First look at SDCC-exclusive Jabba figure. The Black Series Hutt comes with his hookah and Salacious Crumb.
Her Universe sponsoring fashion show at SDCC
Her Universe holding SDCC fashion show. Ashley Eckstein’s fangirl clothing line will hold a “fashion show and design competition” during the convention. “Designs must be fashions, not costumes, and can be ‘geek couture’ or ready-to-wear outfits.” The winning designers will get a chance to collaborate with Ashley on a line for Hot Topic.
Rumor: Hasbro to introduce Episode VII Falcon?
Jedi Temple Archives is hinting that something “Big. It’s Massive. It’s Freaking gigantic” that is “sourced to Episode VII.” And it may be introduced at SDCC. Naturally we expect Hasbro will be making an Episode VII Millennium Falcon toy (since we’re pretty sure it’ll be in the film,) but does this mean it could be the first toy out of the gate for the movie? The first toy to be revealed? Or will we be seeing something in the vein of the the life-sized Falcon built at the China Toy Fair?
Okay, so it’s probably just a toy reveal, but let’s indulge in some overthinking: A Hasbro Falcon would be a big toy, but I’d hesitate to call it massive, even for a reveal. And a life-sized Falcon would certainly make an impression on the con floor… Not to mention the marketing budget, San Diego not being Shanghai, and the movie will still be more than a year away come July. Maybe for SDCC 2015? (Parts of the Shanghai one could be reused, and shipping overseas is doable, but U.S. safety regulations may be another matter entirely.)
In any case, as reveals go, it’s probably one of the few things they can show us without giving too much away too early.
In other rumors floating around this weekend, Zac Efron knows nothing, and there’s apparently some dude on Reddit (totally solid!) that claims he was told Episode VII will be shooting some scenes at the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
Interview: Randy Stradley & Douglas Wheatley on Dark Times
And you thought my con coverage was over! Here’s Randy Stradley, writer of Star Wars: Dark Times, and Douglas Wheatley, artist of Dark Times, discussing the start of the current arc, ‘A Spark Remains’. If you haven’t checked it out yet, Issue #1 came out in July, just before Comic-Con, and the second issue comes out today. While setting the stage for the activity in the first issue of ‘A Spark Remains’ (check out my review of #1 on Big Shiny Robot), the pair kept mum about the future of Jedi Dass Jennir and his friends, as well as other projects being worked on. Bonus: we get photobombed at the very end by a certain Sith voice actor.
Let’s not lose our heads over the lack of Episode VII news this summer
For all intents and purposes, convention season is now over for Star Wars fans. At least, con season in the sense of expecting big announcements.
In all honesty, it’s a bit of a relief. There are no more obvious ‘deadlines.’ News could break at any time, and it probably will. But I fully expect that John Williams returning will remain the biggest officially sanctioned news of the summer… And let’s not forget the rumors will only get bigger from here – just look at the Ian McDiarmid one we got last night.
Is it frustrating that we didn’t get any further announcements at Celebration Europe and D23? Yes, of course. But as Bleeding Cool points out, they don’t owe us anything at this point. They’ll tell us something when they’re ready to tell us something, and not a moment before. As Pablo Hidalgo said in our comments yesterday:
There are no casting ‘secrets’. If someone hasn’t been signed, they haven’t been cast. That’s what triggers an announcement. That’s why everyone who has been announced has been announced when they were.
That’s why these things emerge as ‘rumors’ first – because Lucasfilm can’t say anything until the ink is dry. So the rumors aren’t going away, and yes, some of them will be complete bullshit because that’s the way the game is played. That’s our lot, if we’re going to be following the films this closely.
I know this is a fandom of mighty whiners, but can we please, please, please just learn already to be patient for official news and confirmations? We have years of this roller coaster ahead of us, and the hand-wringing act is already getting old. I pretty much guarantee you that the folks in charge know far more about making a film than any of us do; We don’t need to ‘worry’ about them under the guise of wanting things revealed.
It’s not wrong to want things; we all want official casting confirmations. We’ve all got carried away at one point or another. Everyone in geek media is starved for more: Actors simply saying that they’d like to be in Episode VII regularly make headlines; last night’s Ian McDiarmid rumor is making the rounds today. But we have to stop demanding. Lucasfilm and Disney owe us a movie sometime in 2015 and that’s about it. I assure you they want this thing made just as much as we want to see it, and when the time comes to promote it, they will do so. But it’s not quite that time yet, so: Patience.
It’s still early, after all, and I’m sure we’ll get yet another rumor – crazy or not – before the end of the month in any case.
James talks SDCC, Celebration Europe on Full of Sith
Our own Jawajames guests on the latest Full of Sith podcast to talk San Diego Comic-Con, being behind the scenes at Celebration Europe and the Expanded Universe.
Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them: Best #StarWars at #SDCC tweets for July 15-21
Pic-heavy, because what else does one do with San Diego Comic-Con? Bonus to watching it via Twitter: No lines!
Roundup: Catching up with Star Wars at SDCC
As expected, most of the Star Wars news out of SDCC was fairly low key. And, in case you missed them, here are James’ photos from the con: Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Interviews. James caught up with J. W. Rinzler, John Jackson Miller, Legacy creative team Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and the folks at Becker & Mayer.
Expanded Universe. Both Dark Horse and Del Rey had Star Wars panels Friday, and our own James valiantly live-tweeted both of them. There wasn’t much in the way of announcements, but we did get the debut of the cover for Empire and Rebellion: Honor Among Thieves.
People. MTV managed to drag a little something about J.J. Abrams out of Harrison Ford, while Mark Hamill reminisced about Comic-Cons past with The Hollywood Reportor.
Her Universe. Ashley Eckstein and company debuted a new booth and released Mara Jade and Jaina Solo shirts at the con and online… And now they’re pretty much sold out. Sorry.
TV. Phineas and Ferb is doing a kind of Star Wars crossover thing, to which I say… Okay.
Hasbro. We did get a better look at the new Mara Jadse figure, out with the second wave of the Black Series later this year.
Hallmark. The 2014 Christmas ornaments already? Hey, anything that saves us from waiting for the Dreambook is fine by me.
Also… Comic book movies galore, a new Catching Fire trailer and first looks at new Legend of Korra and Veronica Mars.
Soon, the time zone shenanigans get even wackier as James will be off to Germany for Celebration Europe… Where we hope/expect we’ll be getting some kind of sequel news or confirmation. Cross your fingers.
SDCC: Marvel piles on superhero reveals; Superman and Batman to meet in 2015
Saturday night’s highlight was the Marvel Studios panel, which opened with Tom Hiddleston as Loki (in full costume!) taunting the crowd and introducing a new new trailer for Thor 2: The Dark World. They continued with the full cast of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and more footage… And then the Guardians of the Galaxy cast, who’ve only just begun filming. Somehow they brought footage as well, and then… Doctor Who’s Karen Gillan, who will be playing space pirate Nebula, revealed she’s shaved her head for the role. They introduced some new Guardians concept art, above. And then Joss Whedon came out to reveal that Avengers 2 is titled Avengers: Age of Ultron. [Recaps: Tor, THR, HitFix/HitFix, Hero Complex, EW]
For the Marvel properties that live at other studios, Fox brought out the entire cast of X-Men: Days of Future Past, a time travel story which includes mutants from the original films and the prequel First Class. [THR, EW, /film] And Sony touted the just-wrapped Amazing Spider-Man 2. [/film]
As for DC… They announced that the Man of Steel sequel will also involve Batman – a new one, as the studio has previously said that they’ll be rebooting the character for any future films. Both writer David S. Goyer and director Zack Snyder will return. It’s aiming for… You guessed it… 2015. Rumor has it that they plan to follow the team-up with The Flash and Justice League. [Hero Complex, THR, EW]
SDCC: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire trailer
A new trailer for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire debuted yesterday at the con, while Jennifer Lawrence continues to be very Jennifer Lawrence.