Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Mark Hamill narrowly avoided a dangerous fall during The Force Awakens filming on Skellig Michael last year, the Times (via the Daily Mail) reports. He was caught by a guide from from the Irish Office of Public Works.
Star Wars crew are returning to the island to film scenes for Episode VIII within the month. (Or even sooner!)
I’ve resisted writing about this ‘rumor’ because it’s from a source I don’t trust much (at all,) but what the hell, it’s Saturday.
Schmoes Know claim that The Force Awakens end credits will contain “a small clip and teaser” for Rogue One. And to their credit, even they seem a bit doubtful.
Now, obviously, it’s not out of the question that The Force Awakens will carry a Rogue One teaser at all – hell, it’d be foolish if it didn’t. But in the end credits? That seems like a bad idea to me, period. You don’t want to distract the audience fresh off the first real Star Wars film in a decade – all those potential buyers of books and soundtracks and action figures – with a sideline movie that’s set on the other end of the timeline.
Do you give us a Rogue One teaser? Yes, of course. But you do it before the film, as is traditional.
The bantha in the room here is Marvel, who’ve undoubtedly made the credit scenes an expected thing. And I’m not against an end- or mid- credit scene for Star Wars at all – just that it needs to be relevant to both films in question. (Something regarding Episode VIII? Sure.) I find it probable that they may break tradition somehow, but a TFA/RO matchup simply doesn’t pass the smell test.
StarWars.com has announced The Art of Star Wars: The Force Awakens for a (shocker!) December 18th release. Written by Phil Szostak, the cover features a Kylo Ren painting by Doug Chiang.
Marvel’s Shattered Empire #1 came out today, and just in case you have managed to miss/evade the big spoiler… It’s actually a pretty good one! (Well, IMHO.) Under the cut, kids.
Continue reading “One big way Marvel’s Shattered Empire may connect to The Force Awakens”
It’s officially 100 days until The Force Awakens arrives on screens – at least here in the U.S. (International dates are a bit more varied.) Auspiciously, it also seems that Episode IX director Colin Trevorrow is beginning work, or at least taking some notes…
Back to school. #IX pic.twitter.com/zgPR2677dn
— Colin Trevorrow (@colintrevorrow) September 8, 2015
Short entries featuring characters, places and items from The Force Awakens have appeared in the StarWars.com Databank. Most of them aren’t particularly revealing – in fact, I believe in many cases they’re the same tiny blurbs showing up on the toys – but at least one confirms a rumor that we’ve been hearing about for quite some time now. Starkiller Base, everyone:
An ice planet converted into a stronghold of the First Order and armed with a fiercely destructive new weapon capable of destroying entire star systems.
Click through to that and you get Captain Phasma, General Hux, Kylo Ren and other various First Order people and things. Punch in Jakku and get Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8 and others. But if you keep poking, you find things like ME-8D9, which mentions a planet called Takodana which is apparently home to “unallied scoundrels…”
Neither Takodana or assumed inhabitant Maz Kanata have entries yet. (H/T to the always eagle-eyed @DarthSpiriah.)
StarWars.com has announced that John William’s soundtrack for The Force Awakens will drop the same day the movie does – December 18.
This doesn’t mean they won’t pull a ‘Qui-Gon’s Noble End’ on us – it’s highly likely we’ll get packaging leaks well ahead of time. (If not an actual, official track release.) But it’s also worth noting that they managed to avoid spoilers with the Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith soundtracks, so save your concern trolling for other matters.
Force Friday is here, and that means Aftermath and the other Journey to The Force Awakens books are on shelves now. We don’t have a review (yet?) but you can check out some mostly spoiler-free takes on the book at Nerdist, Tosche Station, Big Shiny Robot and IGN. And there’s a new excerpt at USA Today as well.
There’s also an interview with author Chuck Wendig at EW, where they also talk about his introduction of a new gay character.
Force Friday has unleashed some talking toys on us, which means our first time actually hearing some of the new characters speak. Here’s Finn (and some interpretation,) Kylo Ren and Captain Phasma. Only one of them actually sounds like I’d expect…
→ A new image banner, has been spotted – it’s made up of two fairly familiar pieces, though: The First Order images we saw on Empire and the First Order assembled. (via)
→ An analyst estimates that The Force Awakens “could generate $5 billion in consumer merchandise sales in its first year of release,” per The Hollywood Reporter. In $150 increments, I expect.
→ Speaking of merchandise, there have been a handful of reviews of the Cover Girl line poping up. Today’s is from Tracy and Amanda at Making Star Wars, and another of a couple of the lipsticks from Love for Lacquer.
→ Five questions with John Boyega.
→ ComicBook.com has a preview of Shattered Empire #1
→ Spoiler(ish) corner: Indie Revolver has some luggabeast concept art.