star Wars. So who’s right? Is anyone right? Turns out, one of those extremely random things that’s been floating around is that there are actually two different 1-minute cuts, and they haven’t chosen which to release yet. 
Yes, John Williams was recording yesterday, according to a tweet from 
→ Is this 
→ In the wake of 
→ Spoilerphobes beware: Jason at 
→ I know the geekerwebs are all about