And it’s the first trailer for the Ender’s Game adaption, which really wants you know that a bunch of these actors have been up for/won Oscars. (Ford was nominated for Witness in 1985, which I can’t blame anyone for forgetting) Book fans may want to check out io9’s spoiler-full screencap study of the trailers.
Below the cut, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost go pubbing, George Clooney and Sandra Bullock get lost in space, and… Alien folksingers, because why not?
Like these movies won’t be hits? As the Star Trek Into Darkness junket clips stagger out into the world, Abrams implies to MTV that the Star Wars spinoffs will depend on Episode VII going the distance.
Also from MTV: Damon Lindelof on Abrams and Star Wars, and they even asked Leonardo DiCaprio if he’d like to do future Star Wars. (He famously turned downAttack of the Clones back in the day.)
On that note… Simon Pegg talks about Abrams and Star Wars with Totalfilm – though he clarifies that he has no inside info from Abrams. And yes, they’re still asking random movie folks about Episode VII.
Interview. And finally, for someone who will almost certainly actually be in Episode VII, here’s more from Mark Hamill.
Marketsaw‘s spy is backing up the claims that Episode VII will focus on the Skywalker spawn, and also the film’s tone:
The focus is on the original trilogy in regards of reverence and tone. Remember I told you before that the tone was important, well I believe they are really taking that seriously. From everything I know, they’re focusing on that directly. Remember everything has the ability to change drastically, as Star Wars right now apart from the twin trilogies is a huge blank canvas. However, the trilogies ongoing narrative will continue to focus on that particular branch, whereas the stand alone movies, will fill and expand the voids in between in multiple timelines, and have potential to then be franchised themselves in regards to the worlds they open up.
The ‘news’ here, however, is the claim that Alfonso Cuarón (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Children of Men) may be a very important name in the hat for future Star Wars directing jobs, and to “expect” Simon Pegg in “some capacity.” Dengar?
UPDATE: Pegg tweets:
No idea where this silly rumour about me attached to the new Star Wars film came from but I can confirm that it’s absolute Bantha poodoo.
“Dengar is one of the elite,” Pegg tells EW. “If you’re on Darth Vader’s bounty hunter speed dial, you are the best in the galaxy.”
Dengar will teams up with Boba Fett, Bossk, and Asajj Ventress in this Friday’s ‘Bounty.’ Pegg, in reference to his outspoken criticism of the prequels, tweeted today:
Being Dengar doesn’t change the way I feel about the prequels but then the prequels couldn’t change the way I feel about the original three.
Continuing our review of the year that was, we have a glimpse back at how Star Wars has been lighting up the video screens – mostly our televisions in 2011, with an epic year for The Clone Wars, and the Blu-ray release of the Star Wars saga.
Time Out New York puts Star Trek actor but Star Wars fan Simon Pegg on the Hot Seat, and he opines that the Trek franchise has maintained its integrity while Star Wars hasn’t. Maybe he just didn’t see Star Trek V, or Insurrection? Then again, with the holodeck on The Next Generation, he voices that it jumped the shark there. Anyway, only one more day until the release of Star Trek…
Appearances: Guess who showed up at the re-opening of the National Museum of American History? Artoo! We never would have guessed he was sopatriotic. (Thanks, Stooge!)