Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Make sure your snark goggles are fully equipped before you head over to Tosche Station this afternoon: Brian has gone all-out to prove that the sequel trilogy Expanded Universe isn’t real Star Wars!
UPDATE: For those who fell into the sarchasm, Brian has written a follow-up entry detailing the point of the original post.
Tonight, we say goodbye to 2012. Here’s a look back at a few of the happenings in fandom this year – I’m sure you can guess at a few
Continue reading “A look back: The 5 biggest Star Wars news, events, and kerfuffles of 2012″
In Empire magazine’s cover story on Star Trek Into Darkness, J.J. Abrams admits that he turned down the chance to direct Episode VII.
There were the very early conversations and I quickly said that because of my loyalty to Star Trek, and also just being a fan, I wouldn’t even want to be involved in the next version of those things. I declined any involvement very early on. I’d rather be in the audience not knowing what was coming, rather than being involved in the minutiae of making them.
Thanks to ComicBook.com for the quote!
Abrams was one of the first director hopefuls that the internet championed, but he was quick to deny the possibility.
Elsewhere… Looking for some goofy Episode VII fun? Check Star Wars Sequel Debacle Simulator.
A recent Reuters story on Guatemala, their Mayan temples, and Star Wars contains this paragraph:
Yavin 4 and the rebel base return to the Star Wars plot in the forthcoming Episode VII, announced in October by the Walt Disney Co, in which Skywalker comes back to the planet to build a Jedi Knight academy. However, fans said that Disney will likely film those scenes in a studio rather than return to Tikal.
First of all, as Big Shiny Robot’s Bryan Young points out, there’s absolutely no source for this. Yes, Yavin 4 does reappear as the site of the Jedi Academy in the Expanded Universe – but that certainly doesn’t mean it’ll show up in the movies.
But unlike Bryan, I don’t think I would call this anything as as sinister as “rumour-mongering.” Yes, I’m cynical about the EU and doubtful that it will play a large role in the new movies, but if I had to bet, I would say this is probably just the result of basic fan enthusiasm (“I know some EU!”) paired with ignorance. After all, we can’t expect everyone is going to be up on the half-dozen different levels of “canon” and all that jazz.
The EU’s first Jedi Academy is eventually destroyed in the New Jedi Order series, and at the end of the most recent series, Legacy of the Force, the Academy is moving to it’s third – third! – location. So even if they do follow the books, Yavin 4? Probably not.
Could they bring it back anyway? Of course. But I wouldn’t count on it. And I certainly wouldn’t give this report much weight.
UPDATE: Eric at TFN reached out to the article’s writer, Michael McDonald, who confirmed that he did not receive any inside information from Lucasfilm.
A little tidbit came in to me today: It looks like there are some people being called to work on Episode VII early next year… In England, where shooting will start “in April.” (Which fits with what Kathleen Kennedy said last week.)
The original trilogy was primarily filmed at Elstree Studios , while The Phantom Menace (as well as many of the Harry Potter films) were filmed at Warner Bros.’ Leavesden Studios. Fox Studios in Sydney, Australia was the main filming location used for the last two prequels, although some pickup shots were done at Elstree.
According to ComicBook.com, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told ABC News Radio that she’ll have something to announce in January. Kennedy didn’t go into specifics, but a director choice is the next logical step.
She did reveal one thing – with Michael Arndt writing the script now, further pre-production will likely begin in the spring.
The philosophical underpinnings of Angry Birds, some holiday cheer, the Lucasfilm holiday party, How I Met Your Mother plot holes and more in our roundup of last week’s best Star Wars tweets. Continue reading “Hate leads to boomerangs: Best #StarWars, #EpisodeVII and #SWEU tweets for Dec. 3-9”
I admit it – sometimes it’s hard not to be a snob about print. Yeah, I still love reading magazines, but when it comes to news? They’re slow. Still, looks like Star Wars fans owe Pablo Hidalgo and the Star Wars Insider crew a small debt for making sure that the sequel news actually got into the next possible issue, as Pablo reveals in his latest blog entry.
We were disappointed to find out that the Insider interview with George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy was transcribed from the videos (4 of the 5 of which we’ve already seen,) but Pablo does reveal that the Insider version has some content that “will never make it into the web series.” (The fifth video – and last, reportably – will go online the 31st.)
The Episode VII frenzy has finally slowed down a bit as we wait for news of a director and confirmation of the Kasdan rumors – or maybe it’s just the upcoming holidays – but there are still a few things floating around.
Alumni. We already heard from him way back on D-Day, but Ewan McGregor reiterates that he’d be happy to come back “if they need me.” Samuel L. Jackson is up for it as well/ “I can come back as one-armed or a one-handed Jedi that’s still around that didn’t actually die,” he told E!
Directors. It was briefly speculated that The Prince of Egypt’s Brenda Chapman might be a dark horse in the director’s race, but the tail end of a recent profile in the Daily Record reveals that she’ll be returning the Dreamworks in the new year. Meanwhile… Peter Jackson?
Distribution. It was big news last week that Netflix and Disney had signed a pretty big agreement, but is Star Wars included? Well, distribution rights to the first six films remain with 20th Century Fox, but the Netflix deal doesn’t start until 2016 – so look for Episode VII to air on Disney’s current partner, Starz, first.
Box office. Here’s a little more kissing cousins competition for Episode VII – the Fantastic Four reboot.
