Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The Star Wars/Star Trek rivalry is pretty old and crusty, but that didn’t stop a recent incident in Oklahoma which ended in arrests for both parties. Of course, I also suspect there’s a lot more background to this specific fight than just differing preferences in space franchises, but a hook is a hook.
With The Force Awakens on the horizon, a few studios are busy slipping out teasers for their next franchise sci-fi flicks. On Sunday, Twentieth Century Fox released the trailer for Independence Day: Resurgence, with Jeff Goldblum, Liam Hemsworth, and Bill Pullman picking up twenty years after the initial alien attack that was defeated by uploading a Mac virus. They also set up a site to track the history from 1996 to the present, including an explanation of where Will Smith’s character went.
And this morning, Paramount dropped the teaser for Star Trek Beyond, with a heavy dose of action, explosions, and the Beastie Boys. How many Trek films in a row will the Enterprise be destroyed? Idris Elba joins Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in this film directed by Justin Lin of Fast & Furious fame.
Ready for the big premiere tonight? I’m talking of course of the newest space story to hit the screen, based on an earlier property: The Expanse. Airing in two parts, starting tonight on Syfy, the miniseries is based on the Expanse series of novels by James S.A. Corey, a pseudonym used by Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham, who also penned Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves, one of the last Legends novels. Andrew Liptak describes The Expanse as the new Battlestar Galactica. Check it out tonight and Tuesday night at 10 pm on Syfy. You can also watch part one online. Also on Syfy, starting tonight, is a three-part adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End.
Oscar Isaac talks to io9 about the Resistance, Poe’s Shattered Empire backstory (though it’s worth noting he was already old enough to be talking – he’s mentioned in #2 – before his parents settled on Yavin) and how the X-wings have evolved.
→ You can listen to both yesterday’s press conference(s) thanks to Full of Sith. Or watch the videos (1, 2.)
→ Captain Phasma was originally a man, Vulture reports, and the backlash to the initial casting may have played a part in the gender swap. That said, anything that saved us from Benedict Cumberbatch is fine by me.
→ Clutch your pearls, because J.J. Abrams talked midi-chlorians with /Film.
→ Droid tales: Anthony Daniels get profiled by Vulture, while CNN talks to the BB-8 designers about the droid and his adventures on set.
→ On Twitter, Greg Grunberg confirms his action figure and his character name.
→ Everyone wants their trailer on Star Wars! We know X-Men: Apocalypse will be there, but now The Hollywood Reporter says Star Trek Beyond will be attached as well.
So, as you probably already know, Leonard Nimoy died today. There’s not really much I have to add to what’s already been said, thousands of times over.
The first movie I can remember going to in the theater is The Search for Spock. Star Wars may have been the bigger phenomenon in the early ’80s, but Star Trek was on TV, regularly. For a kid born in the late ’70s to geek parents, with no older siblings to pass on the Star Wars bug, Trek was simply more present. I was never precisely fannish about it, but I liked it, I’ve watched most of the movies, and I know I’ve seen nearly every episode of TOS and TNG at some point or another.
I saw a lot of references to Nimoy today as the “soul” of Trek, and, yeah: That sounds about right.
Some other tributes under the cut.
Star Wars vs. Star Trek, the state-by-state analysis. This is a bit silly, as these sorts of things always tend to be, but whatever.
Social. Star Wars has officially joined Instagram. Will they drop something fresh soon? What social network will be next?
Mystery box. J.J. Abrams has admitted that keeping Khan ‘secret’ for Star Trek Into Darkness maybe wasn’t the best idea. Hopefully no outright lying for Episode VII? (Yeah, right.)
Derumored. Actress Emmanuelle Chriqui, who was named as an Episode VII contender by Jedi Master SQL last week, said on Twitter that she hasn’t auditioned (the convo started here.)
While we are eagerly awaiting news of how the bonus content for The Clone Wars will take shape, the show picked up nominations for the 41st Annie Awards, given out for the best in animation. Announced by ASIFA-Hollywood, nominations for The Clone Wars included two individual achievement categories: Keith Kellogg for Character Animation in an Animated Television/Broadcast Production and Jason W.A. Tucker for Editorial in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production. The nominations were released today, and the award winners will be announced in February.
Our frequent interviewee Michael Price, writer of the LEGO Star Wars specials earned a nomination for Writing in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production for his work on The Simpsons. Juried awards have already been announced, including the Winsor McCay Awards to Steven Spielberg and Phil Tippett.
ILM also continued its streak of Annie award nominations, with four nominations, three of them in a single category of Animated Effects in a Live Action Production (two different teams for Star Trek Into Darkness and one for Pacific Rim). Another Pacific Rim ILM team got a nomination for Character Animation in a Live Action Production.
Her Universe has revealed their Black Friday lineup! The Millennium Falcon skirt and Hope tunic are repping for Star Wars…
All hail @rafaeloca for discovering the hidden R2-D2 in Star Trek Into Darkness. Also last week, the My Lemony Falcon, the littlest Lando, Vader deals with those meddling kids and remembering A.C. Crispin.
Continue reading “Finding Artoo: Best #StarWars, #EpisodeVII and #SWEU tweets for September 3-8”
Last week’s best tweets bled over into Monday, because I’m sure you don’t want to wait a whole week for the Rebels stuff, right? Also: We saw Star Trek Into Darkness, the first week of Star Wars Weekends is a thing that happened, and Artoos invaded Lucasfilm. All that and more under the cut.
Continue reading “Always in motion, the future: Best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets for May 13-20”